I’ve come here after seeing a few videos by The SketchUp Essentials, a Youtube channel and considering the change to Rhino, but I welcome any thoughts anyone might have.
To give you some context, I did use Rhino about 25 years ago, would you believe! It was slightly painful to use due to the computer performance of the time, but things have moved on drastically. In ~2005 I was introduced to SketchUp and used it since then as a Pro user, though my main S/W is AutoCAD. I found it nice and simple to use for creating building design illustrations for clients and also for construction details. I’m a sole trader providing Architectural Design assistance in the UK since 2010.
My computer is an AMD 7900X and I have an RTX 3080 as well as an A4000 Quadro (separate computer), in case it helps to know.
I’ve seen the cost, which appears to be the same as 2 years of SketchUp subs, however it seems to be a Perpetual licence, so I can decide when I upgrade (I assume).
So the questions, sorry for taking so long!:
Is it easy for a typical SketchUp user to migrate to Rhino?
Can I buy one licence and use it on both my workstation and laptop (not simultaneously)?
Is there a Rhino 3D warehouse that I can download small objects from, such as chairs, tables, etc.?
Hi Chris,
welcome to Rhino community.
Sort answer for you:
with Sketchup and Autocad knowledge you’ll find Rhino quite simple to approach. It’s a big animal so you have to take it smootly. Pet it and it will give you immense love
YES the license, via the cloudzoo could be installed on all your computers and you can chose wich one to use, even more than 2.
NO… but you can import Sketchup directly plus everithing is in DWG/DXF, OBJ, and milion other formats. PLUS: you can perfectly read STEP files.
I jumped ship from sketchup a couple of years ago. Rhino is much more powerful but there is a steep learning curve. Operations that were very easy in sketchup can take multiple tools and operations to accomplish the same thing. The push-pull introduced into Rhino is nothing like working with the same command in sketchup. It takes more clicks and tasks to perform. I’m glad I jumped ship as the annual premium was getting too pricey for my budget. On top of that, I volunteer at the local high school shop classes, and they use Rhino so I thought it would be good for me to use it instead of sketchup.
That’s superb, thank you. I see you mentioned cloudzoo, is it OK to access Rhino files on a local server via SMB?
It’s a pity there’s no warehouse, but that’s great that my sketchup components can be imported into Rhino, phew!
Thank you David for the headsup
Thanks Cadartz, really helpful to know - and wow, a 90 day trial is ideal, as I’ve got to work while I try it.
Cheers Don, I did wonder about the learning curve and you’ve answered that. it’s a shame that one sketchup tool converts to several in Rhino, but as you’ve not gone back, it sounds like you can get familiar with it. Yes Sketchup has become too pricey over the years, when it was £100 there was no issue, but these days it’s nearer £400 without a proportional amount of features added. From the videos I watched that were not bias towards Rhino, it does seem to be gaining more traction in architecture / schools than SketchUp. If this is happening despite it being harder to learn and requiring more ‘moves’ to achieve an instruction, that says a lot.
The “Cloud Zoo” is a repository for your Rhino license which allows the license to be shared among several computers. You are limited to using Rhino on only opne machine at a time though you can have Rhino open on multiple machines at the same time. Switching between machines is extremely simple.
The Cloud Zoo has nothing to do with where you store your Rhino files. You can keep them locally on the computer they’re being used on, on a removable drive, on a local network, or on a cloud.
Not sure if you are aware, V8 introduced Push/Pull toolset, kind of similar to SketchUp like modelling, would be a comfortable place to start exploring Rhino
