Also that person in the comments asking ‘how is this better than Blender’ 
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Real! Fillet should be a benchmark for the power-level of surfacing tools!
Also, I hadn’t looked at Alias since we stopped using it (oof, five years ago already) and their interface looks sooo much better now too… real-time scaling of the icons per toolbar and the entire UI itself, and oh dear lord how I miss hotkeys! I was so fast in Alias it was ridiculus. The command line in Rhino is so outdated and everything in Rhino feels like its built to maximize RSI while everything in Alias is made to be hyper efficient. 
Funny thing, 3 minutes in they show flow over polysurfaces. When will Rhino get this? 
Also, just look at that panel switch between layer mode and object mode! 
Their human isn’t quite up to par with Catia, though… holy shit that’s sad actually!
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+1 on the FlowAlongPolysrf command!
I think an intuitive implementation would be a little dialog box that pops up with FlowAlongSrf.
Just like how the Alias tool handles it, if a polysrf is selected, this command could default to similar functionality which is already done by Pascal’s FlowAlongMultipleSrfs script.
In this scenario, there would also be a checkbox with “Apply per surface” where when checked, it would treat the polysrf like Pascal’s script, and when unchecked, it would treat the polysrf like a single surface (assuming it’s a 4 sided polysrf. I can see how edge cases would be difficult).
The flip and rotate options similar to Alias would be useful too.
However, FlowAlongPolySrf (which would be the same as the FlowAlongSrf with the ‘Apply per surface’ un-checked) could also exist as a separate command if anyone needs to use it in a macro.
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I often consider migrating to Alias, but everyone I know that uses it professionally says it crashes so often it drives them insane. Like, save your work every five minutes sort of instability. For me, I find it hard to justify the cost when the stability isn’t there.
Also feels like with VSR, T-Splines and some personal history (my godmother was Carol Bartz secretary for decades and was treated…terribly) giving money to Autodesk really feels like I’m throwing in the towel and giving my money to the darkside.
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Everything looks nice in commercials.
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Modelling is like a pyramid. The simple operations you do thousands of times are at the base of the pyramid. So, if the simple stuff are poorly designed the experience will not be optimal.
Some criteria I consider for a “good” CAD program (the base of the pyramid) include:
a) Work on four viewports, where you can start a curve in one viewport and end it in another
b) Cursor that loops around the view while zooming
c) Have a command line
d) Surface modeling with network srf, sweep two rails, loft, blend srf
e) Construction curves with extensive snapping functionality on tangency, perpendicularity, mid, center etc, arcs, circles tangent to 1, 2, three locations
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please send examples of there these fail for you to tech@mcneel.com
we are always keen to see real cases that we can use to tune up these features.
I was a power user for alias for years before I switched to rhino. (level 3 trained in toronto, user ambassador etc, etc…)
it’s a nice bit of kit, but the costs of running it did not pay the dividends they promise. They want to make you think you will be doing “premium work, for premium clients” and that is blatantly false.
In the late 90’s I made a lot of money using rhino to fix alias models that would not go to a cnc properly. (their stitching/ polysurface workflow is utter bullshit, and they have never fixed the underlying trim issue that causes singularities at 4 sided intersections, which result in what we referred to as a “trim flag”)
The irony of alias, is very little to none of their data ever actually touches a mold…it’s always run thru something like catia within the automotive industry. That could be said for Rhino in a lot instances as well, but Alias in particular does not seem to care much if their data gets rebuilt completely after the concept phase, particularly in the automotive space. Whereas I know for a fact that a lot of factories in Asia actually use rhino to fix models that come in from other packages.
Vred is sweet, and I wish we had that, but really the only thing I really miss from alias are marking menus.
I’d encourage you to grab the Alias trial and give it a spin…I’d be interested in your (and anyone else’s) thoughts.
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RSI = repetitive strain injury
The command line is faster for me than the icons.
Grasshopper should include human model in SubD format. Sliders should be used to change its gender and to move its arms, legs, and hair.
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Nah, I wouldn’t call it outdated if it’s reliable, controllable, and unintrusive. I’d call it lovely.
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I couldn’t live without the command line. I’ve often wondered how hard it would actually be to create one for programs that don’t have one (like Revit).
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I love the command line in Rhino. Especially Rhino’s. In every other program I use I start typing what it look for, but they’re all dead. No one home. Dead. Non-responsive. And it’s true. 
Never compromise about the command line.
//Rolf
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Whoever said the command line is outdated, is like saying the sun is outdated, or gravity is outdated. The command line is NEVER outdated.
I think people like to change things just for sport, because they are bored with reality.
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There’s some severe Stockholm syndrome going on with the command line in this thread… 
I’ve used Alias for a decade, Solidworks for 20 years, NX for a couple of years and Rhino for a couple of years. I’m 110% convinced that if I would be given an option to hide and disable the command line in Rhino, and instead be able to map any tool of my desire to a single key, I’d work way faster than today.
One thing speaking against this advice is that I don’t belive you can be optimal in Alias without proper hands on training (or maybe that was just me… though then again, I began before there were Youtube people like for example this guy).
But speaking of working way faster, this Xform popup in Alias is what I mean by hyper efficient:
It’s so discouraging to see new tools from McNeel, like EdgeContinuity, RefitTrim and that new fillet thing in Rhino 8 get released as if nobody has done any UX testing or taken any feedback from a professional at all, and that so much low hanging fruit is still dangling and rotting away on so many tools. Rhino could be so much better yet it seems that (similar to Blender actually) if you want efficiency you have to look to plug-ins and user-developed tools.
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If Blender people knew or realized the advantages of the command line, they’d be all over it. Now they are stuck with 26 single letter shortcuts, trying to associate random letters to commands. We can do thousands of shortcuts (two, three letter combinations). No toolbars on screen needed.
You may be exposed to other software and have knowledge of them, but something tells me you are not a fast modeler.
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Okay, it’s not single key (with the exception of the F keys, which you should absolutely program to your individual needs), but you can do a ton with custom keyboard shortcuts. I keep my right hand on my mouse, and my left hand does nearly everything else using custom keyboard shortcuts. For instance, for Split by Isocurve, I have that setup as Ctrl-S and for Split by anything else (objects, curves, surface edges etc) it’s Ctrl-Alt-S. MatchSrf is Ctrl-A. My F5-F8 bank are all my analysis tools. And so on and so forth. Usually takes a day or two to develop the muscle memory, and then after that point it’s honestly faster than marking menus, and literally becomes so second nature that you don’t think about it, it just sorta…happens.
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Between custom aliases and shortcut assignments you can do that already.
Please give us some detail about the tools you feel need more work- we are always interested in this feedback.
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Very similar to this.