Point Visualization

There may be an easy solution to my problem (and I may have overlooked it) but is there a way to change the visualization of points in the viewport? Currently, points show up as an "X" but I'm working on a project which requires many points that are spaced close together... so the visualization in the viewport shows up just as one big mass of "X's". Ideally, I'd like to render them as small squares (like in the Rhino/Appearance/Options) dialogue. Anyone know if we can override the X for a smaller point size?
Thanks,
Andy

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Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 9, 2010 at 7:08pm

No, you can't. Sorry. Not without doing the drawing yourself anyway. You could create a script that maintains a single static Rhino.Display.CustomDisplay, populate it with your points and then it will draw itself in all viewports until you destroy it.

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David Rutten
david@mcneel.com
Seattle, WA

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Permalink Reply by Andy Payne on November 9, 2010 at 7:12pm

hmmm... ok thanks for the suggestion. I'll see what I can do. Cheers.

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Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 9, 2010 at 7:29pm

See attached.

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David Rutten
david@mcneel.com
Seattle, WA

Attachments:

PointDisplay.ghx, 12 KB

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Permalink Reply by Andy Payne on November 9, 2010 at 7:59pm

Yeah, that works great. Thanks for the help. I did notice one thing in that the screen seems to freeze the point display when you try to change the VB code for the point visualization... For example, let's say I have it on 'simple' point and size 4 and then I change it to 'control point' and size 2... it seems to freeze one set of simple points on the viewport but then makes another set for the control point. This doesn't go away either even when you close Grasshopper. I had to close Rhino to get them to go away. But, as long as you save your definition with the exact way you want your points to look, and then reopen the file... it seems to work great (it only creates the duplicates if you try to change the visualization). Not exactly sure why, but I think this method will work great. Cheers.

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Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 9, 2010 at 8:23pm

yeah, when you change the code it gets recompiled into a new memory DLL. The old one cannot be unloaded so it sticks around forever and since you cannot reach it anymore there's no way to destroy the CustomDisplay instance.

If you want to get around this you'll need to add a boolean input to the script which disabled the display, then change the code.

--
David Rutten
david@mcneel.com
Seattle, WA

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Permalink Reply by Andy Payne on November 9, 2010 at 8:24pm

Great. Thanks for the advice.

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Permalink Reply by Stefan on February 12, 2013 at 6:15am

In case somebody digs up this old thread:

I worked out some modifications that seem to eliminate this problem. Basically, I added input parameter to the component to control the display options.

Haven't tested this really thoroughly, but it seems to work...

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