David - Jimmy is referring to Rhino commands such as Grasshopper, GrasshopperLoadOneByOne, etcâŚ
-w
Sorry to be negative all. But given McNeelâs track record I wouldnât expect any of this to happen in V8.
McNeel adds new tools but almost always they are flawed, and it takes years to get them fixed. Notice blocks, layouts, worksessions, gui toolbars, Gh bugs and tons of other stuff are all bugged and no chance for a fix.
RM
This a great thread. Lots of interesting opinions, use cases and ideas. Kudos to the McNeel team for always reaching out to their user base and giving them a voice in the future development of the platform.
Here are my opinions/feedback about some interesting point in this thread. (I work in automotive - Class A surfacing among other things at an OEM) My opinions are biased. I am a Rhino user and I much prefer it over Alias for a variety of reasons. I would like as many features for VSR to be integrated in to native Rhino 8 as possible, but I understand there are limitations.
RE: Rhino <> Alias
There is nothing that you can build in Alias that you can not also build in Rhino, period. This goes for âClass-Aâ surfaces as well. In fact I think there are things that you can do in Rhino that are very difficult of near impossible to do in Alias. There are some things that one does better than the other in terms of command operation and interface, and vise versa.
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I believe Rhino has much better system stability overall than Alias. Alias crashes far more frequently in my day-to-day use.
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Alias contains FAR more redundant tools that do the same things. some are outdated or obsolete or under developed and located in different parts to the interface with no rhyme or reasonâŚit gives the impression that they where added as afterthoughts.
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That being said, several Rhino commands would be much better served with interactive dialogue interfaces and dynamic previews similar to AliasâŚQuery Edit is also a great feature.
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Alias is not more expensive because it is âbetterâ than Rhino (this has more to do Autodeskâs business model and economic incentives - Thatâs a subject for another thread though). It is also not âbetterâ or more capable because of it being more difficult to learn and use.
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Rhino and Alias have different approaches to command structure, execution, and interface, and they both come with trad-offs.
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Alias has been mostly developed for automotive body styling, and its great for that. However, automotive is the most complex product development cycles in existence. Automotive exterior gets most of the attention, but that is only one specific aspect of the vehicleâŚAutomotive design covers almost every design discipline in a single product. Seating, interior components, steering wheels, exterior lighting, buttons and switches, accessories, color and trimâŚRhino works better for the needs of some of these studios than Alias ever has, or could. Rhino is a generalists toolâŚit does lots of things well and we have identified several opportunities where Rhino has been a benefit to workflows in a variety of studios.
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There is a lot of argument here back and forth about Rhino for architecture vs automotive vs product design vs CNC workflows, etc, etc, etc. They are all important for sure. Architecture and Automotive design might seem very different on the surface, and they are, HOWEVER from a process stand point, especially with change management, they are very similar. Iâve learned a lot from people that use Grasshopper for BIM and have leveraged those ideas directly to my work in automotive. We all operate with limitations for cost and resource allocation in each of our fields and McNeel is no different. I have trusted that the McNeel team will allocate their resources as they see fit and will prioritize tool development that will bring the most value to as many users as possible.
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At the end of the day, where I work, all math data is eventually evaluated and released in NXâŚso for the most part whether is was originally developed in Rhino or Alias is a moot point. In the last few years among my collogues and management there has bee much more openness about the use and adoption of a wider array of tools and platforms within the auto industry.
My âOPINIONSâ on âClass-Aâ surfacing. (This can be very dogmatic subject in some circlesâŚmany of you will not share my opinions on it. It is sometimes treated with religious intensity)
- Class-A is considered any customer facing surface by default. however this is not exclusive. (This is obvious)
- Class-A is NOT a property of a surface, or even a designation of surface quality. (G1, G2, or even G3 alignment & continuity could technically be considered properties of a class a surface, BUT non-Class-A surfaces can have G1, G2, or G3 alignment as well - and some class-a surface fail this criteria with out making compromises to whatâs considered âClass-Aâ
- âClass-Aâ is one of those loosely defined industry terms and what it means can vary by industry or product.
- Class-A is is simply put, a methodology for surface development. Thatâs it. its a general set of rules or best practices in NURBS modeling that was born out of the abilities and more importantly, the limitations of the technology that has been available over the period of time that Class-A sculpting has developed (or not developed)
- Class A methods do have limitations in the kinds of surfaces, geometries and forms that can be created within a very narrow definition, similar to the same kind of limitations in form development that happens with subdiv sculpting or quad based modelingâŚBecause of this, compromises are often made to these âClass-Aâ methods, I.E. more and more complex patch layouts, or increases in surface degree.
- No software package âmakes Class-Aâ surfacesâŚDigital Sculptors do. In the same way that a hammer doesnât make the framing for a houseâŚa Carpenter does.
*The REAL purpose of the Class-A methodology is for reducing surface complexity as much as possible for editing and change management (which is nearly constant in automotive design and development)
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280+ posts but more than half of them are from just 10 peopleâŚ
jusâ sayinââŚ
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Being one of the most progressing topics in a short period of time means that the discussion is very important for the Rhino users who demand for better tools that could make their work quicker and easier. 
For example, Alias has an optional âExplicit controlâ inside its main modeling tools which is a huge advantage when it comes to surface quality, control over the general shape, time and ease of achieving G2 curvature continuity by adjusting far less control points subsequently. This option alone saver several commands that are other wise mandatory in Rhino to achieve similar results, such like: âRebuilt surfaceâ, âRebuild surface UVâ, âChange degreeâ, âRemove knotâ and multiple use of âMatch surfaceâ after some of those commands. Imagine how powerful the âBlend surfaceâ, âMatch surfaceâ, âSweep 2 railsâ, âSweep 1 railâ and âNetwork surfaceâ would be with an âExplicit controlâ option!
Static Zebra and coloured light lines that both Alias and VSR have are self-explanatory. They let the modeler examine the surface quality of the model from various angles without losing track on the stripes that stay the same (unless they are manually rotated via the dedicated handle).
User-friendly control point modeling via handles next to each selected control point is yet another HUGE advantage of Alias over Rhino. In Rhino, control point modeling is done in a slow way, and instead of using handles the modeler is forced to use rather non-intuitive tools such with no direct UI elements on the geometry itself. Also, the drag modes are inconsistent. For example, the âControl polygonâ drag mode will not lock the direction of editing, leaving room for errors due to the fact that the selected control point(s) could be moved in some RANDOM direction, as well.
Activating the âControl polygonâ drag mode does not automatically hide the Gumball, forcing the user to do that manually. If you try to drag a control point in this particular drag mode while the Gumball is on, you end up with dragging with the Gumball instead. Which is not along the control polygon, despite the selected drag mode that was supposed to lock the directions of dragging.
Lack of simple to implement U and V markers on the edited surface (also, showing up to the target surface(s) while using certain commands such like âMatch surfaceâ) forces the user to guess which direction is U and which is V. Iâm aware that you can set custom colours for each direction, however, the âRebuild surfaceâ, âRebuild surface UVâ and the âMoveUVNâ tool use U and V letters while the actual surface in the viewport donât. Letters are far easier to recognize instantly by the majority of people. Also, the tiny coloured lines representing the U and V directions upon selecting a control point lie directly on the highlighted control polygon, making them even more difficult to distinguish, especially on 4K resolution and for colour blind people. The UV markers should be customizable in both, size and colour.
With UV markers:
Also, an extremely huge disadvantage of âMatch surfaceâ is the inability to set either U or V isocurve direction to match to the target edge, as shown here:
A similar issue is found in the âBlend surfaceâ tool which does not have an option to align the end handles to the target surfaceâs side edges (even on trimmed one).
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Great Bobi! 
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Hi Bobi, you have generously shown everyone on this forum your modeling skills and help people through modeling problems. That is great!
If you had to pick just one of the suggestions you have explained, which one would you choose? Which one would do the most good for you?
For me, it would be the explicit control with the directional markers at the control point selected. That way the Move UVN could be thrown away , because it would be integrated into the control point selected.â-Mark
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I canât pick one of those since at least 3 or 4 of them are essential for improving the modeling workflow.
âExplicit controlâ is really important, because it eliminates the need to use multiple tools after the surface creation in order to get an acceptable result. âBlend surfaceâ and âMatch surfaceâ will benefit most from this option when itâs implemented.
âControl point modelingâ via arrow handles directly around the selected control point(s) is another hugely important feature thatâs missing in Rhino at the moment. But those arrow handles should let the user use two different drag strengths, as I showed in one of my images in the topic, because certain adjustments must be really small. It would be too time consuming to constantly change the drag strength manually each time. This is why, using two arrow handles for each direction is the better way to execute it (one arrow uses the global manually activated drag strength, and the second arrow is always set at 1% drag strength for precise adjustments to achieve G2 continuity while using the âZebra analysisâ or the âEdge continuityâ tool).
Static Zebra helps with figuring out and fixing the imperfections of the model, so everyone will benefit from using it, no matter which industry.
âPatchâ must be as good as âX-Nurbsâ. Solidworks, Catia and all major CAD programs have much more powerful patch tools than Rhino. I use âPatchâ only 2-3 times per year, because it capabilities are quite limited.
âFillet edgeâ is very important for many Rhino users, but itâs also quite limited and fails in nearly every occasion when I use it. This is why I rarely rely on it and instead replace it with manually trimming the surface edges via pipes and then fill up the space with âBlend surfaceâ.
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@jordi.rovira - can you please post a simple example that approximates what this would do, even roughly? I guess it would be mostly useful if the target is a surface and not an edge, correct? Does the vector apply to all edges being matched, if more than one, or it it set per edge?
-Pascal
Hi this will be one of my first posts here.
It is really interesting for me, that this topic got so much attention.
I work 11 years in automotive (Alias Surface, Icem Surf), and I use Rhino since university for my hobby projects (so cca 15 years).
From my experience - Rhino is nowhere close to be seriously used in automotive for modeling (but we use it for file translation and for Grasshopper - to be honest - lack of high quality modelling capabilities brings us many times headaches in Grasshopper as well).
BUT, there are some tasks and fields, where Alias and Icem are âoverkillâ, but Rhino is still not on the level, where it can be effectively used - those are for examples design of tractors, trams, trains etc.
I think that is the field, where Rhino should aim with its toolset - not to cars (that is target too far right now), but something like âsub-automotiveâ field, where high level of direct modelling is asked, but not-so-ultra-high.
Only like 1/10th of the toolset of Icem would be sufficient for these cases.
What is needed to update most for those purposes was pointed out earlier, so yes, it is:
- control point movement
- match
- blend
- trim
- deviation analysis
- highlight analysis (btw - that is must have also for serious SubD modeling, should be added independent on other tools. We wanted to use Rhino SubDs for early stages of car design, but without showing highlights, it is not really useful)
Martin
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Good morning Pascal,
I use this function to surface edges and projected on the surface as well.
I can show you a example how is applied in both cases.
To the edge (preview):
In Z(result):
Normal direction (result):
You can see the diference what happens between these two examples (in normal the row is wavy).
For me mostly in blends and fillets, need to have a specific direction to avoid unexpected results.
I think is because the big difference of the distance between rows in each surface, where the impact when matching is more unpredictable. But I am not a math expert.
Also projection onto a surface (with blend option activated,so all the control points are translated in the same proportion) :
Preview situation:
To Z:
The advantge of this is when projection a surface onto another from a vector, is that you preserve exactly the same shape from the view you projected, and it can be very convenient in some cases.
Regarding to being applied to all edges at a time, I have never used this kind of matching, I prefer to go one by one manually. (I checked it and icemsurf doesnât have vector projection in the multi-matching function, only normal.)
If you need another type of example, please let me know.
Jordi.
@jordi.rovira - thanks - so the movement of the control points to achieve the desired continuity is constrained to the axis. I can imagine this might compromise the results in certain cases, correct?
If it is not too much trouble, having example surfaces - input and result for an axis constrained case - would be helpful.
-Pascal
The ability of each control points to move closer to or away from the edge is generally needed to exactly match curvature along the entire edge, not just at a few points. This was discussed in Wish: More options for "Match surface" - #16
Yes, but with feedback as to how far out your match is to perfect, you can make the decision to increase the order to get an acceptable match. The matching tools and analysis definitely go hand-in-hand.
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Yep, feedback is a prominent area in our discussions here about how to make this all betterâŚ
-Pascal
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Hi Martin, Iâd be curious to get your opinion on the plugin I have been developing (Global-Edge-Continuity on PackageManager) and how it compares to the tools you are used to work with.
Hi Pascal,
Here I attached an input to see how the matching projected in a vector behaves (Z in this case):
Matchsurface-input.3dm (98.6 KB)
Also I think would be nice, not only to constraint the direction to the origin axis, but depending of your need, to Cplane or to the current view.
Yes, in some cases may happen that, but you have to have a good judgment when apply it or not. I mean, maybe is a base patch problem, not having enough degree or the direction you use is too compromisedâŚ
But in general terms it is very useful and convenient, mostly when you are rebuilding geometry.
Jordi.
2 Likes
Hello Gijs,
thanks for your work, Iâm not sure I will be able to test it soon (at work we have older SR of Rhino 7 and at home I have Rhino 6)
From the pictures I have seen on the forum, it seems, that your plugin represents basic functions of Icem Surf âMatching Analysisâ and âSurfaces Checkâ.
âDeviation analysisâ is more about Curve-to-Curve (but also Edge-To-Edge), Curve-To-Surface.
I know some of these function are somewhere in Rhino, it is just somehow not comfortable to use it.
But yes, in the end it is not about how it is named, but if it has logic and is easy to use.
One thing I also forgot to mention - if there will be some changes to control point movement, please add those changes also to SubD modelling - there the possibility to move points on tangents etc. is also missing a lot.
I can compile the next for an earlier version, whatâs the version you use?