I do similar exercise as you describe - also with pure hand sketches pencil on paper - a lot of fun for the students to see how difficult it is.
but there are also many students that have a more experimental approach to cad, and they do not have the wish for deep technical understanding - it s a mentality or maybe pre-education question. It requires a certain level of abstraction to pick the correct tool first and then follow the commandline.
For some people it s more common to collect stuff / ingredients and bring it together … that s what is possible in interfaces like onshape, fusion, solidworks.
And for some brains it s completely inaccessible to have extrudealongCurve sweep1 sweep2 and railrevolve.
they want to select 2 curves - and then maybe a third one - or an axis.
or click a checkbox for “keep orientation” (extrudeCurveAlongCurve) or freeform (sweep1)…
experiment until their recipe fits …
(it s not my approach - my brain works fine with the commandline as you describe)
Yeah it’s interesting how people’s learning type creates a bias. I’ve not really felt the need to look into the new push/pull commands, but my impression is they’re more in the direction you mention? I think new, simpler commands on top of the existing structure would make more sense than reworking the entire system.
I work with Full Screen Mode On permanently with the Command line Bar enabled and by regrouping all the main command icons that I ever use into the Popup menu so I can access all of it by clicking the middle mouse button. This way everything is in one-click away + no cluttered interface with multiple menu bars and stuff…
You’ll notice that I have created some custom commands with custom icons as well that are integrated in this Pop-up menu as well.
yes that s what i mean by “meta”-commands. … maybe a group of 10 - 20 commands that all start with a keyword meta or smart
_smartSurfaceByCurvesAndMore
_smartGlueAndCombine
…
Put your most-commonly-used commands on short (1-2 character) aliases. I have 50+ of these, and it makes it really easy to chain several commands together quickly without thinking about it.
Avoid using buttons whenever possible. Keep your eyes focused on what you’re working on and let your left hand finger memory get you the command you need.
Make extensive use of _SelLast (on a short alias).
…But not as a teacher for the entire classroom.
?
Beginners already struggle to follow when i use character shortcuts for options.
Like
cplane w t
To reset World top.
I love hearing about your most used commands I find it fun when I locate a new command that I didn’t know existed but solves a problem I’ve seen a lot. Some of the common ones we teach new rhino users, at work, are…
Match Properties
Scale1D
Scale 2D
Move
Copy vs Copy to Clipboard
Join and Explode
Align
Offset
Trim
Extend
Array
Mirror
Select Duplicates
We are using Rhino for architectural models and floorplans primarily.
When teaching novice or software transitioning users in industry or academia (industrial/product/transportation design), for the first longer introduction course, I believe it’s a very good idea, also in terms of pedagogic learning progression, to stick to vanilla Rhino for quite some time (like with other customisable software), because trainees need to know what the essential tools are, where they are, and what their icons look like. Also, in larger industry or academia contexts, users cannot make permanent customisations (software remotely served and IT managed), and sometimes novice users simply don’t want to fiddle around and get lost.
I firmly believe that it is of utmost importance that the principles and best practices of NURBS surface modelling are understood and practiced with a real product, and that along the way the most common booby traps are pointed out. All that snazzy, nerd, and vibe stuff can come later.
If you mean mine 3, I can’t agree with your statement.
A 3d mouse is essential for a smoother and considerably faster modeling and especially one related to achieving very good surface quality (close to the so-called “Class-A”). Being able to do fine adjustment of the camera while working with the regular mouse saves time, not to mention that it reduces or even prevents the dangerous “mouse arm syndrome”.
Custom display modes also speed up the work significantly, especially when trying to achieve good surface quality or dealing with 3d scan data. Rhino’s default display modes are scarce and much worse in terms of visual readability of the geometry. I have numerous custom display modes that help me do my work with better accuracy and visual readability, including those with ambient occlusion. My “Light lines 5 Plus” display mode is superior to Rhino’s Zebra analysis at visualizing the surface anomalies, especially considering that it’s a constant mode instead of a temporary analysis effect (combine that with the ability to assign it to individual objects while using another active display mode).
Also, check this comparison:
Default “Shaded” mode with flat looks and fake “reflections” that can mislead you about the shape and surface quality (mesh wires turned off due to the burden on the graphics card caused by the dense mesh model of the wheel):
Custom macros and scripts. Self-explanatory. They let you do so much more than Rhino’s default tools. @jim 's Filsrf_JoinV2.py script alone makes the default Rhino feel like a kids toy in comparison. And there are so many more useful free scripts, plug-ins and macros, that I can’t see myself doing my work with the default Rhino.
Other much needed macros are those in post #69 here:
Also, all the new v8 tools that make Rhino feel like using Sketch up. Auto Cplanes, Insets, gumball workrflow switching from aligned to cplane / aligned to obj. Sketchup basically has no use right now.
I fail to see 3 things to disagree with in the original post.
Also, note that one of Rhino’s strengths is exactly its vast customizability compared to other CAD software. This is definitely something that the students must be teached about right from the beginning, in order to be more productive.
This is about teaching new students with an appropriate pedagogy, and I stand by what I wrote, having taught 3D software in commercial and academic contexts since 1995.
and basically a quirky keybinding that probably no one else uses. I thought it was funny to post it here.
