I’ll probably be updating the laptop this summer (a 2010 mbp… pre-retina)
i’ve seen a bit of retina & rhino for mac topics but i haven’t payed much attention since i had no way of seeing what the topics were about.
so, what are the cliffnotes?
do the retina displays work well with rhino for mac? or?
No worries. I think you’ll be fine with a Retina for Rhino, and probably vastly prefer it over the prior for the sharpness alone. Between the excelent global OS scaling of Mac OS, and adjustability of MacRhino (tool size) you’ll be able to dial it in just as you like it.
Get a decent machine and ignore the nonsense about - “must use best for display setting.” If “best” is best for you, fine, and if higher is best, fine as well. I usually prefer the setting between best and the highest.
thanks. i guess i’m mostly worried about some things appearing too small… for example, i’ve read sketchup users complaining when they make a selection, the highlight is so thin that it’s hard to see.
I hadn’t noticed such in any worrisome way, though I really do not use my laptop much with Rhino (airplanes and travel). Again, with Mac OS global scaling, you’ll be able to overcome all.
Optimally, from a usage standpoint, one may want to set the scale factor higher than “Best for Display” and MacRhino seems more adept at such, at present, over WinRhino in terms the user interface. GH in Win is still a big problem.
However, with hi-res displays emerging as the norm for laptops (already emerged?) and desktops, further optimization for such across the product spectrum has to be a high priority.
My advice…no worries all things considered. You’ll love Retina, and if you are ready for a new machine now, go for it!
ok. thank you!
OK, I found something too small on a 32" 4K display set to looks like 3008 x 1692. Can see it, but it’s just not right.
Variable Radius Fillet feedback handles:
newbie to rhino for mac (but old hand at 3D), loving it so far.
I am wondering about the variable radius fillet numerical feedback on my new retina MBP. After watching the very useful intro tutorial webinar (water bottle, Kyle H) where the numerical text was quite large I was left wondering if there might be a setting somewhere somehow to increase the size … it is readable but barely just. Maybe I’m missing something though…
In AutoCAD for mac, the Retina-optimized version, has very thin lines, and may appear “small” to some people. This is not a problem for Rhino which has both anti-aliasing and Retina support.
thanks. sounds good.
I see what you mean… @marlin what controls this font size? I’m not seeing an OSX setting that affects it.
This what the radius text looks like on my 15" Retina MBP running default resolution… I just got this laptop and I’m not completely up to speed with Yosemite or resolution switching. To me this is a minor issue but this is a bit hard for my old eyes to read. 
@jeff_hammond
Thankfully Marlin recently changed the rules regarding Retina screens and Anti Aliasing, so that any computer with more than 2GB of VRAM can achieve 8x AA. I’ve tried Rhino on several UHD displays, including MacBook Pros, 4K, and 5K screens—it’s definitely beautiful and I would argue necessary to properly see what you’re doing with organic curves.
I’d recommend to only go for retina if you can purchase a computer with a dedicated graphics card with 2+ GB of VRAM (NVIDIA or AMD; not Intel): if you’re looking at MacBook Pros, this only leaves the highest-end model that starts at $2500…
Of course, the legitimacy of your investment into retina/UHD is also completely dependent on whether you can actually see the difference, and I’m seeing some big 'ol glasses in that display picture of yours… 
There is definitely still the issue of the Variable Radius feedback handles being very small—I expect for the McNeel mac wizards to eventually change these so they scale with the rest of the UI.
@ec2638
I would strongly recommend against using scale factors other than “best for display”, as it forces the computer to render the display at a significantly larger resolution before downsampling. It’s significantly more taxing on the GPU, which is why system prefs states “using a scaled resolution may affect performance”. If you’d like to see what resolution each setting is actually rendering at, you can do a screenshot (command-shift-3) and then look at the screenshot’s resolution. I think when you run “looks like 3008x1692”, the computer is actually processing it at 6016 × 3384.
Optimal for 4K is “looks like 1920x1080” (processed as native 3840x2160)—Which can look pretty awful on 27-32" displays.
Optimal for 5K is “looks like 2560x1440” (processed as native 5120x2880)—looks absolutely perfect on a 27" screen (which is the only size they come in on only two products).
For this reason, I returned my 4K panel because it came across as being a half-baked format. Loving this 5K screen, though… I think it’s a keeper!
thanks for the info.
those glasses are safety glasses… my eyes work well 
also, for what it’s worth… I budget $3k every 5 years on a laptop… I just get the fastest cpu at time of purchase (i7 w/ turbo to 4ghz in this case) and that model usually has the best of everything else.
(edit- i don’t actually budget like that… it’s just the buying pattern that has developed)
There is no explicit setting. The viewport drawing code looks to see if it is drawing on a retina display and adjusts accordingly. The code for drawing text was not looking at whether it was drawing on a retina display. This will be fixed in 5.1 and the next WIP release. This won’t fix MR-2105, because that is a third party 4K display set to a non-standard scaling, and that kind of configuration doesn’t play well with the Apple retina scaling system.
Awfully large and blown up that is…which is why “Best…” defeats the purpose in this case.
Perhaps, though I think the key word here is “may”. I’m on industrial strength hardware (nMP w/D500 32GB) and I’m seeing absolutely no issues with my type of models over 100MB on disk, despite past dire warnings, regardless of what is going on under the hood. So until I actually see something negative in my case, I’m still calling it a “cry wolf”…
Since the warning spans the product line, perhaps “may” applies to more pedestrian HW??? I did plug the 4K into a 2013 MBP w/Nvidia, though that was a quick test. Been banging on the nMP for a while; nothing to worry about to report yet. Notice no performance difference at both higher resolutions.
That is correct!
Correct as well. Mac OS “Best” display setting is built for 5K @ 27". Makes sense. All the scaling is optimized for Apple HW. We would have bought 32" 5k displays if such existed. I’d recommend anyone looking for a nMP display, who likes or can live with a 27", go 5k, though pickings are slim at present. Presumably, Apple is waiting on DP 1.3 and HDMI 2 (or more USB-C) Macs, to release a new 5K Thunderbolt display. It exists, obviously, as the 5K iMac, though DP 1.2 can’t keep up without using two 1.2 display ports, and that’s not very “Apple” - they are happy to enable such with a Dell 5K.
Again it depends, 4K 27/28" at “Best”…definitely half baked, and Mac OS was half baked with 4K until 10.10.3 IMO. There is a reason too that the higher setting are “there” and enabled.
It’s a stunning beautiful machine if 27" glossy works for ya. Best iMac yet.
Apple - please build me a 35" matte iMac or TB display…(ya right 
) Rumor has it that there is an 8K LG panel iMac in Apple’s lab.
I’m quite interested to try the next WIP to see if such improves non-Apple display of the handles nonetheless. Those handles are THE ONLY thing I can find that is not right under this scenario, so bravo! People are going to buy non Apple displays and they are going to set them differently, as Apple Sys Pref allows, regardless.
I’m still not drinking the cool-aid on this because I am not seeing any non-standard penalty elsewhere, incuding your competitor’s products, and we have a lot of software at our disposal. Just don’t see it.
That said, I don’t mean to be an arse. Just calling it as I see it.
I’d would like to take this opportunity to thank @marlin, and all involved, for a wonderful Mac OS product, one that I am certain will only get better. I pimp it at every opportunity.
