When creating curve, even when the grid snap is off, the points of a curve (when not constrained by axises, or other object snaps) will always lay on the "z" position of the current grid.
It would be nice if everytime we create a curve point on the z axis, then any more xy points created would lay on the last z co-ordinate instead of snaping back to the 0z coordinate.
Is there any way to overcome this, because not all points laid out are perpendicular or tangent to something.

P.S I know it's possible to create two sets of constuction lines per. to each other to accomodate for this , but IMO that's way too many clicks and line clutter to accomplish a simple task. Re-aligning the c-plane is also too labor intensive.

Hi niko - it should work like you want if you switch to the Top, Front, or Right views after you have placed the first point.

When you draw in any of those ortho views, the points of a curve or polyline that you are drawing will maintain that same height value, also object snaps are projected to that same initial point height when in those views unless you disable it under Options / Snaps / Object snap options / Project to plane in ortho views.

The basic idea is that those 2D views force this kind of 2D planarity to your drawn curves, while the 3D view allows you to do things like pick points more freely in any location.

Otherwise if it were to always do this kind of projection in the 3D view instead of allowing free placement of points, it would not be possible for example to draw a vertical line in z in the 3D view.

- Michael

Hi niko - also in v2 one other possibility for drawing at a certain height in the 3D view only is to set your construction plane to that height. Then after that any points that are picked freely rather than object snapped will be on that adjusted plane.

But generally the way things are set up that if you want a 2D curve result, switch to draw it in one of the 2D views and all the stuff like planarity through the first point and object snap projections are all enabled when you are working in that view.

- Michael

I like to model everything in 3d view if possible. Currently I can do that in Rhino, mainly because elevator mode requires a ctrl-click.
I understand the thinking behind a no keyboard requirement workflow, but I think that for something fundamental like this we should at least have the option to constrain the height with a keyboard-button click combination.

At least for me that I don't use, nor will I ever use a tablet that is a definite workflow killer in an otherwise awesome and well thought -out interface.

Hi niko - it's not really so much about the tablet specifically, this one is actually more about making it easier to draw things without having to set a bunch of modes back and forth all the time.

In Rhino, if you click the first point somewhere in 3D, and then go to the Top view and continue drawing, you will get that kind of non-planar "some points forced to z=0" type result. You have to know to set the "Planar" mode option in order to get your drawn curve to be all at the same z level. (that is the more normal way to do it rather than ctrl+click for elevator mode, since the "Planar" mode is easier to start by snapping on to an existing point for example).

But then that works just for simple picks without any snaps - if you move your mouse over an object snap point, it will go to that point in 3D (even when you are in a plan ortho view), also possibly making your drawn curve to be non-planar. To avoid that you have to additionally set the "Project" option in the Object Snap toolbar in order to actually get all planar results.

So that's 2 modes you have to set in 2 different locations, and then possibly unset them again later on if you want to do more free placement.

That kind of management of multiple modes is not particularly easy for a beginning user to learn.

So with MoI I wanted to reduce this reliance on setting these explicit modes back and forth, so instead the idea is that by drawing in one of the ortho views you are basically telling MoI that you are interested in a 2D result, and it applies the equivalent of both "Planar mode" and "Project osnap" mode automatically when you are picking points in that view. But in the 3D view it does not do that so that you can do other things like draw vertical lines, or draw a line connected between any 2 snapped points without projecting to a plane.

I suppose it might be possible for me add in some way to trigger a kind of "planar" mode that would also work with 2D drawing in the 3D view. For right now you can do something similar to this by setting a construction plane in that view to your desired z level, that will make regular non-osnapped points be drawn at that z until you reset the cplane.

- Michael

Indeed a planar mode snap in addition to the other snaps would indeed solve that problem.
The c-plane solution only works if a curve is completed because only then can you snap at the end point of that curve. If you want to do that in he middle of creating a curve however, then that technique would not work because the c-plane gizmo does not snap to end points of unfinished curves.

Hi niko,

> The c-plane solution only works if a curve is completed because
> only then can you snap at the end point of that curve.

Normally for the cplane method you would place the cplane before drawing the curve. Then when you draw the curve it would be on that plane. If you place the plane where you want the start of the curve you then can use Origin osnap to get that same start point when you go to draw the curve.

Also one quick note on the cplane gizmo - normally that aligns itself to curves or surfaces when you place it. If you don't want that you can skip the initial placing stage by doing a right-click, which will place the cplane gizmo in the location of the current cplane and you can grab its origin point and drag it without it auto aligning.

- Michael

Hi niko, for the next v2 beta I've added a planar drawing mode that you can set with a keyboard shortcut, which will enable the same "keep at same z level as first picked point" but in the 3D view, the same as how it currently works in the ortho views now.

- Michael

THANKS!!!!!

Now that is what I call customer service and a great community!!!!

Dancing bananas!!!!