Linear dimensions in Grasshopper

Added simple dimensions to Grasshopper. For technical reason I couldn't use the native Rhino dimension objects, so this is a re-implementation. Hardest bit was getting the text to always be drawn as upright as possible, however now that that nut is cracked, coming up with more dimension types should be fairly easy.

There's no way I'm going to offer all the options that Rhino dimensions have. You get one option; size... and you'll be happy with that much.

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Comment by Andrew Heumann on February 18, 2014 at 8:09pm: this is awesome. I'm in favor of baking real rhino dimensions, even if the appearance isn't exactly the same. (There's even precedent in GH: think about baking text to text dots - not really a problem).

It would be GREAT if the text in the dimensions could be overridden - so you could use it to show symbolic dimensions like "A", "B" etc.

Comment by Rémy Maurcot on February 18, 2014 at 9:35am: Thanks.

How to comport your dimensions in 3D?

Comment by David Rutten on February 18, 2014 at 9:17am: Remy, baking can work in several ways. Either I can try and bake a real dimension that approximates the GH object as closely as possible, or I can try and bake a group/block of objects that look most like the GH object. In either case it cannot be perfect as there's a lot of display logic that cannot be baked into static objects.

I think I'd prefer to bake actual Rhino dimensions as that seems the most useful. But at the moment this stuff isn't even readily available as components, I'm basically writing it because it's a handy thing to have for upcoming lectures.

Comment by Rémy Maurcot on February 18, 2014 at 8:32am: Nice work, but if the ratings remains incompatible with rhino, then it loses its appeal.

I started to create custom components with linear and angular dimensions, but incompatible with a rhino that the components become obsolete.
I also script components for all rhino dimensions.

Maybe that mixing the two I would get a proper work-flow.

If I understand correctly, your component will bake only curves and texts of dimensions?

Comment by David Rutten on February 18, 2014 at 3:51am: Vicente, baking doesn't work yet, but when it goes public I'll make sure that they can get baked.

Danny, at the moment I can't draw Rhino Dimension objects, this will probably become possible at some point in Rhino6 and when it does, it should be possible to draw dimensions using regular annotation styles defined in Rhino.

Yes, options like with loft are a possibility, but I'm not sure I want to go and re-implement the entire dimension system in GH from scratch.

Comment by Danny Boyes on February 18, 2014 at 2:38am: I think we are being short changed here people... don't let David bamboozle us with a size alone. We demand more!

<tongue in cheek>

In all seriousness can it be implemented like Loft options? things like Extension line height and offset and possibly arrow inward/outwards would be important. (I know there are work arrounds that we can implement ourselves... but that's what we are doing anyway... with many components)

Comment by Parametric House on February 17, 2014 at 9:36pm: Thanks David :) That is really useful! And yes we are happy to hear dimensions getting in to grasshopper!

Comment by Vicente Soler on February 17, 2014 at 8:49pm: *I have to say this, I haven't installed AutoCAD in over 5 years but I do send files in dwg that people open in AutoCAD.

Comment by Vicente Soler on February 17, 2014 at 8:47pm: Can you bake them as native Rhino dimension objects? That's really important since you can export them to dwg and be read by AutoCAD as dimension objects.