I would use the Rhino mobile app at work every day and probably buy half a dozen copies a year for people who work for me IF… it could show dimensions.
When using rhino for fabrication, my current options for coördinating with the people who build and assemble what I design and build are to either send them screenshots by text message or send them print outs.
If the mobile app could show dimensions, I could go paperless and have a much easier time showing assemblers and fabricators what I want them to do.
We have a lot of turnover and a lot of part timers. This is common in the scenic, prop, trade show, and fashion show business. Buying every single worker who comes in my shop a copy of the mobile app would be worth the cost to me if it could display dimensions, and I can’t be the only digital fabrication guy who would see the benefit to this.
Don’t get me wrong, I think useful CAD on a phone would be a cool thing, but mostly a gimmick for collaboration.
What I mean is you could just send pdf to view on a phone easily. Of course if you want to spin a model that’s trickier in such a form factor of a device. And to create CAD with it also very tricky. Easier to sketch on a napkin (or a 'puter) and send pics of it for phone viewing. As far as designing on a phone, I have a very badass laptop and I don’t even like designing on that because of the tiny monitor, forget about a phone, rather have a pencil and paper than CAD on a phone, for actual use beyond being a cool gimmick.
It already is a thing. It’s called iRhino3D but it hasn’t been updated in ages.
I think there are two ways a mobile app could be utilitarian and more than just a gimmick (at least for my own workflow):
Presentation - If I could set views and snapshots on my desktop and have the ability to present from Rhino, maybe adding some notes along the way (text dots?), It could be really useful. This is much like the way I use Keynote for presentation–edit and refine on desktop and then present from a tablet.
Reference on-the-go - I currently have a stack of print outs on my desk–screenshots of models that I’ve quickly dimensioned–that I take with me to the shop to build. It would be helpful to just bring the 3dm with me on a tablet or my phone. I think this point is essentially the same as @Max3 's point --there’s no reason this couldn’t work collaboratively.
If you have a Windows machine available, you could get the SimLab 3D PDF plug-in for Rhino.
That’s the only viewer that I’m aware of that supports annotations.
-wim
Have you ever tried Shapr3D?
It has an excellent iPad App with Pencil support and they are developing an macOS App too.
I use this app to prototype on the go and export these drafts to Rhino afterward for refining.
An vice versa export my Rhino models to Shapr3D to present and discuss my project on the iPad.
It’s very useful to be able to give assemblers/builders an exploded view, especially with complex props and setpieces.
In a lot of situations, it’s necessary and/or faster to do a build with a combination of CNC cut parts and hand cut parts. So if I can send the guys a dimensioned exploded view, color coded to show them what they’re building vs what I’m CNC cutting, it speeds everything up.
And it’s not very hard to take a design and explode it and dimension it. I’ve already got this part way automated for certain types of things we have to do a lot, like large prismatic letters or runs of 100+ different pedestals.
I completely agree. But wouldn’t you create these explodes, sections, callouts and such on a desktop and send them in pdf format, which they could view on a phone or any computer? Where in the workflow is the need to spin a model in 3D on a phone?
I use Autodesk Viewer https://viewer.autodesk.com/ to communicate with fabrication clients. The files are stored online, can be opened on any device and operating system. Dimensions are carried across with model. Has sectioning and exploded views, annotation, etc.
Doesn’t cost me anything.
make an account on grabcad.com and upload. The grabcad has built in 3d viewer and this viewer has function for displaying exploded view and measurement as well and that too by default !! what more you need ! Please check www.grabcad.com. I have used it on several ocassions.
That’s the only viewer that I’m aware of that supports annotations.
Coming back to this five years late, because that is no longer the case — at least on Android.
SRD Android CAD Viewer opens a .3dm directly on an Android phone or tablet. Rhino’s own file reader runs on the device, so the drawing is rebuilt rather than converted: model space and every layout tab, with dimensions, leaders and text resolved to their effective style, hatches at the scale Rhino generates them, and detail views. A layout is treated as what it is, a print preview, so anything set to “no print” stays off the sheet.
Ryan, your stack of printouts is the case this was built around. The .3dm goes to the shop instead of the paper, and the dimensions that are already in the drawing go with it.
Max, on your offline question: the file is read on the device. No account, no upload, no connection at any point. That is a deliberate choice rather than a missing feature — every option suggested in this thread puts the model on someone’s server first.
Where it will not help you: it draws the 2D drawing, not a shaded, explorable 3D assembly. It does not model and it does not edit. It does not measure either — you can read the dimensions that are in the file, but you cannot pick two points and get a distance. An exploded view still has to be exploded, dimensioned and laid out on a sheet in Rhino; what changes is that the sheet then travels on a tablet instead of on paper. And it is Android only, so it is not an answer for anyone in this thread on an iPad.
Disclosure: it is my own app, free to download today. Screenshots, a short video and the download link are in the announcement here:
Android 5.0 or later, 64-bit ARM. If a drawing does not come out the way it looks in Rhino, send me the file and I will look at it.
A follow-up to my post above, because the part where I said it would not help you has changed: since the September release, the app opens the 3D model as well.
Max, that is closer to what you asked for: the model shaded or ghosted, top, front, left, isometric and perspective views, a section box you drag to cut it open, and a layer tree to hide or isolate parts. You can also measure on the model now, not only read the dimensions off the sheet: distances, plus linear, aligned, radius, diameter and angular dimensions. Two limits: there are no exploded views, and the 3D view draws the render meshes saved in the file, so a model saved with “Save Small” shows no surfaces.
On your offline question I owe you a correction. Opening a file still needs no connection, but the app itself has to reach our server at least once a week, and after the first week it asks you to sign in. My post above left that out.
Ryan, for your stack of printouts nothing changed: the sheets come out the way Rhino prints them, and now you can measure on them too where a dimension is missing.