Exporting from Rhino to Blender

[luis88luis (Luis Lobo)]

Hi all! I decided to create this new topic because I want to keep on track my experimentations between Blender and Rhino so maybe someone on the road can give some advice or check it in case of help.

I was creating some 3d models and importing them to Blender changing configurations. I found some issues that I wanted to explain here in case somone wants to have a chat related to it.

My actual solution: exporting as OBJ with these options:

Pros: Model looks almost perfect.
Cons: 3d data is a mess. Using the Merge function inside Blender you start to see a lot of artifacts because of the meshes. It’s important to clarify that we try to have the best possible mesh for purposes like UV mapping, shaders, etc.

Fresh OBJ opened in Blender:

OBJ with the Merge option applied:

I tried to use the Normals (Auto Smooth) to avoid the problem playing with different degrees without any luck. Also I tried to use the Remesher modifier but mesh start to be heavy for manipulation.

Thoughts: Clearly I’m starting the journey of mixing both sofwares. For sure I can figure out a way instead of doing retopo which is the best way in terms of workflow but we know retopo can be so time consuming considering some deadlines.

Bonus: I downloaded this but there’s a trick to have it functional. Release import_3dm v0.0.10 · jesterKing/import_3dm · GitHub

Download it, install the .zip directly from Blender, try to activate it (will show up an error), close Blender, Open Blender and try to activate again the addon. Save your preferences in case you don’t want to do this all the time.

I think this plugins extract the render mesh from the Nurbs and that’s what you will see in Blender’s viewport. As mentioned before, the same issues are present in the imported model.

Direct questions for community:

Do you know a better way to import files from Rhino to Blender?
Do you know a plugin that is working properly considering these facts?
Do you know a developer working on stuff like this?

Feel free to contact me for any information. Glad to help.

Now a cool image. Design made in Rhino. Render made in Blender.

Thanks,
L

[Gijs (Gijs de Zwart)]

Have you seen this thread?

Transferring Rhino to blender

@nathanletwory I tried the blender importer you wrote, but I don’t get good result with it as the normals of the meshes are not being transferred properly. If I export as OBJ, it gives close to perfect results. So I wonder if you can make the importer for Rhino files behave the same as the OBJ version, with the added benefit of importing the size correctly example Rhino objects (turned on mesh display to see the differences, custom meshes): [image] imported in blender: [imag…

[luis88luis (Luis Lobo)]

Hi, I saw it. The issue is, with more complex models the solution is not that easy (at least for me). Apparently the OBJ format without the Merge by Distance option is a good option but also, I find great results with the FBX formats when I deal with complex data. (I don’t think Blender is doing the Merge by Distance itself, because you can set that option directly inside Rhino). In your test file I exported as OBJ, imported in Blender, applied the Merge by Distance and result was good for the last pill. Even the first one with Shade Smooth and Merge by Distance applied looks good but as I said, complex 3d data can be hard to “solve” in terms of topology. If you want to do some tests I’ll attach a 3dm file. Thanks for the reply!
test_shape.3dm (927.7 KB)