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What’s New in Rhino 8?

By Microsol Resources | BIM, CAD, Visualization

Rhino 8 is here! And it brings powerful new modeling tools like ShrinkWrap, a huge speed boost for Mac users, SubD Creases, PushPull workflows, better drafting tools, a more customizable User Interface, a faster Render engine, new Grasshopper data types, and much more.

If you haven’t already purchased a license of Rhino 8, I hope that by the end of this article, you are convinced that it provides huge value out-of-the-box and great potential in the future.

Want to upgrade to Rhino 8 or have any questions about any of the new features? Feel free to contact us at rhino@microsolresources.com. 

Breaking Down the Updates: A Deep Dive into Rhino 8’s New Features

 

ShrinkWrap: Turn Garbage To Gold

ShrinkWrap creates a watertight mesh around open or closed meshes, NURBS geometry, SubD, and point clouds: ideal for creating meshes for 3D printing.
ShrinkWrap

Built for Mac

Rhino for Mac is faster than ever, running natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, and using the Apple Metal display technology. There is also the User-Interface on Mac closer to its Windows sibling.
  • Metal: Blazingly fast 3D drawing, a massive speed boost for Mac users.
  • Window Layouts: Customize, save, share, and restore your favorite interface layouts.
  • Universal App: Rhino for Mac runs natively on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
  • Layer Manager: A complete rewrite, on Windows and Mac, including all new features.
  • Rendering: Updated the Cycles engine for faster, GPU-accelerated raytracing.

 

SubD Creases

SubD Creases create a feature between a smooth and a sharp edge, without adding complexity to the SubD control net, great for making fillet-like features.
SubD Creases

Modeling: Simplified

Rhino 8 unlocks new modeling workflows — like PushPull — and adds intuitive new features to the Gumball and Automatic CPlanes.
  • Modeling Simplified: Rhino’s model creation tools make it flexible, accurate, open, and very popular.
  • Auto CPlanes: Smarter CPlanes automatically align to eligible selections.
  • Gumball: The move, scale, and rotate widget gets new grips for extending and extruding.
  • PushPull: Grab a face and push or pull it, extruding or extending.
  • Inset: New Options and Support for Surfaces and Polysurface Faces.

 

Clipping and Sectioning

Rhino 8 introduces a number of clipping and sectioning enhancements to help support various drafting and fabrication workflows…
  • Section Styles: Use Section Styles to create section details of your model.
  • Selective Clipping: Selective clipping and viewing depth.
  • Dynamic Vector Drawings: Create dynamic vector drawings of clipping sections.
  • Clipped Views: Use Clipping Planes Views in 2D Layouts.
  • Sectioning for Fabrication: Extract section curves and slices for fabrication.

 

Presentation

Rhino 8 has updated the Cycles Render engine, smoothed out the UV Workflow, improved our procedural textures, and added a display mode.
  • Rendering: We’ve updated the Cycles engine for faster, GPU-accelerated raytracing.
  • UV Mapping: UV Mapping has been improved with a floating UV Editor, new unwrapping …
  • Procedural Textures: Native, per-pixel procedural textures in raytraced and rendered modes.
  • Monochrome: A clean, minimal Display Mode, perfect for showcasing architectural work.
  • Improved Rendering UI: More compact, efficient, and interactive management and editing.

 

Grasshopper: Rhino Data Types

Rhino Data Types allow you to bake geometry with custom attributes, import more file formats, control blocks, use native materials in the display pipeline, create hatches and annotations, and many other expanded workflows…
  • Object Attributes: Manage Rhino object attributes directly from Grasshopper.
  • Annotations: Define the look of annotations in Grasshopper.
  • Blocks: Create block definitions and instances in Grasshopper.
  • Live Baking: Live update existing Rhino objects from Grasshopper.
  • UserText: Add user text to Rhino objects.

 

Rhino Refined

Hundreds of bugs were fixed, along with new Linetypes, improved Mesh Booleans, and enhanced surface editing tools.

Linetypes: Linetypes in Rhino 8 can draw stylized curves with both width and taper.thumbnail.png

RefitTrim: Take control of structure and continuity for well-made surface models.

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Surface Fillets: FilletSrf has a new UI with dynamic radius previews.

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Window Layouts: Customize, save, share, and restore your favorite interface layouts.

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Supported File Formats: Now supporting USD export, glTF, E57 in Rhino for Mac, and Dynamic Blocks in.

file-formats-thumb.png

SectionTools Integrated: Dynamic 3D Sectioning and 2D Drawings.

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Reflected Ceiling Plans: A reflected parallel projection viewport mode, perfect for RCPs.

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Blocks: The Block Manager is now more flexible and powerful.

thumbnail.pngMesh Booleans: Completely rewritten and more reliable Mesh Booleans.

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Offset: Offset can now create multiple closed regions.

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Development Platform

Rhino 8 brings a new code editor, support for CPython and .NET 7, major improvements to the free SDKs, with API refinements, and some major new features that broaden and deepen the foundations of the geometry development platform.
  • Scripting: Entirely new editor for Python 3 and C#, in Rhino and Grasshopper.
  • Code-Driven File IO: Read/write any format that Rhino supports entirely through code.
  • rhino3dm Rendering Assets: Read and write rendering assets from openNURBS or rhino3dm.
  • .NET 7: Target Microsoft .NET 7 on both Windows and Rhino for Mac.
  • RhinoCommon: New APIs for Shrinkwrap, Flair, Code-Driven File IO, and more.

 

And More

Looking for a complete list of new commands? If you’re not seeing what you’re looking for above, please check out the documentation’s New in Rhino 8 for a complete list as well as new command options.

What’s new in Rhino 8

 

For more information on Rhino software, please refer to our other blog posts and our Microsol Resources’ YouTube Channel for additional resources and webinar recordings.

Want to upgrade to Rhino 8 or have any questions about any of the new features? Feel free to contact us at rhino@microsolresources.com. 

INDUSTRIES: Architecture

Published on November 28, 2023 in .

About the Author

Microsol Resources delivers integrated solutions that help customers design, simulate and analyze their ideas, increase operational efficiencies, and maximize their return on investment in their technology solutions. As a team, we are passionate about helping customers improve their productivity and overall business processes. How can we help? Just reach out.

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