VL.Rhino - use Rhino & Grasshopper geometry in realtime with vvvv

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Hi everyone,

I wanted to share a library I’ve been building: VL.Rhino, a bridge between Rhino/Grasshopper and vvvv gamma, a visual live-programming environment for .NET that’s popular in interactive installations, generative design, and realtime visualization.

What it does:

VL.Rhino lets you load .3dm files directly into vvvv → geometry, PBR materials, lights, cameras, layer hierarchies, User Strings, blocks. Everything comes across without any export step. No Rhino installation required (it uses rhino3dm under the hood).

The main addition over the free open-source version is the Grasshopper Live-Link: bidirectional realtime data exchange between Grasshopper and vvvv via shared memory. Geometry, floats, vectors, and strings flow both ways: parametric Grasshopper definitions driven by realtime vvvv data, or GH geometry rendered live in the Stride renderer.

Typical use cases:

  • Parametric facades or architectural elements controlled by realtime sensors, hand tracking, or interaction data

  • .3dm models used as the spatial backbone of interactive installations

  • Rhino/GH as the geometry engine, vvvv as the realtime rendering and interaction layer

  • Rhino Compute integration for cloud/local geometry processing from vvvv

-> More info: https://www.vlrhino.com

Happy to answer questions about the bridge or the workflow! Especially curious to hear from anyone doing architectural visualization or installation work.

Moritz

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