Rhino v9 - a list of our favourite features

Recently we made a summary of what's coming in the new version of Rhino software, Rhino 9. Following on from that introduction we've made a more complete list of our favourite new, and improved, features of Rhino's latest version which is incoming... soon!

We've selected some of the new and improved Rhino 9 functionalities to feature in our series of Rhino 9 videos, if there is a link next to the command list below then check-out that video to see us put it in to action for you.

01 Modelling

Fillet Edge / Blend Edge / Chamfer Edge (featured in our Surfacing Commands Video)

• Fillets, Blends and Chamfers are now more robust and work in more difficult situations
• Setback surfaces can be turned on and off and are available for Fillets and Blends
• Setbacks are now constructed from MultiBlends
• Multi-blend quality has improved - The ‘bloated corners’ that multi-blend creates in Rhino 8 are now corrected and the multi-blend is now constrained within the bounds of the original surfaces
• Setback now also works with concave corners
• Multi-blends are now applied in cases where Rhino 8 would create gaps

Fillet Surface / Chamfer Surface (featured in our Surfacing Commands Video)

• Substantially revised and improved for v9
• Continue across faces option for FilletSrf and ChamferSrf. This allows a single initial fillet to be propagated across faces that are tangent
• Join option for FilletSrf, FilletSrfCrv, FilletSrfToRail, and ChamferSrf. Surface Fillets can be trimmed and joined to create a watertight result
• Simplified (revolved) surface for FilletSrf and ChamferSrf where possible. Better output for moving downstream to (for example) solid modellers like Revit and SolidWorks
• Interactive Dialog. See live preview of result and change radius – extremely useful when judging what size radius to apply
• Better and cleaner results with FilletSrfCrv and more robust FilletSrfToRail

Patch (featured in our Surfacing Commands Video)

• New. Completely re-written for Rhino 9, Patch can now be regarded as a serious surfacing tool
• Patch takes a set of surface edges, curves and points as input constraints to create a multi-sided patch with positional (G0), tangential (G1) or curvature (G2) continuity to selected edges, curves and points. Additionally point clouds can be used as internal constraints and meshes can be used both as positional and internal constraints
• Patch can create Untrimmed, Projected, Molded and Multi Blend surfaces
• The Untrimmed option allows for a four-sided untrimmed surface to be created. Single-span curvature continuous surfaces can be created given the appropriate starting geometry
• The Projected option creates a trimmed surface and works best with input edges or curves that are planar or close to being planar
• The Molded option creates a trimmed surface from curves or surface edges that are non-planar
• The Multi-Blend creates a result built from multiple four-sided untrimmed surface patches. This option is ideal for creating smooth surfaces with continuity in difficult five-sided situations – for example when filling a hole created by a fillet or blend failure

Inflate Curves (featured in our short video, coming soon)

• New. Allows domed (embossed) surface to be created from closed planar curves. A draft angle can be applied to create production ready data

Boolean Improvements

• Improved. Booleans in Rhino 9 now run more quickly as multiple Booleans can be run in parallel.  Boolean operations will now process all objects in a selection including failures whereas, in Rhino 8, if any one of these selected objects failed this would result in the command failing. Additionally, Non-Manifold geometry is less likely to be created with Boolean operations

Sub D Match (featured in our short video, coming soon)

• New. A SubD surface edge can now be matched to a NURBS surface edge or curve. Explicit control over the matching allows the SubD shape change to be controlled

SubD Knife

• New. One or more SubD Faces can be ‘cut’ with the Knife command to change topology

SubD Display

• Improved. Smoother display of rounded SubD edges and features such as Soft Creases

Rebuild Curve

• New. Rebuild Curve command re-written to using new technology. Produces results that are much closer to the starting curve. Dialog box has more controls and options

Global Edge Continuity (featured in our Surface Manipulation and Analysis video)

• New. Global Edge Continuity quickly analyses all edge pairs of, for example, a complex polysurface and for continuity. Continuity can be checked separately for G0 Positional, G1 Tangency and G2 Curvature continuity. Each edge pair is labelled on the model and reported in a list dialog. A curvature graph can be displayed for out of tolerance edges and the tolerances for all three matching conditions can be user defined

UVN Gumball (featured in our Surface Manipulation and Analysis video)

• New. The Gumball now has a Control Polygon alignment that, when control points are selected, constrains movement to U, V and N directions. There is now a separate Drag Strength slider for N direction movement

Soft Transform (featured in our Surface Manipulation and Analysis video)

• New. Soft transform is a tool commonly associated with Meshes and SubD’s. NURBS surface control points can now be manipulated with the new Soft Transform command either using a spherical radius of influence or by allowing a specified number of points in U and V to control the ‘washing away’ of the movement
• When points on a surface are being manipulated with Soft Transform specific edges can be constrained for either G0 Positional, G1 Tangency or G2 Curvature continuity

Multi Face Push Pull

• New. Multi-Face Push Pull is ideal, for example, for creating simple solid planar geometry for architectural massing studies, multiple boundaries on the same face can now be manipulated at the same time

Inset Group

• New. Inset Group allows multiple faces that share an edge to be inset or split together. In combination with Multi-Face Push Pull this allows for recesses or extrusions to be created on multiple adjoining faces at the same time

02 Drafting and Documentation

Clipping Sections

• Improved. Many new features making this set of tools a more complete solution for sectioning and documentation for Architects and Engineers
• Section Styles can be set on a per layer basis as per Rhino 8, but these styles can now be named, saved and re-used. Extensive customisation options allow for the Pattern and Boundary print widths to be controlled individually. Display and Print colours can be set by Object, Display, Print or Custom colours. These are features that have been requested by a number of Architectural Practices
• 2D Clipping Drawings created from Clipping Sections are now Block Instances and as such now have more controllable options. Each 2D Drawing can be pushed to its own set of nested layers which helps with visibility and project organisation
• There are two new 2D projections – ‘Reflected+Parallel’ and ‘Reflected’ which are typically used to create Reflected Ceiling Plans with and without Parallel (plan) detail
• The 2d Drawings can be Aligned – so for example a number of floor plan sections at different levels can be laid over the top of each other. The new layer structure is extremely useful for controlling the visibility in these cases
• Annotations made on the 3D model are now carried over on these 2D Drawings

Hatches

• New. An extensive hatch library is included in Rhino 9. Custom Hatch patterns can now easily be created with planar curve geometry using the new HatchPattern command. Previously, Rhino 8 relied on using the difficult to edit AutoCAD .pat files

Drafting Symbols

• New. Rhino 9 ships with an extensive Drafting Symbols library including features such as Arrows, Drafting Symbols and elements including Cars, People, Furniture, Piping and Title Blocks

Parallel Lines

• The new ‘Offset’ option in the Polyline command makes it easy to draw walls of a specified thickness. Corner mitres are automatically created

Worksessions

• New. Worksessions are now available on Rhino9 for Mac. Previously, Worksessions were a Windows only feature

DXF/DWG Translation

• Rhino extrusions can be exported as AutoCAD Curves with Thickness
• Objects with Display overrides are Exported with Display Colours
• Hyperlinks can be Exported
• Import sorts layers in Ascending Alphabetical Order
• Layer Descriptions Imported/Exported
• Picture Objects are Exported and extracted pictures saved to a folder

03 - Viewport and Rendering

Hide in Viewport & Isolate in Viewport

• New. Objects can now be hidden or isolated on a per Viewport basis, making it even easier to control the visibility of complex models on a per-viewport basis. Check out these new commands:
  • HideInViewports
  • ShowInViewports
  • IsolateInViewports
  • UnIsolateInViewports

Raytracing

• Rhino’s Raytrace Render now has two new presets – Architecture and Product. The product setting allows for the creation of Caustics and Dispersion. A new Firefly filter in Post Processing helps to remove any white speckles or ‘fireflies’ that are often a by-product of caustics

Decals

• Decals now have full material support.

Rendered Viewport – Transparency and Refraction

• The Rendered Viewport mode now has much better simulations of Transparency Colour and Refractions. Previously in Rhino 8 clear materials looked very different from their Raytraced counterparts

Direct 3D

• Rhino’s default graphics acceleration is now Direct3D however OpenGL is still a selectable option. The primary reason for moving to Direct3D is stability and reducing the display driver conflicts than can be problematic with OpenGL. Additionally, the use of Direct3D opens up the possibility of running Rhino on Windows machines with ARM based architecture (Snapdragon, NVIDIA Spark etc) as well Parallels, WMWare and Remote Desktop

Hope you've found the list of our favourite Rhino 9 features useful, if you’d like to hear from the expert Rhino team when Rhino 9 ships then you can sign-up to our e-news and you'll receive news from us on the day.

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