Software

Steve and Raggi,
I've found the "enable history" command to be very useful. I can watch a surface change shape as I move control points of the basis curves used to create it. Also, like Steve said, if you enable history when making a curve from projecting or intersecting, that curve will change shape as you move surface control points. Sort of a back door to dynamic sectioning! Way cool.
Michael

 

Nice tip!
I'll try that

 

Here are some more ideas on how you could use history.

http://www.rhino3d.com/tutorials/softbox/Soft_boxes.htm

Michael, I'm still concerned about why you stated Rhino's 2D capabilities leave a lot to be desired. Was this just an "on the cuff" comment or is this a common concept in the boat design community? I want to figure out why people would think that and what we could do to improve 2D capabilities in the future. Just a little confused.

Thanks,
-Steve

 

Steve why you ask??, you know users want 2DCAD features running in rhino basically eliminate the need to use an external 2D Cad software.

IMO i prefer rhino to stay on the 3D modeling side. Leave 2D for 2D applications.

 

Hi CGN,
We are by no means leaving the 3D modeling side. At the same time we have received a large number of requests over the years to add more drafting capabilities to Rhino and that is what we did in V4.

I was just concerned because it sounded like Michael was originally planning on not purchasing V4 because the 2D capabilities were not at a level that he needed. It sounded like this was a case where a potential customer would not want to upgrade because we did not meet his expectations of what the next version should be capable of.

Thanks,
-Steve

 

Steve,
Perhaps a little bit of both. As I learn more about 2D in Rhino 4, I realize I was wrong about that comment. I have used v3 for 3 years now, and used to do all my final drawings by hand because of the limited 2D capabilities in v3 for final drawing layout. Last year I got TurboCad for some of my drawings, (still doing by hand the ones I want to look more artistic), but using Turbocad after Rhino is so frustrating. Well, I finally got the hang of TurboCad, and now am trying to see if Rhino 4 can replace it for my final drawings. I went through the "Accessing page layout" tutorial, (had to hunt it down in the WIKI section) but was still left with the problems I mentioned earlier. Now I am slowly learning that v4 really can do what I need it to, and am very impressed with the improvements you have made. But the learnig curve has to fit in to my daily work schedule, which makes it slow.
As to the industry as a whole, I do think there is still the perception that Rhino can't replace an old fashioned 2D program for final 2D drawings. That should change as more people become aware of the improvements in v4. Perhaps more aggressive marketing of those changes would help? I know you have a list of the new capabilities in the "whats new in v4" section of the website, but more tutorials might help.
Thanks for all you help.
Michael

 

Hi Michael,
We aren't trying to completely replace 2D programs with V4, just help streamline the workflow. By adding support for things like line types, line widths, and hatches it should be easier to get more of your information from Rhino into the 2D CAD application of your choice or from your 2D CAD application into Rhino.

Thanks for your feedback. It is always appreciated.
-Steve

 

Thanks Steve great to have someone from rhino listening to our comments, I have one comment, have you seen moi3D?, the polygon conversion is great and easy i always wonder why rhino was not able to achieve something similar to moi3d, i know the new version has a lot of control on meshes (and myself i learned how to use them since V2) but i was surprised to see how well the conversion form nurbs to mesh works on moi3d. is it something that rhino can do to facilitate such translation (nurb to mesh)?

Thanks

 

Hi CGN,
There are an awful lot of meshing options in Rhino and meshes are used for such a wide variety of purposes that it is hard to have a "perfect" solution mesh for every purpose with a single setting. What type of meshes are you talking about (for display, STL output, FEA, subdivision surfaces, export to a different program,...)?

Thanks,
-Steve

 

Rendering.... I mentioned I know how to use it (mesh settings) and what mesh settings I need when fea or rendering or stl output, if you have look at moi3d and check how it manages the conversion of nurb to mesh you will see what I’m talking about, I don't mind the time converting to fea o stl is great to have all the options to tweak the mesh, but when rendering I would like to see something like moi3d simple and fast it produces good mesh without having to play with the settings too much.

cheers

 

Hi CGN,
If you are having problems with the render meshes that you are getting out of Rhino, then we probably need to look at your model to figure out what we are doing wrong.

Thanks,
-Steve

 

No problems with meshes, please read the post...but problem with time expend on tweak the settings until i get the right mesh that i like, just looking at moi3d the way it handles converting nurbs to meshes really fast and simple.

And i can use such in rhino to speed up converting a full model of a boat to mesh to render on other applications (wich i do now but now using a little bit more moi3d)

Thanks

 

Low Cost CAD

Cobalt sells for $5000.00, and it was programed by CSI who sells their version of CAD, Concepts Unlimited for $1800.00. It is nearly identical to Cobalt CAD. Puch Software bought out CSI. Punch specializes in very low cost software and relies on volume sales and they now sell ViaCAD which happens to be, you guessed it, a clone of CU. This software now sells for $99.00 and is a clone of Cobalt. This is real and the software is good. The surface modeling of ViaCAD may not be another Rhino CAD but it is worth a look.

 

Funny, I just looked at ViaCAD the other day and thought it sounded too good to be true Can it save as IGES or STEP? If it can you ca use it with Alibre Xpress, the free version, for parametric solids inside the hull, maybe.

 

Regarding Maxwell Render,
Novedge has a nice gallery of examples,
http://www.novedge.com/Gallery.asp?GID=74&AFTK=NV0307
If you find "Boat" in the pull down liste, you get this one (made by Keytoon, probably) :