I’ve been on a quest for understanding the high-level process flow for mechanical product design in Rhino. Coming from solid modeler experience, I missed the usual definitions: Assemblies, Sub-assemblies, and the Parts that make them up. The language here doesn’t use product-related metaphors. Rhino has AutoCAD-like terminology with a CAD-facing orientation, instead – Models and Blocks.
But I believe I’ve figured out how to organize a documentation set for a product made of multiple parts. One would simply draw and define individual “parts” as Blocks in a product Model top assembly and isolate them on Layers and assign them part numbers as Block Names, and write them out as Block files into libraries. One could also group them into any sub-assemblies on layers. The part-numbered Blocks could be infinitely re-usable and documented as Models in their own right on 2D fabrication drawings. One doesn’t want to re-draw the hardware, for example, every time a new product is modeled.
So now the key questions – is it possible to save and re-use Blocks and independently instantiate them into any Model one might choose, in Rhino? I assume they would come into a given assembly Model in the same orientation as drawn but that a user would have options to re-position them as needed. Is this so?
Does this approach make sense to experienced product designers who are using Rhino? Is there a better way to organize? What else does a user need to know about product organization and documentation to achieve broad product design success with Rhino?