File Search Paths

The latest RhinoWIP (5E199w) has a new Preference called Files


You can find this by navigating to RhinoWIP > Preferences > Files

This preference tells Rhino where to look for linked textures and blocks.

This is particularly useful for office networks where there is a shared network volume where blocks and textures are stored and then referenced across multiple projects. This should also help alleviate situations where hard-coded file paths were used in Rhino 5 for Windows that did not work in Rhino 5 for Mac and vice versa.

You can also drag folders from the Finder into the File search paths list and it will add the path to that folder.

Click and drag the File search path entries up and down reorder them.

Please give this feature a try.

1 Like

What is the usecase of this feature?

I just tried it (added 2 folders), and when beginning to insert a block instance, Rhino doesn´t suggest files to be found at both folder paths.

Wouldn´t that be a useful feature?
Am i missing sth.?

This is mostly to help automated procedures where the file name (block name, texture name, etc.) is already known - such as a texture or block instance already stored in a Rhino file, or some script that inserts a file - then Rhino will look in those folders first to see if it finds a corresponding file name without having to specify the full path to the file, path which may also vary from one machine to the next.

–Mitch

Hi there,

im trying to reference external blocks in a template file, created on computer PC-A. If i’d use the template on PC-B, the block paths are unknown. I hoped to fix this with ‘file search paths’ but it doesn’t seem to work in 5.4 WIP 5E326w.

i.e. if i add the path where the block files are located on PC-B, then I still get the message that block file is not found.

Is this a known issue?

cheers,
Tim

Hi Tim-

I don’t think this is a known issue.

I’d like to try to reproduce this on my end. How are the two computers connected?

If possible, can you provide a set of test files? I could make something up, but I’d really like to reproduce this with files that are definitely exhibiting this.

-Dan

3 posts were split to a new topic: File Search Paths and RunPythonScript

Hi @dan, I’m having an issue where the latest version of Rhino 5 loses the saved file paths. I have to re-add them each time I load Rhino.

This is on macOS Catalina.

Hi @robinp-

Can you please help me reproduce this issue? Here’s what I’m doing on macOS Catalina…

  1. Launch Rhino 5 for Mac 5.5.4.
  2. Navigated to Rhinoceros > Preferences > Files and adding /Users/dan/Desktop to my File search paths.
  3. Quit Rhino.
  4. Launched Rhino 5 again.

The /Users/dan/Desktop search path is still there.

What are we doing differently?

I think we are doing exactly the same thing except, perhaps, that my files are saved on a network drive.

Quit rhino and typically the search path settings is completely blank.

However, I’ve just had an occurrence where the search path was still there but the file was listed as missing.

I’ve since quit and restarted rhino and the search path has now gone.

This is still a problem.

And, after many years, I’m still having problems with graphical glitches in Rhino 5 renders. On the embedded render, you will see tearing / noise on the brick texture. This has been going on for as long as I can remember with Mac rhino. It is using the mcneel provided brick texture.

Note regarding the above, the tearing looks like it is happening on the windows as well, but it is actually that there is brick visible through the glass.

Upon further investigation, if I turn off the bump map I set up, it disappears.

So it would seem to be a bug in the way rhino is rendering bump maps.

Edit: interestingly, the tearing / distortion is still visible through the glass. So it would seem to be something that happens when the material / texture is modified or filtered through a bump map or transparency.

Here’s a render after having turned off the bump map:

Edit:
Hi @dan any thoughts on the file search path issue and the texture tearing?