Any way to get Rhino Pivots?

Started by andy.engelkemier, May 28, 2020, 06:53:16 AM

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andy.engelkemier

If you have a SolidWorks part that is saved with a pivot point at an angle, that comes through into keyshot.
Well, Rhino does Essentially the same thing if you define a part as a block instance prior to moving and rotating it.

Anyone know a way to get that information into keyshot so I don't have to manually create pivot point objects for rotating with? I was hoping that worked, so I created some casters as block instances with the correct pivot points, but no such luck. Every object from Rhino seems to have pivots at the object center rather than the defined block instance.

richardfunnell

To my knowledge you're out of luck :/

Rhino works off layers/shaders/groups for its organization and hierarchy, not assemblies/parts like SolidWorks. It's an inherently flat(ter) structure without local axis information.

andy.engelkemier

That's the basic part, yes. But it's not the entire truth.
Rhino Does have a parts system by means of Block Instances. And those do have their own local pivot point, and Rhino remembers that point when moved.
Based on another keyshot post, it seems this Previously worked. But it no longer works.

I wasn't sure why. I mean, keyshot's pivot system is....well lets just call it less than good. You can define another object as a pivot. Cool. But it doesn't remember that pivot if close the software. Also, if you start moving, and type in a number? Well, you've just completely ruined your file because the numbers are world coordinates, but you were moving on local coordinates, and not Just local, but you specified a different object as your pivot. So good luck resetting those numbers. Hit reset? Oh no. Now your object is just off in space somewhere. Undo? No, that doesn't work either. Revert is your only hope at that point.

There is One solution, but it's pretty bad. If you import the object you hope to rotate, and make sure you import it where the pivot point would be at zero, then Move your object to the correct position, the rotations works. I can't remember the downsides, but there were some when I tried it. I'd have to try it out again and see what happens, but doing that isn't really going to work well with anyone's workflow.

It may be ok for SolidWorks, I'm not sure. I've only done one test with it, and it was a while ago. But it's definitely not good for models coming out of Rhino.

richardfunnell

Yeah, I can't speak to complex Rhino workflows, so I'm no help there. I do tend to overbuild my scene structure in CAD (Fusion360, preciously NX) to get control over complex pivoting. That said, I end up with a scene tree that's completely divorced from what's expected since it's only used for control in KS.

I've had to build parallel structures for models given to me from Alias (similar to Rhino) in more traditional "CAD" modelers to get what I want as reference geometry.

richardfunnell

Also, yes, modifying the rotations after the fact can be excruciating. I've destroyed plenty of setups by assuming I could type in a rotation angle without having the move tool open.