Does anyone know how to make bitmap icons look as crisp as Rhino's icons?

Rhino Rhino for Windows
,
1

Hello Rhino friends! I encountered a problem and hopefully somebody have experience on similar issue :slight_smile:

I’m using Rhino 7 on Windows and working on creating a toolbar with customized icons.

I have tried importing icons of different sizes (32x32, 24x24, etc.) as PNG files and experimented with antialiasing settings, but they all appear pixelated. I even drew them in the bitmap editor, but the pixelation persists. Does anyone have any effective methods to achieve the same crispness as Rhino’s icons? Thank you!

2

Creating pixel-perfect icons can be challenging, and it’s often simpler to modify existing icons rather than designing entirely new ones. You can discover useful tips on this topic on @DavidRutten personal blog and on the McNeel Wiki page. You’ll also find a download link for the source files of Rhino 4 icons on that page. As for Grasshopper icons, you can access the download link here.

Additionally, it’s important to note that David Rutten has introduced a new icon editing tool in Rhino 8.

2 Likes
3

Their SDK to produce plugins in Visual Studio creates a project with the following icon formats:
256x256 png
48x48 32 bit bmp
32x32 32 bit bmp
16x16 32 bit bmp

So your icons may not be detailed enough if 32x32 is the max you’ve been using.

1 Like
4

Thank you so much! I’ll take a look!

5

Thank you! Is the difference due to our use of a different SDK compared to Rhino’s?

6

Almost certainly not. There’s nothing special about the icons their template creates in Visual Studio. Any good, current icon editor should produce equivalent results (they’re just image files).

What a vendor’s SDK creates as a sample is just typically a good indication of what they expect and support so the level of detail being higher than you were attempting jumped out at me.