Baking Nested Linked Blocks

Hi, I would first like to thank the Front team for a really great add on that takes Grasshopper to a whole other level as far as production is concerned.

I'm currently running into an issue with where I want to make a "Defined Linked Block" but this new block object would contain linked blocks as the geometry. Basically, I want to nest linked blocks, this would be really handy for sub assemblies.

The simplest way to run into the issue is to insert a linked block, then connect that linked block as the geometry. I get an error that something went wrong and to check the data tree structures. However, I ran into the issue even when running a simple test with a single block being passed - so the issue doesn't seem to stem from a data tree structure. When connecting a simple inserted block rather than a linked inserted block, I don't run into the issue.

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elefrontNestedBlocks.jpg, 194 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ramon van der Heijden on July 4, 2017 at 4:29am

Hi, Sorry for the late response.

What you are experiencing is indeed the current state of affairs. In order to actually handle contents from a linked block, an instance of that block needs to be present in your active Rhino session. This is easy to do. You can bake all linked blocks to a hidden layer. Now you can refer to these instances using the "Insert Block" component and the same block name.

In case your external file gets modified, all you have to do is update your blocks. The Grasshopper definition will now work properly again with the linked blocks.

Hope this helps.

Permalink Reply by FRiou on July 4, 2017 at 6:19am

Hello Ramon,

I also have trouble with the linked block feature.

When you say 'bake all linked blocks to a hidden layer' do you mean manually, with the Rhino 'insert block' command or is there a way to do it via Grasshopper with one of your components ?

Thanks.

Permalink Reply by Louis Leblanc on July 4, 2017 at 8:14am

Thanks for the response Ramon!

It does seem like using "insert block" with a block that's already defined in the file as linked and then baking that block into another linked block keeps the geometry. Your workflow works on that part.

Though I'm still running into an issue with the file linking. I think I've narrowed down my issue. When I'm defining a linked block it creates the file properly, defines the block in Rhino but it gets defined in a weird state between an embedded file and a linked file. A file path is associated to the link but the block properties are only set to embedded. Reopening the Rhino file looses that file path association. It does seem like things work properly when I manually set the properties to "Embed and Link" but I haven't found a way to automate that property change.

I've also found a similar behaviour with the import linked block component. When I import a block that's not already defined in my Rhino or Grasshopper files, I get a file that's only embedded, not linked and embedded but has a file path associated with it.

See attached image for what I'm getting in block manager.

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