Introduction

Whats New in Rhino 7

Model Creation Tools

Rhino 7 adds dozens of refinements to existing tools and some new commands:

• SubD: For designers who need to explore organic shapes quickly, SubD is a new geometry type that can create editable, highly accurate shapes. Unlike other geometry types, SubD combines free-form accuracy while still allowing quick editing.
• BlendSrf: New Refine checkbox avoids creating a simpler blend surface.
• Revolve: Ends of the revolving axis can be attached to objects using object snaps when History is recorded.
• MatchSrf: History locking allows editing control points of matched surfaces.
• DupBorder: Added History support.
• FilletSrf: Now has a G2 option.

Editing

Editing complex models in Rhino 7 is fast and easy:

• Named Selections: For anyone who has a need to repeatedly select objects and sub-objects, Named Selections is a productivity enhancement which makes recalling selections simple.
• Curve Surface Intersections improves results for trims, splits, and Booleans. In our testing, this can be 4x faster in some cases.
• BlendEdge: We changed the spacing of control points in BlendEdge based on customer feedback.
•  Boolean Operations have been improved to union, subtract or intersect coplanar surfaces.

Interface

User interface: Coordinate read-out, floating/dockable command area, pop-up recently-used commands, clickable command options, auto-complete command line, customizable pop-up commands, pop-up layer manager, synchronize views, camera-based view manipulation, perspective match image, configurable middle mouse button, customizable icons and user workspace, customizable pop-up toolbar, transparent toolbars, context-sensitive right-click menu, multiple monitor support, Alt key copy and OpenGL hardware support with antialiasing.

Construction aids: Unlimited undo and redo, undo and redo multiple, exact numeric input, units including feet and inches and fractions, .x, .y, .z point filters, object snaps with identifying tag, grid snaps, ortho, planar, named construction planes, next and previous construction planes, orient construction plane on curve, layers, layer filtering, groups, background bitmaps, object hide/show, show selected objects, select by layer, select front most, color, object type, last object, and previous selection set, swap hidden objects, object lock/unlock, unlock selected objects, control and edit points on/off, and points off for selected objects.

Rhino for Mac takes advantage of macOS user interface conventions.

Display

Features include extremely fast 3D graphics, unlimited viewports, shaded, working views, perspective working views, named views, floating views, full-screen display, 3D stereo view modes, draw order support, two‑point perspective, clipping planes, and one-to-one scale to view models at full size.|
New in Rhino 7:

• Some models will display significantly faster, such as those with nested blocks, layouts with many detail views, and those with numerous text objects.
• Rendered Display mode captures more lighting in a realtime working mode.
• Viewports and Rhino Render now use the same rendering settings.
• Transparent color support on layers and objects.
• Per face color support for polysurfaces and SubD.

Rendering ans Presentation

High-quality presentations are critical to most design projects.

Features include: Rhino Render, a raytrace render with textures, bumps, highlights, transparency, spotlights with hotspot, angle and direction control, point lights, directional lights, rectangular lights, linear lights, and shadows, and customizable resolution, realtime render preview, realtime render preview selected objects, turntable, export to many common file formats used by renderers, rendering plugin support, settings saved in file.

New in Rhino 7:

• Modern progressive rendering technology including advanced usage of both the CPU and GPU hardware.
• Denoisers: Produce beautiful renderings in a fraction of the time using Denoisers in Rhino. These Post Effect filters use Artificial Intelligence techniques to remove the grainy “noise” from your draft renderings, dramatically reducing the time to reach a high-quality image.
• Plugin extendable Post-effects, tone mapping, and final image filters.
• Physically Based Rendering (PBR) Materials: PBR (Physically Based Rendering) materials are the best choice for renderings and presentations for rendering professionals who want realistic-looking materials. They are fast becoming the standard for material libraries, content authoring, scanning applications, and are supported in many modern applications. PBR materials are supported natively in Rhino’s rendering engines and viewports.

Drafting

Every type of physical product design relies on technical illustration and 2D drawing to concisely communicate ideas, specifications, and instructions to people in design, development, and fabrication. Our goal for Rhino was to make it easier to create 2D drawings and illustrations for every discipline in every notation system and visual style used around the world.

Annotation objects include arrows, dots, dimensions (horizontal, vertical, aligned, rotated, radial, diameter, angle), text blocks, leaders, hidden line removal, Unicode (double-byte) support for text, dimensions, and notes. Dimensions in perspective views are supported.

In Rhino 7, we’ve added…

• Layout Management
• Enhanced Text Fields
• Gradient and Transparent Hatches
• Display Color Transparency on objects and by layer.

Digital Fabrication

As you may know, the Rhino development project started nearly 20 years ago to provide marine designers with tools for building computer models that could be used to drive the digitally controlled fabrication equipment used in shipyards.

We continue to focus on the fact that designs are only useful once they are built and in the hands of consumers. With the cost of digital fabrication and 3-D printing technology dropping quickly, more and more designers now have direct access to 3-D digital fabrication equipment.

While we are not experts on all the many fabrication, manufacturing, or construction processes, we do focus on making sure that Rhino models can be accurate enough for and accessible to all the processes involved in a design becoming a reality.

In Rhino 7, we’ve added…

• Single-Line Fonts: Single-Line Fonts help improve the speed and quality of your CNC engravings.
•  Mold Making tools: For mold makers and tool designers, Rhino’s mold making tools assist in the model-test-revise workflow.

Mesh Tools

Robust mesh import, export, creation, and editing tools are critical to all phases of design, including:

• Transferring captured 3-D data from digitizing and scanning into Rhino as mesh models.
• Exchanging mesh data with many applications such as SketchUp and Modo.
• Exporting meshes for analysis and rendering.
• Exporting meshes for prototyping and fabrication.
• Converting NURBS to meshes for display and rendering.
• QuadRemesh: Quickly create a quad mesh from existing surfaces, solids, meshes, or SubDs—ideal for rendering, animation, CFD, FEA, and reverse-engineering.
• Improved mesh intersection results.

Both new and enhanced mesh tools, plus support for double-precision meshes, accurately represent and display ground forms such as the 3-D topography of a large city.

3-D Capture

Capturing existing 3-D data is often one of the first steps in a design project. Rhino has always directly supported both 3-D digitizing hardware and 3-D scanned point cloud data. Rhino V5 has enhanced support for:

• Large point clouds. 3-D scanners have become faster and cheaper, making huge scan files more common. Rhino's 64-bit support and enhanced support for graphic co-processors has made it possible to work with these large point clouds.
• LIDAR captures 3-D terrain data for agriculture, archaeology, conservation, geology, land use planning, surveying, transportation, plus wind farm, solar farm, and cell tower deployment optimization. Rhino 5 added robust support for plug‑ins, such as RhinoTerrain, that provide specialty tools for these new Rhino users.

Inspection and Analysis

Design realization requires high-quality 3-D models in every phase of design, presentation, analysis, and fabrication. Rhino 6 includes new tools and enhancements to help ensure that the 3-D models used throughout your process are the highest possible quality.

Large Projects

File management tools for managing large projects and teams include: Notes, templates, merge files, export selected objects, save small, incremental save, bitmap file preview, Rhino file preview, export with origin point, worksessions (Windows only), blocks, file compression for meshes and preview image, send file via email.

Compatibility

Rhino is compatible with hundreds of different CAD, CAM, CAE, rendering, and animation products. The openNURBS libraries allow hundreds of other applications to read and write Rhino’s native 3DM files.

In Rhino 7, we’ve improved fidelity for existing formats and support for SubD where possible. In addition, you can now…

• Copy/Paste between Rhino and Illustrator®, Inkscape™, and Affinity Designer® (Windows only)

Developer Tools

• More accessible development tools: RhinoCommon (.NET), Grasshopper, Rhino.Python, RhinoScript, the Zoo license manager for plugins, and the Rhino Installer Engine are key ingredients.e
• Comprehensive documentation.
• An active developer community.
• Open source more of the Rhino development tools, including Rhino.Python, RhinoCommon, and the 3DM viewer on iOS.
• Free developer tools, including technical support, marketing support, and training. All of our development tools are available to everyone with a valid Rhino license. No special program registration, contracts, license agreement, or approval is needed.
• Localization and translation services are available.
• Plugins: The Rhino SDK exposes most of Rhino’s internal workings, making it possible for third-party developers to create powerful plugins and add-ons. A programmer’s I/O tool kit with source code is available on openNURBS web site.
• Scripting: RhinoScript (VBScript) and Rhino.Python support exposes most of the internal workings of Rhino, making it possible to develop powerful scripts.

Grasshopper

Grasshopper is a graphical algorithm editor included with Rhino.

Unlike RhinoScript, Rhino.Python, or other programming languages, Grasshopper requires no knowledge of programming or scripting, but still allows developers and designers to develop form generation algorithms without writing code.

New in Rhino 7:

• Grasshopper Player: Turn your Grasshopper definitions into Rhino commands.
• Clash Detection: Quickly search a large number of objects to find points of intersection between pairs of clashing objects.
• Component placeholders: Placeholder component for missing plugins.
• Package Manager installs missing components without a restart.
• New components for Hatch, Rhino.Inside.Revit, and more.

Administration

The major goal for each new Rhino release is to make it easier for managers and system administrators:

• Easy to share (float) licenses in a workgroup and company using The Zoo or Cloud Zoo license manager.
• Tools for easy license deployment in larger installations.
• Take more advantage of current hardware.
• Automatic notification and download of current bug fix service releases.
• Provide more training and support options.

In Rhino 7, we’ve added…

• Package Manager: Discover, install, and manage your resources. 

For More Information: Please visit the manufacturer’s website at www.rhino3d.com.

Gallery

Gallery: http://www.rhino3d.com/gallery

System Requirements

Rhino 7 for Windows

Hardware:

• 64-bit Intel or AMD processor (Not ARM)
• No more than 63 CPU Cores.
• 8 GB memory (RAM) or more is recommended.
• 600 MB disk space.
• OpenGL 4.1 capable video card is recommended.
• 4 GB Video RAM or more recommended.
• A Multiple-button mouse with a scroll wheel is recommended.
• SpaceNavigator optional
• Apple Intel hardware with Boot Camp optional. (Boot Camp is not supported on Apple Silicon. M1 Macs.)

Windows Operating systems

• Windows 10 or 8.1.

Internet connection for:

• Download.
• License validation.
• Rhino account for:
  • Tecnical support on the forum
  • Cloud Zoo license management

Not supported:

• Windows 8 and older
• Windows Server (any version)
• Boot Camp on Apple Silicon. M1 Macs.
• Virtualization systems such as VMWare, Remote Desktop, and Parallels
• Linux
• ARM processors including the Microsoft SQ® 1 and 2

Rhino 7 for Mac

Hardware:

• ntel Apple Mac.
• NOT SUPPORTED: Apple Silicon M1 Macs.
• 8 GB memory (RAM) or more is recommended.
• AMD graphics processor is recommended.
• 5 GB disk space.
• A Multiple-button mouse with a scroll wheel is recommended.
• SpaceNavigator and SpaceMouse Wireless optional

macOS Operating Systems

• macOS 11 (Big Sur)
• macOS 10.15.7 (Catalina)
• macOS 10.14.6 (Mojave)

Internet connection for:

• Download.
• License validation.
• Rhino account for:
  • Tecnical support on the forum
  • Cloud Zoo license management

Not supported:

• Apple Silicon M1 Macs yet.
• macOS 10.13.6 (High Sierra) or older
• Digitizers (Faro, Microscribe)

Supplementary Information

Manufacturer’s YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/Rhino3DTV
Mad Macs’ Youku Channel: http://u.youku.com/madmacs/