Rhinoceros 3D

Rhinoceros is a commercial 3D computer graphics and computer-aided design application software that was developed by TLM, Inc, dba Robert McNeel & Associates, an American, privately held, and employee-owned company that was founded in 1978. Rhinoceros geometry is based on the non-uniform rational B-spline mathematical model, which focuses on producing mathematically precise representation of curves and freeform surfaces in computer graphics.
Rhinoceros is used for computer-aided design, computer-aided manufacturing, rapid prototyping, 3D printing and reverse engineering in industries including architecture, industrial design, product design as well as for multimedia and graphic design.
Rhinoceros is developed for Microsoft Windows and macOS. A visual scripting language add-on for Rhino, Grasshopper, is developed by Robert McNeel & Associates.

Overview

Characteristics

Rhinoceros is primarily a freeform surface modeler that uses the NURBS mathematical model. Rhinoceros's application architecture and open SDK make it modular and enable a user to customize the interface and create custom commands and menus.
Since version 7, Rhinoceros has improved real-time rendering abilities for improved lighting and shading.

File formats

The Rhinoceros file format is useful for the exchange of NURBS geometry. The Rhino developers started the openNURBS Initiative to provide computer graphics software developers the tools to accurately transfer 3-D geometry between applications. An open-source toolkit, openNURBS includes the 3DM file format specification, documentation, C++ source code libraries and.NET 2.0 assemblies to read and write the file format on supported platforms – Windows, Windows x64, Mac, and Linux.

Compatibility

Rhinoceros offers compatibility with other software as it supports over 30 CAD file formats for importing and exporting.
The following CAD or image files are natively supported :
The following CAD file formats are supported with use of external plug-ins:

3DPDF
ACIS
CATIA v4, v5, v6
CGR
Inventor
JT
Parasolid - import
PLMXML
Creo Parametric
Solid Edge
Siemens NX

When opening CAD file formats not in its native.3dm file format, Rhinoceros will convert the geometry into its native format; when importing a CAD file, the geometry is added to the current file.
When Autodesk AutoCAD's file format changes, the Open Design Alliance reverse engineers the file format to allow these files to be loaded by other vendors' software. Rhinoceros's import and export modules are actually plug-ins, so they can be easily updated via a service release. Rhinoceros service releases are frequent and freely downloadable. Rhinoceros 5 SR10 can import and export DWG/DXF file formats up to version 2014.

Scripting and programming

Rhinoceros supports two scripting languages, Rhinoscript and Python. It also has an SDK and a complete plug-in system.

Plugins

is the main hosting platform for plugins and add-ons for Rhinoceros 3D.

Orca3D

Orca3D is a plug-in for Rhinoceros 3D used in naval architecture. It adds tools for hull, deck, and superstructure modeling. It tests and tracks hydrostatics, stability analysis, computational fluid dynamics, weight and center of gravity. Orca3D is commonly used for designing yachts
and commercial vessels and integrates directly with Rhino's modeling environment.

Grasshopper 3D

is a node-based procedural modeling plugin that runs within Rhinoceros 3D, allowing users to create parametric models.

VisualARQ

is a Building Information Modeling plugin that adds parametric architectural objects, dynamic documentation tools, Grasshopper 3D integration, and IFC import/export for enhanced interoperability with other BIM platforms.