V6 Focus and Suggestions

Serengeti (Rhino WIP)
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I’ve found Rhino releases to tend to have a focus. I started with v2 so I don’t know what it was like prior. v3 was a kernel rewrite, v4 included UDT and history, v5 was a general improvement of existing existing functions across the software. So whats the focus of v6?

Some suggestions:
-make solid filet highly reliable, its always been the weakest feature in rhino, I can filet shapes in parasolid based modelers that fail in rhino that shouldnt

-add subD modeling tools to rhino (i dont want to use tsplines or clayoo plugins…native functions are best)

-simplify matching and merging surfaces, i want select multiple nonplanar surfaces in a polysurf and auto merge them while maintaining tangency edge matching to any non selected adjacent joined surfaces, think of it like rebuilding selected adjacent surfaces in a polysurf into one surf with edge matching

-add constraint based sketching

-add feature based history

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I agree totally with you

but not about the featured based this will transform Rhino in a fake Solidworks and it’s not good.
This was already covered for V5 and the solution it’s to gave more direct modeling tool like Kangaroo promise us.
Ciao.

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I also share the perspective that each release should have one or two (substantial) key innovation(s)

and I agree on your analysis of the previous versions.

My wish as the main goal for V6 is, very far above the rest, a native subD tool.

Feature based modelling, while a good thing, is not at all that critical for Rhino (I also use SolidWorks, Autodesk Inventor and SolidEdge).

Regards to all

Joao

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Hi all.
Well, my point of view about Rhino releases if somehow different, at least from V4 on.
I think that the latest releases had improvements in several areas, along with a few new features as well.
And I hope to see many improvements in V6 too. :smiley:
(Although I’d prefer a release every 2 or 3 years with less improvements instead of waiting 5 years for a feature-rich release like V5, if possible)
About what those improvements might be, here are some thing that I happen to miss when working with Rhino:

  • I agree on more reliable solid tools: fillets etc.
  • I also agree on matching & merging, which IMO had not received much attention for some time, but could be very helpful in preparing better surfaces for solid tools.
  • (SubD modeling would also be fine … but I have no idea about how/if it could be applied to nurbs …)
  • User interface: the Gumball is very good. The whole Rhino UI might evolve along that way too, and beyond: selecting objects is often a little frustrating and fixed preview for some commands is sometimes a little disturbing. Also being able to reuse Rhino output values (e.g. a distance) in Rhino commands would be fine.
    View handling could also be better and less ‘architecture-centric’
  • Better surface tools. I know that solids are often the right way to go, but not all shapes are good (unfortunately) for solid tools, so we often have to go back to surfaces, maybe to be able to build solids from them. So surface tools are still often heavily used, and often their use is still very time-consuming.
    OK, the matching & merging suggestion also belongs here, but I think it deserves a citation on its own :smile:
  • Scripting/automation is a great Rhino quality, but it could be improved quite a bit: it would be fine if any command had an easy way to be scripted. My ideal scenario would be a parametricity-able Rhino-Grasshopper merge :smiley:
  • Orthogonality and fine-grained commands have always been another great Rhino quality, and I think that the ability to perform simple operations and to work with basic objects should be carefully applied also to new and more powerful features, and improved in old commands.
  • Abstract objects. I heard that unlimited planes will be used in V6 in some cases: very good ! I’d also like to see an easy use (and reuse) of planes, directions, distances, etc. This is related to the UI suggestions about reusing values. Being able to use/edit the base surface of a trimmed surf would also be very useful. This is related to the surface tools suggestions.
    Coordinate systems would also be a long-wished thing.
  • Big files. I know that this is being worked upon, and would like to strongly agree on that. Also, a (maybe weird) idea to ease things could be to be able to split large files in smaller files that can be loaded and unloaded individually from the Rhino session. So that people can work on a large project loading only what is needed in that moment. Maybe all that would be needed for that is another level of parent-layers (one for any loaded file) … OK, maybe :wink:

Thanks RMA for this forum (Serengeti, not Discourse :wink: ), and sorry for my poor/convoluted English … I think.
Cheers

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About big files :
Some sort of voxelization could help working on large files.
So the geometry could be displayed according to the nearest voxelization.
Just a suggestion.

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Hi all,

I’ve been thinking about how I’d like Rhino to evolve for a while. I use Rhino since it was beta in 1997. The first slogan was Nurbs Modeling for Windows.
The first affordable nurbs modeler, everyone remembers this clear target of the program.
Later one huge advantage appears, the ability to be open to plugins, this way you can pay just for what you need and use it for whatever you want, not just modeling.

BUT this strategy seem to be extremely dangerous lately, because many people started being plugin dependent, like me :smile: And we all know what happens when a plugins starts to shine too much, like T-Splines.
I also found logical what happened to VSR, the tools they developed are impressive, and for an industry that handles high budgets, their plugin costs more than the Rhino license.
Other thing is that this plugins is almost a Rhino inside a Rhino, many tools are duplicated, with different approach, advantages or disadvantages… What I mean is that when a plugin covers so many important areas of your daily work, this tools should be part of the core of the main program.

From my point of view Rhino without plugins now is a generalist, you can do whatever you want but it’s not designed for a specific industry. This gives it strength and weakness. Users ask for features for specific task like solid modeling, surfaces with bezier, subD, jewellery specific commands, Architecture features, history based, rendering, printing…
Although there are many of the requests that are common to all the industries, some others not, and it’s understandable the program can’t be strong in everything.

Other programs are focused on just modeling, or rendering like Keyshot, and everybody know what it does and how easy is to use it.

My students at the University tend to learn programs with 2 criteria.

1- The standard in the industry.
2- Easy to use.

We may have different versions of Rhino, all with native tools, well integrated. A version could be for Architects, other for jewellers, and other for product designers.
This way you prevent the typical limitations of plugins, no fear of loosing some functionality in the future, and a price for the tools you will use.
I would like some integration of grasshopper in the tools, but without the need of developer skills.

I’m changing this text while I’m thinking :), I just want to contribute with some historical vision and ideas.

Best,
Joaquín

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I always use Spaceclaim only for the direct modeling tool and the repair tool that finds bad geometries.
The Spaceclaim direct modeling is the best on the planet. I have also a Fusion360 license but the SC speed is 10X.
Rhinoceros 6 definitively needs direct modeling feature.

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I would like to agree with several suggestions, and introduce a couple of others… i.e. my own shortlist…

  1. SpaceClaim kind of direct modeling and easy controls…
  2. T-Splines kind of Sub-D surface modeling with easy controls…
  3. Provide option to establish a symmetry plane, about which the entire model is automatically mirrored, and establish a surface property called “symmetrical” with checkbox to make it so (probably off by default). (So far, requires history to be enabled resulting in large file.)
  4. Provide option to enable dynamic surface trimming, i.e. if one or more surfaces are trimmed to each other, and you move one of them, to have the trimming automatically update to the new intersection. So-far requires manual edit (un-trim / re-trim) at least as far as I have discovered. With many dozens of trimmed surfaces, the manual editing becomes almost unmanageable… Is there already a tool for this…?
  5. Provide a tool to dynamically analyse volume above or below or to one side of a movable cutting plane, for example. a waterplane for finding immersed displacement of a boat, or a slice to find volume to one side of a cutting plane for a mould.

Michael

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Wish list item, Ngon support for meshing.

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Can you please give me an example (preferably with pictures) about what you mean here?

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Hope for rhino 7, rhino 6 is debug until to release, which is their first mission

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Hi Brian,
Here’s some pictures that I hope will help explain. The first one is the object composed of Rhino nurbs, the second picture is the Rhino mesh from NURBS object, the third picture is the mesh imported into modo with coplanar edges removed (mesh with ngons).

Rhino nurbs:

Rhino mesh:

modo mesh with ngons:

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Try the “NgonulateMesh” command in Rhino on the mesh

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Cool, thanks stevebaer.
I now see there is also an option when exporting an obj to create ngons. :slight_smile:

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I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean.

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Hello

here is my wishlist, which currently is mostly focused on the draughting/layout side of things:

  1. Hatches that have a line pattern and also a solid background colour, much like in Vectorworks

  2. Viewports that have a shape other than a rectangle/square (ie a circle, polygon, or something drawn with the polyline tool)

  3. Is it possible to make a display mode option that create a fill in an apparent closed object? I.E., if the area where the clipping plane is cutting through an object would form a closed polyline if you sectioned through it, this would appear as a fill.

  4. A command to select objects/lines by line weight

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Apologies, I’ve posted this in the wrong place - will post it as a separate topic!

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Hi all,
I would love to have in R6 two functions.

  • a sort of “isolate” mode: you select many objects, from many layers, and you make everything else disappear; then you can select, hide, unhide as usual just in this subset, working with layers too. Exiting the isolation mode brings everything back.
  • something that I find very useful in 3D Studio Max, the option to temporarily open a group to work on an object inside and not losing the group definition, and to then close it back.
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Hi aneuwahl,
Pascal wrote an isolate script for V5 which you can use in V5 maybe it’s still floating around this forum.
In V6 “isolate” is now a native command it works like isolate in 3dsmax.
No open group command though I miss that in Rhino, you can ctrl shift key then select any object in a group to select it without having to use the ungroup or remove from group commands kind of works like an auto open group.
RM

1 Like