Rhino Environment

Rhino Environment

The following tutorial will introduce you to the fundamentals of the Rhino Surface modelling tool.

Before Rendering, we will construct some simple components to familiarise you with the Rhino environment.(or open a sample file). The environment is similar to AutoCAD and was originally developed to run within AutoCAD.

For initial experience in manipulation views open: First Model.3dm
Right mouse click in a each view and move mouse. This has the effect of:

• Panning in Orthographic views
• Rotation in a perspective view.

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To Dynamically zoom any view press Ctrl and RMB (Right mouse button) and move mouse back and fwd. (Can also be achieved using the roller ball).

To Dynamically Pan any view press Shift and RMBand move the mouse around the view.

To Dynamically Rotate any view press Ctrl and Shift and RMB and move mouse.

To Return to the original view orientation, Select the [Home] key.

To change the setting of any view Right click on its name then select the appropriate option. Try, Wireframe Display, Shaded Display, Ghosted Display, Rendered Display.

The standard, Snap, Orthgraphic and Objects snap settings located at the bottom of the screen and can be activated and deactivated by clicking on the option respectively

Clicking on the [Osnap] tile brings up the Object snap tool bar allowing the various options to be activated and deactivated.

View, Zoom, Extents and view, zoom, extents all can be used to fit one or all views respectively.

Moving components (or copying). Select then with the help an appropriate snap point on the base of the cone.

For practice, Locate the cone on top of the cylinder.

Layers

As with AutoCAD, objects can be drawn on individual layers.
To open this dialog box selects:
Edit, Layers, Edit Layers.
To Create New layers, select the left most icon. /
Fast access to layer tools can be obtained by left clicking on the layer (left of snap) on the bottom of the screen) /

The 'padlock' controls the ability to edit component on the layer.

The 'bulb' controls it visibility.

Column 3 sets the layer colour (wire frame only)

The last column (circle) allows the material to be defined for rendering purposes. (See later)

Create, a new layer for each shape, then by selecting the object followed by F3, change its layer property.

Import geometry from other programs

As an initial exercise we will import the pulley block created in year 3.

Rhino cannot read Solid Edge files. It is therefore necessary to translate the solid edge files into a neutral format.

A variety of Formats exist, such as DXF, IGES, SAT, STEP and X_T. Step is the most suitable for translation 3d Solid Models.

IGES and STEP are the only formats common to both applications. However STEP is the better option as it retains more of the original model definition.

On first importing the pulley block assembly it is interpreted as a single object.
In order to separate it into its constituent components it is necessary to perform a 'first level' explode. To do this select assembly followed by the explode icon. / /

Further exploding operations can be performed if it is required to break the component down into it individual surfaces (this would be beneficial if we want to manipulate individual surfaces surfaces).

(N.B. Experience has found that a component must be exploded a second time in order to apply materials to it.)

To Render a component it must be a 'Polysurf' object. To check this select:

Analyse, diagnose, list ….to check this.