Export should ignore hidden geometry
johnwmcc opened this issue · 6 comments
As far as I can tell at the moment, the current version exports ALL entities in the model to STL.
It would be FAR more useful if it only exported visible geometry in the current scene.
Otherwise, you can't have different scenes/views (with different layers visible) while designing a model, and get useful output, without having to delete hidden geometry or hidden layers before export. Makes revising the model much more difficult, or else you have to keep two versions current - one with hidden geometry, layers, or different scenes, and one containing only the geometry you want to export.
There is also an option to export only selected geometry.
Not sure that quite does the same trick but I'll try it and see.
I'm kind of surprised this isn't a feature of this plugin already. I guess I only used it on simple models so far.
I'm adding this to the 2.1 milestone. I don't think this should be an options - it should just do it like this.
Well, I've tried, and what you suggest - just select all visible geometry, then check the box 'Export selected geometry only' does now work in latest GitHub version.
So that's a usable workaround.
But I agree with thomthom that it would be better if what you saw in a scene is what you get by default in the STL output. Perhaps the default could be 'Select all visible geometry' if nothing is explicitly selected, and if there is a selection, prompt 'Export selection only?'. Or two radiobuttons (not checkboxes, I think, as I can't see why you'd ever want both checked), with 'Export all visible geometry' checked as the default, and 'Export selected geometry only' as the alternative.
But in any case, 'don't export hidden geometry' would be my suggestion for the default. Or even better, just never export what's hidden.
It seems unlikely it would ever be useful to include hidden geometry in the export. After all, if you DO want it exported, you can make it visible first.
Maybe just follow the WYSIWYG principle - what you see is what you get (at least unless you explicitly choose otherwise).
SU uses the WYSIWYG for exporting.... Seems like we should change the wording/functionality on the nothing selected dialog from:
"No objects selected. Export entire model?"
To
"No objects selected. Export all visible geometry?
That would do it fine, as far as I'm concerned.