Considering upgrading my Rhino 6 but not sure if I should wait for Rhino 9 since 8 have been out for a couple years now ? Also, since I do all my modelling in Blender now and use Rhino mostly for drafting, is it even worth upgrading? I have a nice workflow with 6 but there are things in my mind could be improved. Anyone else use Rhino mostly for drafting and found the upgrade from 6 to 8 worth your hard earned money?
Thank you.
Rhino 8 is now out since a few months, like eight months roughly. If McNeel keeps the usual cadence, Rhino 9 will be out in a little less than two years from now.
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All depends on what you need to do, have you seen Rhino - Features ?
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Thanks. Thats quite a long ways out.
Mostly drafting plans, sections, elevations. My workflow is to:
- model in Blender,
- export to obj,
- import the obj into rhino,
- generate section cuts and make2d plans/elevations from that imported obj,
- change all lines to a single layer,
- and then manually change layers for correct linetype/thickness…
I used to model in Rhino and do live clipping plane sections/elevations from the model itself, but I found that rhino could not customize lineweights for different elements cut through in the clipping plan… and it couldn’t do nice hatching. Also, some elements, especially imported obj’s, clipping planes showed blank and I couldn’t tell it to fill with hatch. Very frustrating. So I dropped modelling in rhino entire for this reason. That and blenders features are extremely power (non-destructive modifiers alone make it worth the switch…when will rhino incorporate non-destructive modifiers I wonder?).
I also do all my annotations in model space so edits are easier to do down the road. Finally layout viewports in paperspace, titleblock, and lastly print to PDF.
Given this workflow, what exactly would be a big benefit to me jumping from Rhino 6 to 8?
section tool alone may be worth the upgrade to 8 for you-
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You will be surprised how much better V8 is in Drafting things compared to V6.
It absolutely worth the upgrade in my opinion.
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How so?
Simply the general concept of software beeing constantly developed should already be enough to tell you that after two major versions and about six years later - it’s probably worth the upgrade.
The list of improvments on the drafting tools and workflows is so long that it’s like a new software.
Give a try to the demo version and you’ll see the difference.
Thanks, but setting everything up is a bit of a pain. Is there an extensive list or video of the new drafting benefits? I know there’s a lots of info about the 3d part, but Im not finding much about the simple drafting part which I use 99% of the time.
What do you mean by that?
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There’s a new Linetypes panel:
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Curves can now have an absolute thickness in viewports:
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Section styles:
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A rewritten Print dialog that can export multiple pages:
Anything useful in there?
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Maybe these web pages will help
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How did modeling in Blender fix this? These all sound like drafting issues, aren’t you facing the same issues with the imported models?
There’s TONS of new options in R8 but tons of new bugs also. Many of the new features also aren’t documented very well, like what setting affects what, with or without print display on or off… The section tools (live updated) has a few oddities (it’s getting better though). You go down one road and hit a snag (or bug) so reassess your workflow and try something else. It can be a bit of a minefield. Documentation also isn’t caught up yet. If you’re just doing drafting and everything is working I would stick with R6. If you like to tinker and are a Rhino nerd then upgrade. R8 will also help get you read for R9 when it comes; the actual cost to upgrade is really negligible in the long run.
Rhino 7 almost feels like a bit of a Zenith to me compared to R8 as it was relatively well polished off. R8 was actually quite ambitious and stretched McNeel’s resources very thin.
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Thanks. Some nice features indeed…but worth $825cad to upgrade? Not convinced.
It doesnt tbh, but the modelling in blender is vastly superior, if only for the non-destructive modifiers, so I prefer it since the hatching is problematic whether it’s modelled in rhino or blender. Basically just MAKE2D and do manual drafting from the model anyway.
With service release 10 right now. I find Rhino 8 to be the best version of Rhino since most of the big bugs are squished and I am enjoying the beautiful new features.
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rhino needs your support. if you can afford it please upgrade unless you are happy living in a world were greedy corporate companies making expensive bloatware or free community base modelers eventually get around to duplicating functionality.
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I watched some new features videos on youtube and I’m convinced…I like the hatching update, shrinkwrap, real time clipping plane to 2d looks promising…
however, I can wait until there’s a sale. Are there specific times of the year that Rhino is on discount?