'Using Rhinoceros' Discussion Thread

Basic worklow about digital cardmodel design

Friends,

on request I've layed down a very brief and basic
workflow of digital cardmodel design - as it contains
some topics concerning Rhino, I'm placing this message
here.

You may download a 265 kB PDF from this URL:
http://www.mtp-studio.de/downloads/workflow.pdf

Language is english, paper-size is letter.

The workflow does not contain screenshots but a
flow-diagram . . .

Best regards
Thomas Pleiner
 

Al hazlet

Member
A very informative walkthrough of your process as well as the use of different tools.

do you use Flamingo with Rhino? (I got both through school, I'm using Rhino for coursework modeling ships timbers). I've wondered about doing the model and the coloring in Rhino/Flamingo and THEN exporting it flat, with Photoshop to touch it up, add flaps, cut marks and part numbers.

Of course, I haven't done anything this way, the closest I've gotten to paper modeling is a Star wars landspeeder done closer to your pdf workflow (constructed in Rhino, exported to Photoshop, redtraced and colored/flapped/marked there).

Akex h
 

wunwinglow

Active Member
Thanks Thomas, appreciate this a lot!

I am still a bit mystified why you use AutoCAD etc, when Rhino has plenty of line drawing commands. I Use Rhino and Coreldraw alone.

Tim Perry
 

Gil

Active Member
Hi All,

Finally had some time to sit down and work with Rhino for a while.

Instead of doing a repeat on canned tutorials I reviewed Tim's unfinished work on using Rhino which was more than adequate to get enough inertia to allow real progress to be made. Tim has said it before and I'm repeating it, "Rhino is custom made for designing card models". I've used TurboCAD for many model efforts and it is good for 2D and 3D drafting but is missing some very important commands which Rhino so modestly incorporates. The surface development or unwrap command is of course the most important. Second and nearly as important is the Project command which allows 2D panel lines et cetera to be projected onto the 3D surface and then developed or unwrapped. The unwrapped surface detail can then be separated into mask layers for paint application.

The upshot of all this is that if you are seriously considering card model design I would only consider Rhino 3D as the sole package for this pursuit. Other packages have their strengths but after experiencing the Rhino User Interface there just is no going back to anything else unless a good amount of 2D drafting is required. There are some areas such as the inverse petal nose design which I'm pretty sure would be difficult or impossible to do in Rhino and will still require a fall back position to Pepakura and TurboCAD but those will most probably be the very rare exceptions...,

Gil
 

wunwinglow

Active Member
Gil, thanks for that! I think the only drawback with Rhino is the price, if it is only to be used for 'hobby' applications. When you compare it with other mainstream 3D programs it is not parametric (yet!) but otherwise I agree, it is a wonderful program.

Now, inverse nose petal design. Rhino can't do that? Sounds like you just threw the gauntlet down!! What do you require for this procedure? I just made a nosecone shape with a few curves, split it along some isolines, used the split surface edges to make some developable surfaces, unrolled them and assembled a petal form. I'll have to try cutting it out to see if it fits, but it should be close. My ability to cut will be more important though, I suspect!

petal1.png


Tim P
 

Gil

Active Member
Tim,

Thanks for proving the inverse. Now there's no reason I can think of to still use the "old" software. I actually have thought a lot about the cost of Rhino. Although comparably high it is incomparably good value. I believe that most all Rhino users would agree while those that haven't used it can only see the high price as a barrier to entry. The time saved using Rhino will be paid back many times over other lower priced entries. The lack of user frustration has also to be factored into the cost justification and to some may be worth the price alone.

By the way I have to give you another kudo for your tutorial work. The style is very informative and is kept focused on how to achieve the basic purpose. It's a great change from the factory puke" types which naively desire to show off all the bells and whistles of their software. I find real world, applications driven tutorials amongst the best learning devices and you'res is on the top!

Warmest regards, Gil
 

wunwinglow

Active Member
Aw, shucks, Gil!! :eek:ops: Now I am COMPLETELY riddled with guilt that I haven't finished those tutorials! I'll take your comments as a friendly boot up the derriere...

Tim P

Edit I just added a few more pics to the Sukhoi tutorial. Been meaning to do that for a while now! It will need approval from the webmeister, but should be visible shortly.
 

Willja67

Member
Hey guys,

On the subject of learning to use rhino, I'm just about to place my order and was wondering if the student manual was a good investment or if I should just save myself fifty bucks and try and learn it on my own?
 

cmdrted

Active Member
Willja, I recently somehow, got an education discounted version on ebay version 3 and the 2 training PDFs come with the disc. You can also download them from the rhino site with the registration code keys for free. If you want to buy the manual balance the cost of printing out about 500 pages vs the 50.00. also I think all the discs come with the basic manual, the cd itself comes in the book jacket.
 

wunwinglow

Active Member
Don't bother with the book, not yet, anyway. The Rhino help files are more like mini tutorials, and there are several proper tutorials that come on the CDs. Work through all of these will keep you busy for a while, and will cover all the important stuff. Much better to just spend TIME rather than money!! Then just start with your own projects.

Any issues, just ask here, if you don't get an immediate answer, we can all learn by solving it together.

You will love it, I promise you!

Tim P
 

Gil

Active Member
Willja,

I've tried the tutorial route and found that it's not as effective as just knowing the capabilities of the basic command set and actually doing a design project. Having prior knowlege in CAD helps a lot. Rhino's command set help function is sometimes rather curt and leaves one to experiment until it becomes clear which it always does. I've only locked the program two or three times and can't really tell you how it ended up that way but Rhino is nice enough to save a copy before it abandons execution. On reboot the project always has been exactly where I left it before I caused it to stop execution. Once you get into Rhino you'll find yourself totally jazzed by having found a program that lives up to it's rather modest claims. Per Tim, you're going to love it...,

Gil

P.S. Glad to have another Rhino user aboard...,
 

Willja67

Member
Thanks for the input guys. It's nice to know I don't have to fork out quite as much money as I figured I'd have to. Just be warned I might get annoying with all the questions I'm likely to have, and it's going to be all you guy's fault cause you told me not to get the manual :!:

I'm really looking forward to getting the package. I've got a piece of my corsair that's giving me fits. I must have redesigned it from scratch three different times by now and tweaked each of those three designs ten times each and it still doesn't work :x

The stupid thing is just a piece of fuselage, one of the simplest pieces on the whole plane and I can't get it to work. But I'm sure rhino will make short work of it if I can't get it done before rhino arrives.
 

Gil

Active Member
Test Piece

After messing about for awhile the following turned out. There always seems to be another way of achieving construction of 3D structures with Rhino. The Grumman F9F was chosen as it seems the designers wore out their french curves in this one. It's not quite where I want it yet but is coming along nicely.

I'm finding that the subject has first to be studied as regards the basic structure and the basic geometry used in the design. This then needs to be filtered by the restrictions confronted in using paper as a building medium. I'm finding this part to be even more fascinating as you'll never see the subject in the same light ever again.

Gil

gp011pd.jpg


P.S. If upon viewing the image you reflexively snapped the right mouse button to rotate the perspective you might be a Rhino...,
 

wunwinglow

Active Member
Reflex use of the right mouse? Oh yes...... Even worse if you use several progs. VX at work requires you to press the F2 key to pan and roll the view. All the Pro/E workstations use the ctrl key, while in Wings3D you click the middle mouse button to activate the roll, then the left to relock it. Plenty of comedic potential there, then.

Ever been reading a book, wondered what the time was and looked at the bottom right corner of the page? Time to go for a little walk, I reckon.

Tim P

PS Keep us posted with the Panther! Beautiful aircraft.
 

Gil

Active Member
Panther Practice Update

Making a little progress on getting the straight line lofts to better fit the Panthers 3D envelope. Some are straight forward while others are a little more involved. Some observations:

o Most 3 Views aren't very accurate and treat each with suspicion until proven otherwise
o A large number of photographs with varying light and view are required
in order to resolve nuances in curvature and design
o Lofting using NURBs is useful to create accurate cross sections for developable lofts. Often a nurbs or surface developed from a curve set will give you a good idea of how to turn it into a developable loft
o Treat snaps with great respect
o Have enough exposure to other card model designs so they can be used to solve similar design issues
o Nearly all real life designs have fairly simple geometries at their cores..., you have to find it in order to ease the design burden of converting to straightline lofts
o Try and keep the drawing area as uncluttered as possible
o Ctrl-S (save) often

Gil

gp023rn.jpg
 

Willja67

Member
This post has nothing to do with the last ones posted. I've finally gotten around to wanting to use the unrollsrf command to design the landing gear leg of my corsair and I beleive I have it constructed properly. I've used the analyze command and everything is in the green (meaning Rhino says it is a developeable surface). Then I entered the unrollsrf command and selected the surface I wanted and that's as far as I've gotten. So how is it done? Is there a tutorial with basic step by step instructions?
 

NOBI

Active Member
willja67 said:
This post has nothing to do with the last ones posted. I've finally gotten around to wanting to use the unrollsrf command to design the landing gear leg of my corsair and I beleive I have it constructed properly. I've used the analyze command and everything is in the green (meaning Rhino says it is a developeable surface). Then I entered the unrollsrf command and selected the surface I wanted and that's as far as I've gotten. So how is it done? Is there a tutorial with basic step by step instructions?

Show us your landing gear maybe picture can tell us how can we solve this problem for u
 

Gil

Active Member
What does it say in the line above the command line? Unable to devlop surface probably, if not look around on the construction plane for a developed surface. One other point is to use only the "straight" lofting selection in the dialogue box. Rhino has some quirks regarding what is developable. Simplifying into lines and arcs sometimes works. Sometimes a "rebuild" and re-loft works...,

-Gil
 

Willja67

Member
Thanks Nobi and Gil for the quick replies, turns it everything worked just fine. Rhino just stuck the developed surfaces in the lower left corner of the drawing area and stuck each of the 3 surfaces (all small pieces and easily missed :eek:ops: )on top of each other.

Is there a way to specify where you want the surfaces unrolled?

Also I don't know how to do screen grabs so that would be helpful for the next time I need help so you guys can see what's going on.
 

SteveM

Member
willja67 said:
Thanks Nobi and Gil for the quick replies, turns it everything worked just fine. Rhino just stuck the developed surfaces in the lower left corner of the drawing area and stuck each of the 3 surfaces (all small pieces and easily missed :eek:ops: )on top of each other.

That's why I select a single surface at a time to unroll. :D

willja67 said:
Is there a way to specify where you want the surfaces unrolled?

Not that I know of, but you soon get used to them being created at 0,0 and just moving them someplace more convenient.

willja67 said:
Also I don't know how to do screen grabs so that would be helpful for the next time I need help so you guys can see what's going on.

There is a shaded ball on the tool bar that if you just click gives a shaded view of the current viewport. If you hold down the mouse button instead of clicking you'll get a set of buttons including one that looks like a camera to take a screenshot of the current viewport.

Steve
 
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