Create surfaces

A surface is like a rectangular stretchy rubber sheet. The NURBS form can represent simple shapes, such as planes and cylinders, as well as free-form, sculptured surfaces.

All surface creation commands in Rhino result in the same object: a NURBS surface. Rhino has many tools for constructing surfaces directly or from existing curves.

All NURBS surfaces have an inherently rectangular organization.

Even a closed surface such as a cylinder is like a rectangular piece of paper that has been rolled up so two opposite edges are touching. The place where the edges come together is called the seam. If a surface does not have a rectangular shape, either it has been trimmed or the control points on the edges have been moved.

Closed and open surfaces

A surface can be open or closed. An open cylinder is closed in one direction.

A torus (donut shape) is closed in two directions.

Create surface primitives

3DFace

Creates mesh or SubD faces that can be standalone or added to an existing mesh or SubD.

Plane

Draw a rectangular planar surface.

Box

Draw a solid box.

Sphere

Draw a solid sphere.

Ellipsoid

Draw a solid ellipsoid.

Cone

Creates a surface cone.

TruncatedCone

Draw a NURBS truncated cone.

Cylinder

Draw a polysurface cylinder.

Torus

Draw a NURBS torus (donut shape).

Create a surface from points

PlaneThroughPt

Fit a rectangular planar surface through points.

SrfControlPtGrid

Draw a surface from a grid of points that represent surface control points.

SrfPt

Draw a surface from three or four corner points.

SrfPtGrid

Draw a surface from a grid of points that lie on the surface.

Create a surface from curves

DevLoft

Creates a single developable surface between two rails.

ExtrudeCrv

Drive closed planar curves in a straight line.

EdgeSrf

Create a surface from two, three, or four curves.

Fin

Extrude a curve on a surface in the surface normal direction.

Loft

Fit a surface through profile curves that define the surface shape.

NetworkSrf

Fit a surface through a network of crossing curves.

Patch

Fit a surface through curves and point objects.

PlanarSrf

Create a planar surface from planar curves.

RailRevolve

Revolve a profile curve around an axis and along a rail curve.

Revolve

Create a surface or SubD by revolving a profile curve around an axis.

Ribbon

Offset a curve and create a ruled surface between the curves.

Sweep1

Fit a surface through profile curves and one edge curve.

Sweep2

Fit a surface through profile curves and two edge curves.

Create a surface from other surfaces

CutPlane

Create planar surfaces through objects at specified locations.

Drape

Create a surface through the intersections of objects and points projected toward the construction plane.

OffsetSrf

Copy a surface parallel to the original.

VariableOffsetSrf

Copies a surface in the normal direction with different distances at specified locations.

UnrollSrf

Flatten (develop) a surface or polysurface with curvature in one direction to a planar surface.

Other methods

Heightfield

Create a surface based on gray-scale color values in an image file.

MeshToNURB

Duplicate each mesh face with a NURBS surface.

Symmetry

Mirror a copy of a curve or surface with continuity.

See also

Edit surfaces

Split and trim curves and surfaces