Using QT for the UI of a Rhino Plugin

Rhino Developer
1

Hello,

I am developing a plugin for Rhino3D with the C++ SDK.
I am looking for ways to build the GUI component of the plugin and the options seem quite limited with C++.
We already use QT in our project and I was wondering if someone has experience or any information about using QT’s QML for the UI inside Rhino. Is it something feasible? Any limitations?
In all cases, for people who use the C++ SDK, what do you use to build your UI menus and windows?

Thank you

2

We’re using both c++ and c#, but develop Rhino UI exclusively in C# with WPF, as it is relatively easy to script c++ rhino commands from the gui, or if necessary use p-invoke.

3

Thanks for your reply!
Can you clarify a little more on how you send c++ rhino commands from the GUI directly without having to do the transition to native (and exporting every single C++ function or object there is)? Thank you

4

What I mean is, let’s say you have a c++ plug-in with rhino commands. Then when a user performs an action, like clicking a button, you execute that command using RhinoApp.RunScript(…)
This way, it is easy to interact from UI with the c++ plug-in. This way, you can creat many commands that change state, or perform actions.

5

Using Qt is feasible but not recommended. Qt has its own message loop and a qt application is always needed . This means you have to initialize a qtapplication in your dll and link its loop to the main app message loop.

It can be done but …

Gd