Rhino 3D Tips, Questions and Answers

Not sure how you are doing it. If you posted them here, they would have gone up quicker!!...............Just kidding. I would do the screen grabs with the "Pint Screen" button and paste it into XNView. XNView saves jpegs really small, but still with great resolution. I suspect your jpegs are big. My pics average 85 kbs.


XNView is free, just Google the name XNView. You would "Import from Clipboard" to get the image from the "Print Screen" operation, (the clipboard).

[cgutzmer]

try try again... ok, I tried a few more times and cant get past sweeping the rails. I can get the sides and stern to sweep but not the bottom. It keeps going to some chain command thing. Sorry if this is frustrating for you. Move on if you would like and I will catch up if I can get there.

Look at the pictures I just posted. The 2 blue lines will form the "2 Rails", the Red Line will be what you select, You just select the lines in succession. there is no separate Command.Such that, "Run 2 Rails", you then select the 2 blue lines, then the red line, a box comes up, click O.K., and the surface will form.

For the sides, "Run 2 Rails", then select a green line, then a blue line underneath it, then select the magenta line, then when the dialog box comes up, click "O.K." Repeat for the other side.

If you get brave, "Run 2 Rails, using the Green lines, and the Black line, and you will have made a deck!

Select the 2 Magenta lines and either the top black line or the bottom red, to make the transom, it doesn't matter. Does this make sense?

[murphyaa]

Regarding ^^ What I would do, which is probably less efficient, is to type "Loft", then select the top and bottom curves. Make sure the control points are lined up right, and set to around 50, then press OK. Then "Mirror" to match both sides.

Regarding the tutorial...

I was pasting directly from print screen into Photoshop as layers in the same document. That way I only have to crop and resize once. I managed to get everything down to about 60-70 mb each. My connection sucks so bad that it's choking even on that little.

I'd post it here, but there's no image hosting feature. I'd have to upload to another site, then copy and paste to here. About 3 times the work.

What do you mean no image hosting? Just go to the advanced tab and load your picks, it's the same way you do it at the other site. 70 mb's is huge!! You sure you don't mean 70 kb.'s?

As I said in the beginning, the purpose of this tutorial is to show as many commands as I can. Loft has it's place but produces a less accurate result than running 2 rails.
In the attached pictures, the slight differences are show. the surfaces made by "Running the Rails" produce more detail lines that define the surface than the "Lofted' surface. In this model the difference is slight. When making a surface using formers, "Loft" becomes problematic in that the surfaces just don't come out right. I think "Loft" is good for simple shapes, and it a model as simple as this, it would not matter most. This is also why I would rather you start your own thread from start to finish, so people can see different ways to make parts. There is also the Surface from Curve network command, but I am not going to get into that as it is for much more complicated models. The Picture with the Red Surfaces are made from Surface From Curve Network, then the smash command used. With all the extra lines, it is virtually identical to the Run 2 Rails" command. Extra curves, for a total of 3 in each direction, must be made for the "Surface from Curve Network" command.

The surfaces made on the left are "Lofted" and "Unrolled", the surfaces on the right are made Running 3 Rails, then Unrolled. Even in this simple model, you can see the extra lines, thus extra detailed surface, compared to lofting. In reality, in a model like this, it would not matter, but as they more complicated it may.

Any surface made by Running 2 Rails, and using a straight Profile curve, can be unrolled. This is not true of lofting. For paper modeling, this is important. The again, there's the Smash command, which has it's uses, as does Squish. This may be useful for pesky surfaces, but involve some trial and error. Maybe even cutting out and seeing it if will fit.

[cgutzmer]

got everything swept! looks good there. Working on the chine - got no idea what that is but I think its what makes it a v bottom boat? Not really getting it but will work on it later. Just too many steps to take in at once for my aged mind...

There are many instructions I have given here that if you learn, will allow you to make more complex models. That is why I did this tutorial like this. I could have made a 1 minute boat, but you would not have learned any of the many commands you have learned here. I stayed away from lofting because you end up with surfaces you cannot easily unfold many times, or end up with simplistic shapes that start a bad habit. When you Run the Rails, the parts edges are so close, you can join them. This allows you to make far more complex shapes that make a better model. The attached picture shows a complex shape that cannot be made by lofting. It is the body of the Cessna 210 I may or may not finish. I will use more colored lines to make it easier, I didn't think of that at the time.

Chines are the surfaces on the bottom of the boat. The original design we are doing here is a boat with a single chine, if each side had two surfaces, it would be a boat with a double chine. Google this stuff in the future, then you will know what you're working on.

I am going to show how to use enough commands to make models. Rearranging those commands and developing the insight on how to use them is something that cannot be taught. At some point soon, it will become only possible to answer specific questions on a project that is attempted. Then pictures of what you have done so far must be posted.

[cgutzmer]

quick question - when I try to draw the chine it always goes to the top of the boat, not the bottom. Is there a trick to getting them on the bottom or am I really moving them all the way from the top to down underneath to make that nice contour? I can do it this way of course but want to make sure I am not missing the concept
Thanks
Chris

Post a pic of how it looks. Then I can see where your off from. Double Click the "Perspective" view, that's usually the best view for figuring out problems. Do a screen grab.

Is anyone ready to move on?

At this point, if someone wants to get some help with Rhino, read through this tutorial. Once completed, there is a great possibility of moving forward, but I would have to see participation to do such.

Each question MUST be posted with a screen grab of where the error taking place to facilitate a proper response, if one is possible (an answer). Questions about the tutorial itself are welcomed, but must still be posted with a picture showing where the error took place. No picture,no answer!!

[niebla de fuego]

I have never designed anything with 3-D software. Now after reading this thread it looks to me that designing paper models with Rhino is easier than doing it by hand. I wonder how difficult is it to learn the basics of the software, how much time would it take to learn to design basic things.

In any case it seems that creating a new design with this is a better option than trying to re-design an already existing model that was hand-drawn.

I have a question. Probably it is a silly one, but still I’ll make it: suppose one person designs one object with Rhino at certain scale (let’s say, a tire or a chair at 1:24). Can other person open that same file and re-scale it easily (like down to 1:33 or 1:4?. I suppose it is possible, but are there any considerations about the thickness of the surfaces that should be taken into account when is time to unfold the parts? (Does the thickness of the materials shrinks too when the object is downscaled?)

My other question is about compatibility. Let’s say my brother has designed a building in AutoCAD. Is it possible to import that AutoCAD building into Rhino to work with it?

Thanks for the information all of you have shared in this thread. I understand very little, but it is nice to learn new things.

Ruben, sent you a P.M.

Rhino is as good as you want to make it. Which really means that it can take you as far as you are willing to go. There are many ways to do the same thing. but there are ways of developing bad habits which could limit your ability.

Rhino's final output can be a jpg, bmp, png, also around 50 other formats.

So, yes, it's final output can be scaled, and within Rhino, you can scale the output. Of course this may mean rearranging parts so they fit on a page. This is always a big consideration in paper modeling.

As far as unrolling, remember this when you design the model. I have not had a problem with this. Rhino will tell you the percentage of distortion from the "UnRoll" but since the part is going to be curved back up, this is not a bad thing. It is very intuitive.

There are some really bad tutorials out there, also, many many good ones. I think of any software I have ever used, the community of people using this program have really thrown it out into the web, and once you get a basic understanding, you can then find tutorials on how to do whatever you wish. If you have a good eye, you will be able to explore and do it yourself.

AutoCad can be imported into Rhino. You may have to adjust some variables, as there are many ways of outputting AutoCad files.

If you are a student, you can get Rhino for around $200 bucks!

p.s. I sometimes give silly answers, but try to be consistent. In all seriousness though, no question is silly if it is honest.

[cgutzmer]

hey! sorry for the delays.... hope to get back on teh project shortly... gotta learn to unfold!