The first set of the tools (first six from the left) deal with assigning objects attributes, which are optional to any analysis. The UNA Toolbox for Rhino utilizes “attributes” to attach information to Origin or Destination objects, such as text labels, numeric weights or tags. These attributes are analogous to attribute tables in ArcGIS shapefiles or BIM geometry files. An object can have any number of attributes. However, unlike some other software platforms, Rhino attributes are not stored as a table, but rather as a dictionary, where the key indicates the attribute name and values indicate attributes values. Attributes can be numeric, text based or booleans. Attributes allow you to distinguish spatial objects from one another by giving them unique properties that correspond to their real-world or designed characteristics.
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Assigning a Text Attribute to geometric objects in Rhino can be used to designate a “Business_name” or “Cleanliness_Rating” in the range of “A”, “B”, “C” and so on. Text attributes you enter can also be used as IDs, addresses or any other descriptive fields. Only numeric attributes can be used as weights in UNA analyses (e.g.in Accessibility Indices, Betweenness, Closest facility or Patronage tools).
The Add Text Attribute ****tool allows you to select one or more objects at a time and then prompts for an attribute Name and attribute Text. Your chosen Name is a dictionary key, analogous to a column name in a table. Names cannot contain spaces. Text is the value that corresponds to the attribute (e.g. dictionary value or row value in a table).
Add Text Attribute tool
This tool allows you to add a numeric attribute to geometric objects in Rhino. Numeric attributes are particularly useful for spatial network analysis as they allow you to “weigh” the analysis according to each object’s numeric value. A numeric attribute could, for instance, indicate the “Number of Floors” in a building, the “Area” of a space, the “Number of Employees” in a business etc. The tool allows you to select one or more objects at a time for inputting these attributes and then prompts for an attribute Name and an attribute Weight.
Your chosen Name is a dictionary key, analogous to a column name in a table. Names cannot contain spaces. The Weight is a numeric value that corresponds to this Attribute (e.g. dictionary value or row value in a table). The numeric input may be an integer or a decimal point number, negative or positive.
Add Numeric Attribute tool
This tool allows you to add a tag to chosen objects. Tags are booleans descriptions, with only True or Null values. For instance, attaching a tag named “building” to a point, will only show a value “Building = True” in the object attributes, with no text or numeric dictionary value.
After selecting the objects, the tool prompts you for a tag Name on the command line. Tag names must contain text, they cannot consist of only numbers.
Add Tag Attribute tool
This tool allows you to get rid of previously added attributes from chosen objects. If you choose all objects in the scene and apply this tool, then all objects will lose the text, numeric or tag names you specify.
After selecting the objects, the tool prompts you for the attribute name to delete by asking Pick or type attribute name (AttributeName=...). Type in the tag name that you want to remove or click on the AttributeName link to choose available attributes. Note that you cannot remove GUID, which is a unique ID for each object, automatically assigned by Rhino.
Remove Attribute tool
This tool allows you to save Accessibility or Betweenness results to object attributes, which are by default just shown on the screen. The tool also allows you to assign the resulting attributes a custom name.
In order to use the tool, you need to select point objects that contain some calculated results. Note that if you ran the analysis, and turned off the original point object layer, the results can still appear from cache memory on the screen. You cannot select the colored result points that Rhino displays on the screen and need to instead turn on the original points and select them.
Once you have selected points with results, the UNA command line prompts you to choose a Weight name to designate the result you want to save by clicking on Result=... If you choose to save the results of your Gravity accessibility analysis, for instance, then click on Result=... and then choose Gravity.
UseDefault=Off ****option on the command line allows you to turn on or off default values for points that do not have any results. For example, some points in your selection might not have Gravity results attached to them, since they could have been outside of the specified Search Radius. If you keep UseDefault=Off, then these points will have blanks as Gravity results. If you turn UseDefault=On, then you can assign default values to points with no results, by inputting a value on the DefaultValue=... ****option in the command line. For instance, if you want to assign all points that lack Gravity results a zero value, you can set DefaultValue=0.
Override=On option enables you to dictate whether existing values with the same name—if they exist—are over written or not.
Finally, to assign a name for the weights you save, just type a name to the end of the options on the command line. It is good practice to use names that remind you of the inputs that were used in the analysis. For Gravity accessibility results that were run with a 3,000-meter radius and a beta value of 0.002, you could use a name like “Gravity_3000m_b002” or similar.
Save Result as Weight tool
This tool allows you to see what attributes objects contain. The attributes are structured as a tree, showing the name of the attribute, value type (e.g. string, double, integer etc.) and value. Note that every geometric object in Rhino automatically carries a unique GUID. This is the first attribute you see in any object’s Attribute Tree. Figure 36 shows an Attribute Tree of a point, containing a GUID, a Text Attribute called “Name” with a value “Willow_Ave”, a Numeric Attribute called “Area” with a value of “13106.5972” and a boolean Tag called "Available".
The “Load Selected” button allows you to pull up the attributes of only selected objects. The “Load” button lists the attributes of all objects in your Rhino scene. Note that if you have a lot of objects, this list can be very long and hard to follow, loading selected attributes is typically more practical.
Show Attribute Tree tool
Attribute tree
This tool allows you to select points or network segments based on their numeric attribute value. Once this tool is selected, it will prompt you to select curves and/or points from which a selection will be drawn.
Left-clicking the tool will prompt a single value selection criteria. After selecting the objects to evaluate, the tool prompts you to select a weight and a value:
Value ( Weight='weight_name' ):
Select a weight attribute and set a desired value as the criteria for which segments will remain selected.
Right-clicking on this tool will prompt a value range (min and max) from which to select. After selecting the network segments that the tool will evaluate, the tool prompts you to select a weight and a value range:
Range (Weight='weight_name' MinVal=x MaxVal=y ):
Select a weight attribute and set a desired value range for MinVal as the lowest value and MaxVal as the highest value criteria within which segments will remain selected.
Show Attribute Tree tool