I wanted to share a thought / a wish / a suggestion about where I see Grasshopper heading. I’m a computational designer in AEC, and I use Grasshopper for pretty much everything. It’s an amazing tool. But its limitations are becoming painfully obvious, especially now with generative AI tools popping up everywhere.
Here’s the problem I hit over and over again: my clients aren’t interested in solutions that are trapped inside Rhino.
Most of them won’t buy a Rhino license, and they certainly don’t want to learn a whole new piece of software just to run a tool I made for them. This keeps what we do in a tiny niche for geeks. It feels like there’s a huge, underserved market out there that could be much larger than Rhino’s current user base, but Grasshopper’s dependency on Rhino is preventing that from happening.
To be blunt, that market will get disrupted. And once a new platform gains momentum, I’m worried Rhino itself could become irrelevant. There are several ways to deal with this, but it seems like McNeel isn’t exploring any of them right now.
What are the options? Here are some ideas, from simple to ambitious:
The simplest solution: A free, standalone Grasshopper Player. Just a lightweight viewer that lets a client or colleague run a script and play with the inputs. No license, no full Rhino install. This would let us actually deliver our tools to people.
Next level: A real web app exporter. I know there are ways to do this now, but it’s too complex, too clunky. Getting a definition to run on the web at scale requires hours and what feels like divine intervention. Or, bring ShapeDiver fully into the McNeel family, break its limitations, and make it seamless to go from a GH file to a web app.
One level up: Make Grasshopper a standalone tool. Let it live next to Rhino, not just inside it. Make it free. A “Grasshopper Studio” for us developers, and a “Grasshopper Player” for users. Or a web viewer. Just simplify access.
The ultimate goal: Grasshopper as a true web app. The “Figma for computational design.” Fully collaborative, versioned, shareable. Startups like Beegraph and Nodi are already working on this. They’re still small, and they don’t have our massive community or wealth of plugins… yet. But they are the potential disruptors.
I’m posting this because I love this tool and I want to see it dominate for another decade, not get sidelined.
Would love to hear what you all think. Is anyone else with this frustration? @bobmcneel@user_9123125
As you might not be aware, GH is a UI layer on the core Rhino SDK. Without Rhino, it would be about 90% dysfunctional. That said, of course, GH could be refactored to be run on some other platform. But then, how would we stay in business?
As a compromise solution, we do provide Rhino.Inside.Revit. Think GH for Revit. GH in Revit is special because it has access to both the Rhino SDK and Revit SDK simultaneously. Plus, it can be configured so that Rhino UI never shows.
The Rhino.Inside solution is open source, so others provide Rhino.Inside their products.
Yes. A cloud-based web solution has been the solution of the future for the last 10-15 years. It is a massive project to move Rhino/GH 100% to a web/cloud solution, but that said, we are taking small steps in that direction with Rhino.compute. Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to take on that project and keep up with the thousands of requests for new Rhino features and enhancements.
I’m sure there are many products out there focused on capturing an opportunity that might put us out of business. That hasn’t changed in the last 25 years… Meanwhile, we need to stay focused on delivering what our current and potential users are delighted to pay for. (Business 101, unless you are building a business to sell instead of a product to sell.)
What if Rhino command would create automaticly GH file and that way Rhino would become parametric? That would serve all Rhino user specially those who don’t activly use GH.
Another idea is to build a RH/GH code-generator and compiler. You could then make it very expensive for the “developer” to own. It think its much more worth than a normal license. Its a major rework for sure, and it will require extending OpenNurbs to a larger subset of Rhino. But by all the doubts and risks involved, I also believe that there is market for it for the same reasons mentioned. To give you an example, I believe that MATLAB/Simulink would be dead, if there would be no way to generate C/C++ code out of it. You can generate everything, even to most advanced algorithms. Its just a very expensive thing to do. Therefore its still relevant in many industries, on many embedded devices. Is it good? Yes and no. But it worked for them!
On the hand, I wouldn’t make it too easy for “computational designers”. I think what Grasshopper made famous 10 years ago, was a big hype. And it created a big empty bubble. There is a reason why only few people earn decent money with this skillset alone. Very often freelancers harvest the money, from work people shared for free or which is done by McNeel devs.
@Bensho Which limitations and complexities are currently preventing you from using ShapeDiver? The service is built precisely to “run at scale”, as you mentioned, which is what takes some elbow grease if you go the Rhino.compute way. I would be happy to discuss with you what is currently missing so that you can solve your current challenges.
As for joining the McNeel family, we feel like we already did, in a way. Of course, if @bobmcneel & team are interested in making it more official and bringing those additional resources in-house, that is another discussion we are happy to have.
Rhino.Inside is a great way to integrate GH within other platforms, and I do use it with Archicad. However, it still keeps the GH code ‘personal’ and dependent on having Rhino installed.
My point of view is as a computational designer who wants to deliver tools to clients, but many of them asks it to be without the need to run Rhino…
Maybe a middle way would be to have a GH player, think of iRhino for iPad, but cross-platform, and that allows GH definitions to be played…
Maybe I simply wish for a proper tool for computational designers to build and provide tailored tools. Grasshopper is amazing for builders and creators, it is not great for ‘users’.
It reminds me of the situation of UX designers back in 2006 - I worked at Intel as a ux designer before the term coined, and we used a weird mix of Photoshop, Indesign, Powerpoint and some bulky tools to do the job. And then they named it UX, and after several wireframe tools (XD, Balsamiq, Sketch), Figma appeared and made it right, one solution for the needs of the new profession. So UX designers = use Figma.
Computational designers = We are somewhere in the stage of making do with a weird mix of tools. None is giving a-to-z solution.
Hi @mathieu1 , last time I explored ShapeDiver, there was no way to create and manipulate graphic inputs (draw or modify shapes/lines), and some plugins we used to build the solution for a client were not supported by the platform.
Besides that, having SD as a separate add-on makes us, the coders, have to adapt the code to be used in SD, which takes a longer time to produce, and raises the fees…
The parallel with iRhino might be confusing, because iRhino is essentially a file viewer; it does not need to rely on servers running Rhino and Grasshopper. By construction, running costs of maintenance and infrastructure make it impossible to provide this service for free or at a low-cost, whatever you have in mind. Not to mention the amount of effort it requires to make this work reliably and at scale (hint: ShapeDiver is 10 years old and we still have a lot to do).
Regarding your last experience with SD:
It is now possible to interact with geometry in the viewer, including selecting and transforming objects using gumballs, as well as creating and editing lines.
All plugins can be installed on Enterprise servers as long as they make sense in a cloud computing context. Only shared servers have a limited list because we need to review and approve stable code on systems shared by thousands of users.
ShapeDiver’s separate add-on (plugin for Grasshopper) is there to configure materials and, more recently, build the full layout and logic of a web application. These things are currently not possible using standard Grasshopper components, and in any case, if your goal is to build a user-friendly “player” to share with your clients, there is no way around doing some UI/UX work. We tried that for a long time; the standard, automatically generated Apps fell short in 80% of the cases. If you are working in Grasshopper by yourself, you design for your own goals and needs. If you want to share your work, the design thinking needs to encompass the needs of your target audience. This is already why plugins like Human UI have had enduring success.
I’m sure many people would rather not pay for the tools they use, but we don’t have the luxury of providing free tools. We have payroll and many other expenses that need to be paid for us to keep doing what we do.
Grasshopper is amazing for builders and creators, it is not great for ‘users’.
If builders and creators are not the users of grasshopper, who are these “users”? What is it that they do?
It sounds like you are building tools to be shared and used by others for specific use cases. In my opinion comparing it to UX does not work well. UX abstracts design/concept from implementation, whereas “Computational Design” as you describe it contains the implementation of a concept. I would argue that the implementation is always specific and very much depends on requirements of a project.
Rhino + Grasshopper have many areas they can be used it, though I would never use them for anything that requires real-time computation design (real-time as in 30fps+ generation and render)
EDIT: to add to the suggestions from others, there is Rhino - Compute Guides allowing you to run Rhino and Grasshopper in the backend with whatever frontend you come up with. As far as I understand, you can probably set it up in a way that your clients don’t need a Rhino license.
It sound like Rhino Compute is exactly what you are looking for. Your client could even access your GH logic from a toaster (given that the toaster has internet access).
Compute can be a bit finicky to set up, but it’s a valuable skillset to have. Plus, if you don’t want to go through the process of doing that, there are hosted solutions for this, like Modelup.
Full transparency: I am a representative of Modelup.
Regarding a ‘Standalone Grasshopper’, there have been times where I have used Grasshopper without using any Geometry Components, rather just using the basic param input, maths, sets and color components to process some data that I need for import/export. I am an architect by profession, not a CS graduate, but I find that Grasshopper gives me a way to not just generate geometry, but data in general. The data tree paradigm of Grasshopper makes it extremely easy for me to deal with pretty much anything I need to do.
There have been times I have used GH to review and edit excel data, batch export files, plugging into arduino projects to have a GUI for things like setting colors of LED strips or having access to the slider to change the steps on a servo in a tactile manner.
If standalone Grasshopper ever happens, I would be happy even to just have a version that doesn’t even use Rhino by skipping over the Geometry components. Right now Grasshopper is a programming language that can only be accessed within Rhino - which is a limiting factor for me. I love opening Rhino whenever I am dealing with graphical projects, but on projects which have nothing to do with geometry…
I understand that Grasshopper’s Data Tree paradigm was chosen as geometry is fundamentally data (a polysurfaces becomes multiple surfaces, a surface has UV curves, a curve has control points, etc). These data wrangling skills that I have honed via grasshopper disappear when I have to work with data in any other context.
Bob, thank you for sharing your perspective, payroll absolutely does not pay itself, and none of us want developers surviving on instant noodles just so we can have free tools! We fully understand that professional software requires professional funding.
But, if we’re talking about innovation and truly setting Grasshopper free, sometimes a bit of healthy competition is exactly what sparks evolution. We need a contender who understands that speed is everything, someone with vision, not just another opportunist hopping into the market because “parametric” is trendy.
Let me introduce the rising challenger: Beegraphy.
Beegraphy is an online parametric 3D modeling tool built that leverages both NURBS and Mesh technology for computational design. Geometry has no monopoly, and Beegraphy is proving it fast. While it doesn’t yet have Grasshopper’s enormous library (few things do), it already has something Grasshopper users have dreamed about for years…It is getting quicker each passing day, Runs in a browser, Built for designers and architects, Free to use, Growing rapidly thanks to a business model inspired by that little-known tool… what was its name again? Ah yes: Blender, the super-king of 3D!
So no complacency allowed, designers and architects worldwide are already exploring this newcomer with curiosity and excitement.
Oh and… ComfyUI? Great for images, not exactly a parametric geometry powerhouse, so maybe we leave that one off the recommendation list.
Grasshopper has shaped a whole generation of digital designers, and we love it dearly. But if we want it to fly higher, it’s not a crime to open the window and let a bit of fresh air (and competition) in!
The best way to maximize the Grasshopper window and minimize Rhino is to set up a dual-screen workspace. However, if you are using a single monitor, you can use the operating system’s window-snapping features to manage the windows side-by-side. Is there an official feature to automatically minimize Rhino while maximizing Grasshopper and only use the podghbutton.gha plugin with Rhinoview in GH Canvas?
But, personally, 2 major drawbacks are: horrible faceting of curved volumes (to the point one doesn’t know whether it is circle or polygon) and no live feedback when adjusting slider. Claiming it can be faster than Gh is an overstatement - did you make anything comparable in complexity and measured performance? I don’t believe anyone would trade Gh for this
Piotr, Thank you for sharing your observations after testing Beegraphy. I agree with your assessment that the faceting of curved geometry and the lack of responsive slider feedback can be significant limitations at this stage which is still in Beta. These are essential elements of a productive parametric workflow, particularly for those of us accustomed to the precision Grasshopper offers.
However, what makes Beegraphy noteworthy is not where it stands today, but the trajectory it has set. The platform already supports direct interoperability with Autodesk Fusion 360, which strongly indicates a strategic focus and a clear understanding of professional pipeline requirements. With the right financial support and vision, progress can accelerate very quickly.
They have successfully merged the accessibility and cloud-based strengths reminiscent of Shapediver with a parametric logic familiar to Grasshopper users. This is precisely the kind of development that could introduce competitive pressure in the field. Ignoring such signals could be costly, especially if another organization advances the same concept with greater resources like Rhino.
To be clear, Grasshopper remains the most capable parametric modelling environment currently available, and no one is replacing it tomorrow. Yet long-term industry leadership is sustained not by dominance alone, but by innovation and responsiveness to change. Parametric tools that offer improved speed, broader accessibility, and efficient use of CPU and GPU resources will eventually reshape expectations across the design community.
Whether Beegraphy becomes that catalyst or another solution emerges, the message is the same, competition is healthy. It encourages advancement and ensures that the tools we rely on today will continue to evolve, for the benefit of all designers and architects.
Referenced by the brilliant parametric master himself, José Luis García del Castillo
I think what Grasshopper made famous 10 years ago, was a big hype. And it created a big empty bubble. There is a reason why only few people earn decent money with this skillset alone. Very often freelancers harvest the money, from work people shared for free or which is done by McNeel devs.
