Worksession, time for a New Panel and features?

Hi all,
I use Worksession a lot for Large Projects and could be time for a revamp in UI and functions?
Block manager as been updated in v8, next in queue is Worksession?

RWS - WORKSESSION MANAGER NEW PANEL:

  • New Worksession Manager Panel NOT modal, like new V8 Block manager does.
  • Option to pop up Explorer window pointing at selected attached file.
  • Option to open selected file in another session of Rhino.
  • Show / Fix broken links.
  • Indicator of updated file (like Blocks) + update button.

Most of this is achieved already in other CAD, here some examples: BricsCAD, Microstation, Autocad.

Going further, some other useful feature requests are listed:

  • Worksessions: Disable attached clipping planes / Enable.
  • Set DISPLAY MODE for each file from worksession manager (I deal quite often with many files sometime 1Gb big each. Leaving some of them wireframe while keeping active model rendered could increase responsiveness a lot).
  • Copy selected objects from one file to another: " copy to selected layer" → copy to selected file.
  • Export selected object to a new file and attach to worksession.
  • Export list (TXT/ CSV) of attached files with path, latest update, etc…
  • Move / Copy/ / Rotate / Mirror attached file (as Blocks in Rhino or attached files in Microstation).
  • Show / control origin attachment point, rotation, mirror, like Block manager does.

Some links at other discussions about worksession:

Please share your toughts,
thanks!

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Hi @dale and @stevebaer
Is development of Large Projects Management in Rhino’s scope?

I think actual tools are useful but not complete at all, given the increasing detail of sophistication in modern projects. Please have a look at the post above.

I speak from a Marine point of view but probably Architecture would benefit from this too.

I see many industries using big names like Nx / Catia + Autocad for 2D but doing the dirty job with Rhino.

What if Rhino would offer better tools for the real world?
A full Rhino workflow would be possible, with more people using it.

I can’t thank you enough for the great software Rhino is but I still see some huge capabilities which aren’t exploited.

Thanks!

Hi @luca4,

I’ve bookmarked this topic:

https://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-84504

Large project management is important to us.

Worksession do not yet work on Rhino for Mac. My guess is when we start working on supporting the Mac, many of the wishes/enhancements you’ve mentioned will be addressed.

– Dale

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Good to know,
thank you!

Speaking about managing large projects, I think it would be beneficial to have a multi-user experience in Rhino. Something similar to this approach [http://crsh.cloud/] or the teamwork feature in Archicad would be great. Currently, Worksession is very similar to simply inserting a block as a 3DM file. It would be ideal to have Worksession as a multi-user experience that isn’t just based on linking files to one another.

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Absolutely, yes. Pushing in the direction of a team workflow just makes so much sense. Please make it happen, it’s time!

Another suggestion/wish:
There should be a quick and simple way, from a user’s standpoint, to ‘swap’ objects between worksessions, which is equal to ‘reserving’ them.
‘Reserving’ means, a user has the exclusive right to edit an object. It’s visible but locked for all other team members. Part of the active scene, that is.
Archicad, for example, uses a central repository for the scene, from which all users check out their local copy and work on it, making reservations (or releases) for objects so nobody steps on someone else’s feet.
In Rhino, worksessions of course work differently. There are just a bunch of files that can be cross-attached. I think it’s not necessary to mimic the mechanisms of other applications.
However, there needs to be a way to quickly ‘grab’ an object (or maybe a whole layer), that is in another attached file, and move it over to the active file.
The user that has the file ‘active’ with this object will see a dialog pop up (maybe best inside the aforementioned non-modal dialog) asking for permission. When granted, the object will be ‘moved over’ (some save/load/delete magic in the background) to the file of the user that made the request.

It is already possible to copy/paste attached objects. Moving them between worksessions should be equally simple.

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Yes, this would be a great feature!

Didn’t know about Crash…
I see among its developers there is a McNeel guy as well!
@CallumSykes is Crash still in development?

I used in the past Grabcad Workbench to share large project across multiple locations but it has been shut down last year.
Now I am sharing folders trough Dropbox as it is the only one around which allows file locking.

As far as I know the only CAD around with a native cloud approach is Onshape.
Many others are looking at this “cloud” way…
BricsCAD has Bricsys 24/7 but I did never used it

Large project may have large files as well, bandwidth could be a problem.
You would need a cached local folder with versioning and a cloud PDM to manage this…
Not an easy task!
Will the Mcneelians succeed to implement this? Would be great!

In the meantime I would be more than happy if we get to a robust “state of the art” worksession manager first which works both in PC and Macs.

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4 posts were split to a new topic: Multi User Wishes