Will Santa and 2025 bring constraint back?

[skysurfer]

Hi everyone,
Happy new year!
I’m reviving this thread with the hope of having constraint back into the development pipeline.
I send a letter to Santa asking for constraint integration into Rhino sketches and, because I was really kind, also full implementation of Bongo 3.
Thanks
Riccardo

[altamiro.aj]

Giving a pump on this subject cause a lot of people I spoke with recently cited not having constraints workflow as a obstacle for using Rhino instead of other modellers.

My wife being one of them, started trying to teach her to use rhino since we got a 3d printer from Santa last month

[Oleksander (Alexandre)]

Hi,
I’m also waiting for the constraint!
I use Rhino for teaching in design/art school/fablab since 10 years.

And I use a lot for design furnitures for company. Everyday I need to redraw everything each time we change anything in the model. Like the thickness of the wood, size of assembly tolerance etc…
It’s very very boring, time consuming and increase the risk of error to redraw everything.

The thing which prevents me from going to the alternatives software, it’s because other like fusion need to work online.

Thanks.

[Intuos]

Hope so, it’s my most anticipated feature by a mile.

[skysurfer]

Hi All ,
Thanks we need to support this thread and feature to convince McNeel that worth to spend many development hrs on making this to works.
I’m a bug fan from the beginning but I know that this is more a product design function rather than architecture.
@brian could you tell us about this? Thanks.

[Tom_P]

I think this was an important topic…
but not much activity - I think it s important to collect those examples…

Constraints examples / challenges

Wanted to continue this discussion as well. From my perspective working in interior design and architecture, constraints are critical much like they are in manufacturing tolerances. I don’t get to decide if a railing meets code by being “close enough” or that a door is at least 4" from an adjacent wall, or that studs are 16 or 24" on center, etc. those are numbers that I always have to meet. Managing drawings and checking for things like this is of course laborious when you find something tha…

also check this post from @Joshua_Kennedy

Rhino WIP Feature: Constraints

Constraints aren’t completely canned. I plan on picking them up again. One of the reasons for pivoting to other work was use cases failing to materialize for this project. It felt a little like a solution hunting for a problem. What would be helpful for kickstarting this when work resumes is real use cases and problem examples that would benefit from constraints.

[skysurfer]

Thanks Tom,
I was waiting for you, and thanks to have linked the other threads.

[Corentin_Ferbus]

Even if I’m crossing my fingers for constraints, I would like to +1 for the wish of full implementation of Bongo 3 aswell. Rhino could be so much more attractive if you could export clean animations directly from Rhino and without any screen recorder third-party software. On this subject in 2025, when animated images are more important than statics ones, Rhino looks like a dinosaur from another world

[skysurfer]

You are so right, animation is really important especially if you can drive simulations.
I feel this is the actual problem: the overlap in functions between constraint and bongo.

[Intuos]

I want constraints for architecture. It will be the biggest productivity boon and it would allow me to ditch Revit entirely during the initial design stages. I mean, you can use constraints to move walls and to sketch and iterate through floorplan designs — and the best thing is you only have to change some numbers! There’s a reason some are interested in FreeCAD for its prowess of using constraints for architecture.

[Oleksander (Alexandre)]

Agree.
Actually the snapshot mode is really cool and easy to use for very simple animation. But there’s no export option.

[Ad_Morris (Adam Morris)]

New user here, just getting into CAD modelling and trying out different tools including Rhino, SolidWorks and Plasticity. The lack of constraints and parametric modelling features in Rhino is definitely something that’s sorely missing when compared to SolidWorks. Same with Plasticity (which is not parametric either - yet). I know there’s Grasshopper but that seems like a pretty over-blown solution in a lot of cases. So I’ve got to say this is putting me off Rhino a bit… It seems like McNeel really need to invest some resource into this and get with the times before their use base moves to other software.

[CADARTZ]

It’s on the WIP but it’s no sunshine and rainbows

If you want to complement this with Rhino right now there is one called onshape that works with tablets you can even export 3dm files and it works really well

If you have used solidworks or similar you will quickly get into it

[kyle_smith]

how can I access parametric / constraints features on WIP 9? I’m just starting an apprentice on Rhino and he’s completely lost without constraints

[ftzuk]

There aren’t any.

[CADARTZ]

would be unwise teaching this since its not certain it will be implemented and its unstable when i tried it unless there has been updates on its progress i dont know.

you need to tell that apprentice: welcome to the world of different CAD where one gives headaches and the other leads to chronic migraines the future is here for you to enjoy many different tools!

the rhino training manuals is a good start and source of info

[UAS-Design]

For designing in Rhino, I would initially consider the assembly of blocks/objects even more important than animation. However, if this is not realised, an early release of Bongo3 for MAC and WIN would of course be helpful.

[Daniel_Núñez]

Hey @Joshua_Kennedy, throwing my support in here too! I would love to see you come back to this project when you have the chance.

For me, this and a better geometric kernel for more reliable booleans are at the top of my Rhino wish list. The value of this feature, especially when leveraged through Grasshopper and Bongo, would be incredible.

Honestly, the combination of all three (and even the render engine) would be a total game-changer.

Lets give some love to this post guys.

@Joshua_Kennedy #contraint comeback!

[Oleksander (Alexandre)]

Yes please please constraints comeback!

in the era of prototyping and iteration, with lasercut, 3d print etc…it’s not possible anymore to have a good workflow without constraints.
Designer, ingeneer, concepter, architect, hobbyst… EVERYBODY need to change EVERYTHING EVERYTIME until you get the result.

I’ve been using Rhino for 10 years as a teacher, but I feel more and more inconfortable to teach to young people to work with those bad design habit. As a teacher in France, I began to use other software than Rhino for my class for this exact reason.

I’m also a teacher in Cameroon, and I don’t have choice to use Rhino because other software need to have a permanent online conexion. And in Cameroon the conexion is very bad and expensive.

So it make me so sad because on one hand, i love rhino, and it’s price and the absence of online conexion is a really really great thing espiecially for poor region. And in other hand I feel bad when I’m teaching a dated workflow that is no more adapted to our modern era.

[Jesse_Altmann]

Constraints would be very exciting, I just downloaded R9 WIP and I would have loved try constraints out.