General Questions on Rhino V5

[CarlS]

Hello: I have several questions on RhinoV5….I have been studying it, and I must admit I
am very impressed with this program. I have read the pinned tutorial. This is my first post in the Forum.

A little on my background:

I just got a Roland MDX-40A with the rotary axis, that I will be using to carve wooden
figurines and other small turnings. I also just received my Formlabs Form2 3-D
printer, which I will use to make chesspieces, or jewelry, using RhinoGold
jewelry software application in my RhinoV5.

I have a strong background in Adobe Illustrator CS3. I use this at present for 2-D, and
am new to these 3-D programs. I have two books that I got, one on Rhino5 and
the other on Jewelry making with Rhino. I am not interest in making toys,
automobiles or gear assemblies, etc…………pretty much just what I mentioned. The
books have a lot of information that is sort of irrelevant to what I want to do
at present. That is why I am putting this up for advice, in hopes of being more
efficient, more quickly.

1. How do I set the grid dimensions to inches, in 1/8-inch increments?
   

2. How do I do a uniform percentage scale for an object? I want to select an object, and then simply enter a value
   

of 210%, to scale the entire object? In Illustrator, in addition to being able to drag your piece to size, they also have a section, where you can put in a specific numerical percentage value increase, for either uniform or non-uniform scaling. That is what I am looking for here.

3. I want to create a hollow base for a sculpture that will be 3-D printed. If I have a 2-D half cross section, what
   

command can I use to rotate the half-cross section 360 degrees, and thus create
a 3-D base with the hollowed out part?

4. Where is the “close” file command”? I want to save and then close the file I am working on, and then start another
   

new file. I am seeing ‘exit’, but I don’t want to exit the program and re-load the program, every time I start a new file.

5. How do I than attach multiple objects to each other, instead of ‘grouping’ them? Does it make a difference in 3-D printing?
   

Thank you in advance, I will have more questions later….

Carl S.

[pascal (Pascal Golay)]

Hi Carl - [quote=“CarlS, post:1, topic:32046”]
How do I set the grid dimensions to inches, in 1/8-inch increments?
[/quote]

Check DocumentProperties > Grid page. Set Minor grid lines every .125 and major every 4 or 8 minors, or whatever makes sense.

@CarlS

How do I do a uniform percentage scale for an object? I want to select an object, and then simply enter a valueof 210%, to scale the entire object? In Illustrator, in addition to being able to drag your piece to size, they also have a section, where you can put in a specific numerical percentage value increase, for either uniform or non-uniform scaling. That is what I am looking for here.

The Scale command is the most basic way - you need to specify a base point for the scale, and then you can type in a factor. The Gumball will also scale in 3d if you Shift-Click on a square scaling handle and then type in a scale factor in the little number field.

@CarlS

I want to create a hollow base for a sculpture that will be 3-D printed. If I have a 2-D half cross section, whatcommand can I use to rotate the half-cross section 360 degrees, and thus createa 3-D base with the hollowed out part?

Use Revolve for this.

@CarlS

Where is the “close” file command”? I want to save and then close the file I am working on, and then start anothernew file. I am seeing ‘exit’, but I don’t want to exit the program and re-load the program, every time I start a new file.

Just use File > Open to get another file. Rhino only opens one at a time. You can run multiple sessions of Rhino.

@CarlS

How do I than attach multiple objects to each other, instead of ‘grouping’ them? Does it make a difference in 3-D printing?

That depends a bit on just how the objects are arranged - post an example if you like but see the Join command and BooleanUnion as well.

-Pascal

[CarlS]

Thank you!