3 ms·

It is a bit of a monopoly. I always respected people who used Rhino, while secretly thinking of them as needlessly contrarian. Now I just respect them. Besides

It is a bit of a monopoly. I always respected people who used Rhino, while secretly thinking of them as needlessly contrarian. Now I just respect them. Besides the free Fusion 360 moat, Autodesk owns 3DS Max and Maya. Enough said.

bschne 6y ago
Is rhino actually used for serious CAD work? From what I‘ve read/heard I thought it was mostly something used in student projects or design explorations because of grasshopper‘s visual programming functionality
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Yes it is. I've seen it used professionally at more than one company.
  - saeranv 6y ago
    Depends on the firm, but it's definitely used. Specifically Rhino/Grasshopper get used a lot for concept, schematic design, and then Revit gets used for design development and onward, especially at companies that work a lot with complex geometry (Zaha, SHoP).
    - bschne 6y ago
      That makes sense, I have no clue about how architects actually work but I imagine Revit et al. have a ton of features that you would probably miss in Rhino when it gets to working out the nitty-gritty details of floorplans, generating section drawings, or working with BIM features?
      - CositaS 6y ago
        https://www.visualarq.com/ https://www.visualarq.com/ adds BIM tools to Rhino (and the total price of perpetual licenses for Rhino+VisualARQ is still significantly less than a year's Revit subscription)
        saeranv 6y ago
        Sounds perfect, but I've yet to hear of any company using this plug-in! Personally I also have hope for the interesting hybrids that are continually coming out that are trying to create a seamless pipeline between Revit and Rhino: Google's Flux (which failed), Speckle, RhinoInside. I also hacked up my own crude solution, which was to continually run a flask server in the background, and then pass json strings between Rhino, Revit, and Jupyter. I do a lot of analysis work (building energy and environmental simulation/optimization), so wanted a solution that gave me access to the scientific python ecosystem.
      - saeranv 6y ago
        Yeah exactly. You can easily generate any orthographic views, cut sections, use templates for common building elements and more in Revit. On the other hand, everyone loves the flexibility, and UX of Rhino/Grasshopper.And (for now?) Rhino has the market cornered on structural, energy, and environmental simulation and optimization plug-ins, just because data-management is so much easier in Grasshopper then Revit's equivalent visual scripting language (Dynamo).
- runxel 6y ago
  Depends on the industry. For automotive and even ship design a lot of studios are using it (even not openly, but in a "secret" manner). In AEC many students nowadays use it during university. Some offices use it as well, and if only for Grasshopper. GH is a really great piece of software and you can e.g. even use it with Archicad nowadays.
- polygotdomain 6y ago
  To add to what the other user has said, it is used at a number of firms, but primarily in early stages of design. It's actually very solid for actual drafting (Rhino originated out of an AutoCAD plugin), and does freeform surface modeling very well. It's the middle piece, bringing the design into a set of drawings, that is the sticking point, and something that Revit automates very well. It's not that Rhino can't do it, it's that it's a very manual process that requires a lot more steps and structured process than most firms are willing to invest. Also, the kind of work you'd use Rhino for doesn't flow well to other downstream CAD or BIM software that architects typically use. Yes, you can easily export linework, but at that point, you might as well keep it in Rhino. Somewhat unrelated, but Rhino's SDK is really solid and gives a ton of access to the software. It's amazing some of the things that can be done with it, and Rhino as a whole, but at the same time it's producing construction documents that's where the rubber meets the road as far as Architecture is concerned. Source: Former architecture student and Rhino plugin developer
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ginko 6y ago
At least in the 3DS Max/Maya space Blender is seeming to make more and more headway these days.
com2kid 6y ago
Rhino is genuinely fun to use. Best UX of by far of any program I've ever had the pleasure of using. Blender is frustrating as heck to use in comparison.
- BossingAround 6y ago
  Blender has had actually a revamp of the UX exactly because of this sentiment... Might be worth trying again..?
  - ur-whale 6y ago
    Blender is great, but setting UX considerations aside, I don't think their NURBS engine is on par with that of Rhino (features like trimmed NURBS, NURBS fillets, etc ...)
  - com2kid 6y ago
    Rhino is primarily command line based, it is a perfect mix of CLI and GUI. Also it is 4-up by default and designed around that paradigm. I don't understand how people stand using modeling programs that only have 1 viewport, but they are common enough that I presume everyone gets by.
Keyframe 6y ago
And Sofitmage, which they promptly shut down after they acquired them. Basically, they bought all of the standard tools out there (yes, even max) and became a dominant player. There's an old interview floating around with one of the autodesk founders - he explains their strategy (was?) is to straight-up buy into both market share and competition.
runxel 6y ago
Fun fact: Everybody who says "We are not using Rhino" lies. All the big studios might be using Autodesk products in the front, but I know of some who have a senior engineer who has a secret PC in some attic with Rhino installed. If you need more complex tasks to be done the engineer goes to "smoke a cig". ;)
adfm 6y ago
cough t-splines cough

bschne 6y ago

Is rhino actually used for serious CAD work? From what I‘ve read/heard I thought it was mostly something used in student projects or design explorations because of grasshopper‘s visual programming functionality

jacquesm 6y ago
Yes it is. I've seen it used professionally at more than one company.
- saeranv 6y ago
  Depends on the firm, but it's definitely used. Specifically Rhino/Grasshopper get used a lot for concept, schematic design, and then Revit gets used for design development and onward, especially at companies that work a lot with complex geometry (Zaha, SHoP).
  - bschne 6y ago
    That makes sense, I have no clue about how architects actually work but I imagine Revit et al. have a ton of features that you would probably miss in Rhino when it gets to working out the nitty-gritty details of floorplans, generating section drawings, or working with BIM features?
    - CositaS 6y ago
      https://www.visualarq.com/ https://www.visualarq.com/ adds BIM tools to Rhino (and the total price of perpetual licenses for Rhino+VisualARQ is still significantly less than a year's Revit subscription)
      - saeranv 6y ago
        Sounds perfect, but I've yet to hear of any company using this plug-in! Personally I also have hope for the interesting hybrids that are continually coming out that are trying to create a seamless pipeline between Revit and Rhino: Google's Flux (which failed), Speckle, RhinoInside. I also hacked up my own crude solution, which was to continually run a flask server in the background, and then pass json strings between Rhino, Revit, and Jupyter. I do a lot of analysis work (building energy and environmental simulation/optimization), so wanted a solution that gave me access to the scientific python ecosystem.
    - saeranv 6y ago
      Yeah exactly. You can easily generate any orthographic views, cut sections, use templates for common building elements and more in Revit. On the other hand, everyone loves the flexibility, and UX of Rhino/Grasshopper.And (for now?) Rhino has the market cornered on structural, energy, and environmental simulation and optimization plug-ins, just because data-management is so much easier in Grasshopper then Revit's equivalent visual scripting language (Dynamo).
runxel 6y ago
Depends on the industry. For automotive and even ship design a lot of studios are using it (even not openly, but in a "secret" manner). In AEC many students nowadays use it during university. Some offices use it as well, and if only for Grasshopper. GH is a really great piece of software and you can e.g. even use it with Archicad nowadays.
polygotdomain 6y ago
To add to what the other user has said, it is used at a number of firms, but primarily in early stages of design. It's actually very solid for actual drafting (Rhino originated out of an AutoCAD plugin), and does freeform surface modeling very well. It's the middle piece, bringing the design into a set of drawings, that is the sticking point, and something that Revit automates very well. It's not that Rhino can't do it, it's that it's a very manual process that requires a lot more steps and structured process than most firms are willing to invest. Also, the kind of work you'd use Rhino for doesn't flow well to other downstream CAD or BIM software that architects typically use. Yes, you can easily export linework, but at that point, you might as well keep it in Rhino. Somewhat unrelated, but Rhino's SDK is really solid and gives a ton of access to the software. It's amazing some of the things that can be done with it, and Rhino as a whole, but at the same time it's producing construction documents that's where the rubber meets the road as far as Architecture is concerned. Source: Former architecture student and Rhino plugin developer
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ginko 6y ago

At least in the 3DS Max/Maya space Blender is seeming to make more and more headway these days.

com2kid 6y ago

Rhino is genuinely fun to use. Best UX of by far of any program I've ever had the pleasure of using. Blender is frustrating as heck to use in comparison.

BossingAround 6y ago
Blender has had actually a revamp of the UX exactly because of this sentiment... Might be worth trying again..?
- ur-whale 6y ago
  Blender is great, but setting UX considerations aside, I don't think their NURBS engine is on par with that of Rhino (features like trimmed NURBS, NURBS fillets, etc ...)
- com2kid 6y ago
  Rhino is primarily command line based, it is a perfect mix of CLI and GUI. Also it is 4-up by default and designed around that paradigm. I don't understand how people stand using modeling programs that only have 1 viewport, but they are common enough that I presume everyone gets by.

Keyframe 6y ago

And Sofitmage, which they promptly shut down after they acquired them. Basically, they bought all of the standard tools out there (yes, even max) and became a dominant player. There's an old interview floating around with one of the autodesk founders - he explains their strategy (was?) is to straight-up buy into both market share and competition.

runxel 6y ago

Fun fact: Everybody who says "We are not using Rhino" lies. All the big studios might be using Autodesk products in the front, but I know of some who have a senior engineer who has a secret PC in some attic with Rhino installed. If you need more complex tasks to be done the engineer goes to "smoke a cig". ;)

adfm 6y ago

cough t-splines cough