Rhino User's Guide for Windows

1 - Introduction

Modeling in 3‑D is the process of creating a mathematical representation of an object's surfaces. The resulting model is displayed on your screen as a two-dimensional image. Rhino provides tools for creating, displaying, and manipulating these surfaces.

The Rhino interface

The image below illustrates some of the major features of the Rhino window.

Menu (1)

The menus group Rhino commands by function.

History window (2)

The command history window displays the previous commands and prompts.

Command prompt (3)

The command prompt displays prompts for the current command actions, options for the command that you can click, and allows typing command names and options.

Toolbars (4)

Toolbars contain graphical icons for initiating commands. Many toolbar icons have a second command that you can access by right-clicking the icon. The tooltip that appears when you hover over the icon tells you what the left and right mouse button do.

To access the command on the first line

To access the command on the second line

Viewports (5)

Viewports display the Rhino working environment.

Panels (6)

Tabbed panels contains layers, properties, and other settings.

Status bar (7)

The status bar is located at the bottom of the Rhino window. It displays the current coordinate system, the cursor location, and system unit. It also provides quick access to layers and toggles of modeling aids.

Rhino commands

Rhino is a command-driven program. In other words, all actions are activated by named commands such as Line, Box, or CurvatureAnalysis.

Tip: To learn more about a command, use the Command Help panel. Or, run the command and press F1 to open its help topic.

Commands are accessed through the menus, or the toolbars, or by typing the command name. In the next sections, you will explore using these methods. You may find one method easier than another. The choice is yours, and there is no preference for one method over another.

In the exercises, you will use Rhino’s commands, navigation tools, shaded modes, render, and use some basic object manipulation.

Tip: To cancel a command any time, press the Esc key.

In this session you will:

To start your first Rhino model

  1. Start Rhino.

  2. On the File menu, click New.

  3. In the Open Template File dialog box, select Small Objects - Centimeters.3dm, and click Open.

Using templates

A template is a file that serves as a starting point for a new Rhino model. When starting a new model, Rhino provides default templates that set units appropriate for the model size, provide a few layers, and display a standard four-viewport layout.

Custom templates can include any kind of document information such as units, viewport layouts, layers, and even geometry. If you find yourself creating similar models over and over, set up and save a model as a template (see the SaveAsTemplate command in the Help). That way you will not have to spend time formatting your models each time you make a new one. You can start a new model from your own template, and start from there.

Start from the menu

Most Rhino commands are located in the menus.

Menu iconStart the Cone command

Draw the cone

  1. At the Base of cone… prompt, in the Top viewport, click the left mouse button to pick the center point for the base of the cone.
  2. At the Radius… prompt, in the Top viewport, drag the mouse, and click to draw the cone’s base.
  3. At the End of cone prompt, in the Front viewport, drag the mouse up and down.
    Watch what happens in the Perspective viewport.

  4. Click to place the end of the cone.

Start from a toolbar icon

Toolbars provide a graphic interface to the commands.

To display a button tooltip, hover your mouse over the icon

Start the Curve command

Draw the curve

  1. At the Start of curve… prompt, in the Top viewport, click the mouse to start the curve.
  2. At the Next point... prompts, in the Top viewport, click a few more points.
  3. At the Next point... prompts, move the mouse into the Front viewport and click a few more points.
  4. At the Next point... prompts, move the mouse into the Right viewport and click a few more points.
  5. Right-click, press Enter, or press the Spacebar to complete the curve.
  6. Look at the curve in the Perspective viewport.

Admire your work

Start from the command line

You can start a command by typing the command name.

Keyboard iconStart the Sphere command by typing

  1. With the command prompt clear (if there is text at the command prompt, press the Esc key), just start typing Sphere.
    When you type the first letter of a command, a list of possible commands appears. The command most used in the past automatically completes on the command line.

  2. When the command name Sphere appears, press Enter, or choose Sphere from the list.

    For Help with the Sphere command, press F1 now or at any time during the command sequence.

Draw the sphere

    The default option for the Sphere command is Center, Radius, so you can simply start drawing the center of the sphere.

  1. At the Center of sphere… prompt, in the Perspective viewport, click the mouse anywhere in the viewport to pick the center point for the sphere.
  2. At the Radius… prompt, in the Perspective viewport, move the mouse away from the center point, and click to draw the sphere.
  3. In the Perspective viewport, right-click the viewport title, and on the menu, click Shaded.
    You can also use the View menu to set the viewport to Shaded mode.
    Shaded mode lets you see surfaces as opaque objects rather than wires.

For more information on display modes

  1. On the Rhino Tools menu, click Options.

  2. Under Rhino Options, click View and then click Display modes.

  3. In the Display Modes dialog box, click the Help button.

Undo a mistake

If you did something you did not want to do, you can undo your actions.

Undo a command

Redo commands

The command window and command prompt

The command window contains the command history and the command prompt.

The window is normally docked at the top of the Rhino window, but you can float the command window just like any toolbar. You can dock it at the top or bottom of the Rhino window, above, below, or next to the main toolbar or the object snap toolbar.

To float or dock the command window

  1. Drag the gripper located at the left leaving the Rhino window edge to make the command window floating.

  2. Drag the command window title bar to where you would like to dock it.
    As you drag the window, a blue shaded area appears at locations where the window can be docked.

It is a good idea to size the window so it displays at least three lines of text.

To resize the command window

  1. Move your mouse to the edge of the command window until the up and down arrow appears.
  2. Click the mouse and drag the window edge until at least three lines of text are visible.

The command prompt is where you can type command names, set options, enter distances and angles for drawing, and read the prompts for the commands.

The command prompt displays options for the command in parentheses. To activate an option, click the option with the mouse or type the option name or the underlined letter in the option.

Options give you alternate methods for using the command. Prompts are messages to you to select objects to act on, to enter information, or to enter a point on the screen. As you start to build objects, prompts become increasingly important, since they tell you what to do next.

Command options

Command options change how a command acts. For example, when you draw a circle, the circle is normally drawn on the active construction plane. The Circle command has several options including Vertical and AroundCurve.

To choose a command option

  1. Start typing Circle.
    As soon as you have typed enough letters to identify the command, the Circle command automatically completes at the prompt.
  2. Press Enter.

    The options for the Circle command appear:

    Center of circle (Deformable Vertical 2Point 3Point...)

  3. Click Vertical, or type V to draw a circle vertical to the active construction plane.

Repeat the last command

Many tasks in Rhino are repetitive. You might want to move or copy several objects, for example. Methods for repeating commands are provided.

Enter keyTo repeat the last command

These all perform the same function:

Note: Some commands, such as Undo and Delete do not repeat. Instead, the command prior to these commands is repeated. This prevents you from accidentally undoing too many commands or deleting objects accidentally.

Also, you often want to repeat the command you were using before undoing a mistake. To suit your own way of working, you can define the list of commands that do not repeat in Tools > Options > General > Never repeat these commands.

Cancel a command

Whenever you run the wrong command or do something wrong in the command procedure, you can cancel the command several ways.

To cancel the current command

When a command is running:

Get help any time

The Rhino Help file is the major resource for detailed information on specific commands.

To get help on a specific command

To download a PDF version of this guide

  1. On the Rhino Help menu, click Learn Rhino, and then click Tutorials and Samples.

  2. In the Tutorials dialog box, under User's Guide, select Rhino User's Guide for Windows.pdf.

 

 

Rhino for Windows © 2010-2018 Robert McNeel & Associates. 24-Nov-2021

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