Tuesday, December 29, 2020
Looking for SubD tutorials?
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Panther (jewelry plugin) now compatible with Rhino 7
Panther 1.7 is now available!
The new plugin version for Rhino 7 and Grasshopper is already available to download!
Current users are welcome to update today for free. It includes new SubD jewelry builders as well as full integration with newly implemented Rhino functionality.
Roar with Panther - Interactive Jewelry.
Timber WH-Arena and Timber Tower in Vienna
Nicolas Sterling from Sterling Presser Architects + Engineers has been kind enough to share one of his latest project done in Rhino/Grasshopper.
The Timber WH ARENA and Timber Tower design proposal for the WH-Arena competition in Vienna has made it to the second round.
The 20,000-seat WH-Arena timber concept is rooted
in nature in symbiosis with its environment. The project vision is to create a
new sustainable landmark for a large-scale arena that performs at all levels of
efficiency and flexibility. The dialogue
between the arena, the side buildings, and the public space creates a unique combination. The architectural objects play as much role as the outer space they generate. The timber structural
moiré skin is acting as the tree skin. The building maximizes natural, beautiful, and warm materials that connect us with nature and envisions a sustainable future.
The arena roof, the shape of a shallow saddle, consists of a triangular grillage of timber
strips structure as a Gridnet, a hybrid of a gridshell and a cablenet. This
composite construction, which optimizes the use of material while minimizing
embodied energy, while using a renewably sourced timber, creates a warm feel to the space with an enhanced acoustic performance. The roof spans about 160 m
lengthwise and about 130 m crosswise. The roof has photovoltaic panels on its
upper side and an uninterrupted continuously closed acoustic ceiling on its
underside, which is partially translucent to give the interior of the arena a
striking design effect.
The integrated architecture and facade
structure follows a subtle distribution to create an optical effect as one moves around the building. The roof, the façade elements, and the timber
gridshell are a unique parametric model to balance
structural performance and aesthetic and visual effect.
The project is great teamwork in collaboration
with:
- Thornton Tomasetti: Structure, facades, and acoustic
- A24 Landschaft: Landscape
- Transsolar: Energy, sustainability, environment design, MEP
- Kunz: Fire engineering
- Woo Architects: Arena experts
- Yann Kersalé. Lighting artist
- Ateliers de L’Éclairage: Lighting designer/engineers
- SOL: Renderings
- Xtrude.Berlin: 3D printing
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
ShapeDiver now supports Rhino 7!
After a big development push and a few weeks of coordinating, ShapeDiver is happy to launch its brand new Rhino 7 system (almost) in time!
Rhino 7 is packed with new features, and several of them come with brand new Grasshopper components that are compatible with the ShapeDiver Rhino 7 system. If you are excited about the new organic modeling possibilities offered by the SubD feature, try out the new SubD components in Grasshopper! Need to clean up or smooth some nasty meshes? The QuadRemesh component is there for you, producing clean quad meshes that will also help with the rendering performance in the ShapeDiver viewer.
At the moment, Rhino 7 is running on a brand new test system. The testing phase will extend until the release of the new platform in Spring 2021. If you want to test it right now, use the contact form on their website and request your account to be switched to the new Rhino 7 system.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Bongo 3.0 WIP 6 now available
Bongo 2.0 users are encouraged to download and try this WIP release of the animation plugin for Rhino 7, Bongo 3.0.
New features:
- Improved dope sheet and keyframe table UI
- Improved connections springs
Bongo 3.0 WIP 6 is now available from here.
Enjoy!
Thursday, December 17, 2020
PanelingTools for Rhino 7 released
We've released PanelingTools for Rhino 7 in Windows and Mac! Check the release details...
The PanelingTools plugin for Rhino and Grasshopper by Robert McNeel & Associates is widely used by designers, architects, and building professionals. It supports intuitive design of paneling concepts as well as helps rationalize complex geometry into a format suitable for analysis and fabrication.
Point Clouds now supports Rhino 7
The Point Clouds plugin provides a way to load massive sizes of data into the native Rhino environment. The plugin also offers powerful point cloud manipulation tools such as slicing, clipping, smoothing, lighting, magnification, color ramp, and export.
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Randselva Bridge - the world’s biggest bridge designed and built without drawings
Sweco is the leading architecture and engineering consultancy company in the European market with comprehensive expertise for all types of projects.
In 2016 Sweco was in charge of designing the first drawing-less bridge in Norway. The successfully conducted project encouraged undertaking further challenges. Now, with PNC as a contractor, the company is designing and building a 634m long cantilever bridge without drawings. Krzysztof Wojslaw and Øystein Ulvestad showed at the Parametric Design Day 2020 in Oslo how parametric design supported creating an advanced 3D model and its further use.
And more recently, Gabriel Neves features the project on his youtube channel Ministry of Bridges.
Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Enscape 2.9.1 now supporting Rhino 7
Monday, December 14, 2020
Mesh2Surface new release for Rhinoceros 7
With its intuitive straightforward user interface, Mesh2Surface helps the users to extract information from scan data into CAD surfaces quickly. Extract primitives, create 2D sketches and free form surfaces. All this with full control over your process.
Friday, December 4, 2020
Jevero (Footwear Pattern Engineering) new version
Jevero enables the most fluid and tight collaboration between pattern engineers, footwear developers, and shoe designers. Leveraging on the Rhino platform, this pattern engineering plugin lets you create pattern parts, develop sizes, and export to all sorts of cutting machines.
Monday, November 23, 2020
Chaos Group releases V-Ray 5 for Rhino
Chaos Group has released V-Ray 5 for Rhino, a powerful new update to bring realtime rendering into Rhino and Grasshopper.
- Live Link component for V-Ray Vision. Visualize your Grasshopper designs in realtime. Build models, apply materials, and set up lights and cameras with immediate feedback.
- Light Gen. Lighting options are generated automatically and displayed as a series of thumbnails, making it easier to find the best look and mood for a scene.
- Redesigned V-Ray Frame Buffer (VFB). Now includes some of V-Ray 5’s most user-friendly features, making it easy to apply finishing touches to any rendering. Composite render layers, make color corrections, and instantly adjust the lighting.
- Light Mix. Interactively change the color and brightness of any light without rendering again. You can add image adjustments like exposure control, color balance, and color corrections.
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Friday, November 20, 2020
PAZ-BSS-Archicad+GH
PAZ-BSS-Archicad+GH
PAZ Academy (Parametric Academy Zurich)
BSS - Building System Specialist is a unique 4-month essential Certificate Program for those who want to have access to unlimited design tools such as Grasshopper inside BIM software.
BSS focuses on the powerful Archicad + Grasshopper Live Connection with numerous interoperability connections to become #BIMlingual!
BSS will not only lift you over Archicad BIM limitations, but it will also provide you with a deep understanding of visual scripting and working methods to organize your daily work.
Fully personalized, challenging, and on a visual and exciting platform. Be part of the professional #PAZNET!
Join our winter edition starting December 1st!
PAZ-BSS-Rhino.Inside.Revit
PAZ-BSS-Rhino.Inside.Revit
PAZ Academy (Parametric Academy Zurich)
BSS focuses on the powerful Rhino.Inside.Revit plugin with numerous interoperability connections to become #BIMlingual!
BSS will not only lift you over Revit BIM limitations, but it will also provide you with a deep understanding of visual scripting and working methods to organize your daily work.
Fully personalized, challenging, and on a visual and exciting platform. Be part of the professional #PAZNET!
Join the winter edition starting December 1st!
Thursday, November 12, 2020
MIAUCADEMIA – ArchViz with V-Ray Next for Rhino (in Spanish)
Offmiau has organized a new workshop Archviz with V-Ray Next for Rhino, taking place online on November 21-29.
Tuesday, November 3, 2020
The Architecture Machine Exhibition
For the first time in German-speaking countries, the Architekturmuseum der TUM presents a large-scale exhibition on the computer's influence on architecture. Covering from the 1950s to the present, the show recounts this fascinating history in four chapters which sum up key developments of the so-called digital revolution: The computer as a drawing machine, the computer as a design tool, the computer as a medium for storytelling, and the computer as an interactive platform. The fundamental question that guided the two-year research project is simple: Has the computer changed architecture, and if so, how?
Friday, October 30, 2020
Spatial System by Estrtucturas Arqué
The Spatial Systems app is a web application for the parametric design of spatial structures that allows you to generate different typologies and download them in the available formats (.ifc2x3, .dxf, .dwg, .3dm, .stl).
The app, now available in food4rhino as a user service, was created by Estructuras Arqué, a Spanish construction company. It came from the idea of applying the parametric architecture concept to the design and manufacturing of metal roofs and modular construction.
It brings together the best of cloud applications and IFC interoperability by providing easy access to structural design. With it, architects can quickly test various options and configure desired products according to the project requirements.
The parametric logic of this tool was built in Grasshopper and then uploaded to ShapeDiver for publishing online. The model was then embedded in the final web application with custom UI. The IFC export is powered by the Geometry Gym plugin for Grasshopper.
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
BSS-BuildingSystemSpecialist_Rhino.Inside.REVIT
PAZ Academy (Parametric Academy Zurich)
BSS is a unique, personalized 4-month Certificate Program that lifts you over your Revit BIM limitations to become a professional computational designer in your field!
BSS focuses on the powerful plugin Rhino.Inside.Revit with numerous interoperability connections.
You'll learn the theory, gain technological understanding, build your own scripts, improve your algorithmic logic, create parametric BIM Models in Revit, and acquire a broad perspective look. Design with data, systems, code, AI, and animation while keeping your freedom and flexibility to design better buildings!
The autumn edition starts on October 1st!
Be part of our PAZ NET in a challenging and exciting BSS PAZ Platform.
Monday, October 26, 2020
Wood pavilion project and architectural folly
BSS-BuildingSystemSpecialist_Archicad
PAZ Academy (Parametric Academy Zurich)
BSS is a unique and personalized 4-month Certificate Program that lifts you over your Archicad BIM limitations to become a professional computational designer.
BSS focuses on the powerful connection between Archicad + Grasshopper and the new GDL Visual Baby: Param-O.
You'll learn the theory, gain technological understanding, build your scripts, improve your algorithmic logic, create parametric BIM Models in Archicad, and acquire a broad perspective look. Design with data, systems, code, use AI, and animation while keeping your freedom and the flexibility to design better buildings!
The Autumn Edition starts on November 1st!
Be part of the PAZ NET in the challenging and exciting BSS PAZ Platform.
Thursday, October 22, 2020
Get Started | Enscape with Rhino
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
New plugin: GL Studio from General Lattice
Augmenting native Rhino functionality, General Lattice Studio expands user capabilities by democratizing the lattice design process providing powerful, intuitive latticing tools. Using 100% native CAD data (B-reps), GL Studio works inside Rhino and enables users to seamlessly integrate advanced lattice geometries into larger part files or assemblies with the ability to execute traditional downstream features.
The featured latticed car seat concept highlights the powerful workflow of pairing General Lattice Studio with Rhino’s SubD toolkit. Users can design, iterate, and render concepts without file conversion or any import/export processes through a completely integrated experience.
User manual, download and demo videos available here.
GL Studio (Beta) Objectives:
- Generate solid lattice bodies (BREP) that can be manipulated within Rhino
- Optimize workflow by enabling rapid iteration and exploration of multiple structures within the same design space
- Remove the pains of mesh errors and repairs by creating ready-to-print files from solid bodies
- Go directly from GL Studio to your slicer, by-passing the need for import/export to expensive mesh repair software
Friday, October 16, 2020
Urban Dunes project
Urban Dunes is a project that envisions a solution to reduce the heat island effect for an extreme climate such as Abu Dhabi’s, where the harsh conditions felt across significant months of the year reduce the feasibility of normal external activities.
The Italian design firm Barberio Colella Architetti, with architect Angelo Figliola, has designed a 3D printed structure using Rhino and Grasshopper. The structure embeds architectural elements from Abu Dhabi's and Emirates’ traditional architecture, such as elegant vaulted spaces, vernacular shading devices (mashrabiyya), and cold-water basins and waterfalls. The vault is composed of several stereotomic blocks made of desert sand made solid by using the binder jetting technology. The vault permits to avoid the overheating of the urban space thanks to the shell's high thermal mass.
The project has won the honorary mention at the Cool Abu Dhabi Challenge.
Congratulations to the whole team!
Thursday, October 15, 2020
Desktop vs. cloud computation time explained
What happens behind the scenes when you interact with a Grasshopper model on ShapeDiver? What’s the difference versus doing the same on your desktop?
When working with parametric models, many users expect the same swift interaction from ShapeDiver as they experience in Rhino on their desktops. While this is completely understandable, there are many additional steps between the initial parameter change and the final delivery of the solution to your browser.
ShapeDiver's latest article explains in detail each of these steps and provides some insights on their strategies to improve the response times of your ShapeDiver models.
Read the complete article here...
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
11th Hour Racing Team designs innovative boat for The Ocean Race
Rhino user Guillaume Verdier is designing a new IMOCA 60. Guillaume is one of yacht racing’s most prolific designers with America’s Cup winners and Ultime record-breakers. And he was involved in the design of four of the last five Vendée Globe winners. How's that for credentials?
Friday, October 9, 2020
PointOneStudio: Why Rhino?
- Writing architectural design application books for parametric BIM
- Introducing information and know-how on computational design and BIM through his blog and YouTube channel
- Using plugins of Rhino and Grasshopper to develop various BIM design approaches
- OpenBIM technical research for application
- BIM education and consulting in architectural design
Thursday, October 8, 2020
Gravity Sketch Import Plugin now available in food4rhino!
The Gravity Sketch Import Plugin allows you to import Gravity Sketch files directly into Rhino, reproducing the entire session with native-like Rhino geometry:
- Preserve the layer structure and colors used in Gravity Sketch
- Continue the workflow, manipulate control points and surfaces just as you would with any other Rhino file
Gravity Sketch is an intuitive 3D design platform for cross-disciplinary teams to create from the initial ideation stages of collaboration and review in an entirely new way.
The tool has a wide variety of NURBS and SubD tools accessible in Virtual Reality with the use of motion-tracked controllers and supporting tablets (Wacom and iPad).
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
BSS - Building System Specialist Online Program (Rhino.Inside.Revit)
PAZ Academy (Parametric Academy Zurich)
BSS is a unique, personalized 4-month Certificate Program that lifts you over your Revit BIM limitations to become a professional computational designer in your field!
BSS focuses on the powerful plugin Rhino.Inside.Revit with numerous interoperability connections.
You'll learn the theory, gain technological understanding, build your scripts, improve your algorithmic logic, create parametric BIM Models in Revit, and acquire a broad perspective look. Design with data, systems, code, AI, and animation while keeping your freedom and flexibility to design better buildings!
Be part of our PAZ NET in a challenging and exciting BSS PAZ Platform.
The autumn edition starts on October 1st!
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
BSS - Building System Specialist Online Program (Archicad + Grasshopper)
Friday, September 25, 2020
What VR headset is best for you?
F1 Surface Model Design Challenge, where a 3D sketch was done in Gravity Sketch VR, and the goal is to take the sketch and create the surfaces in Rhino with NURBS or SubD.
Preparing the Geometry for CFD Process using Rhino
"In order to conduct a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of a ship, high quality surface geometry is needed in order to generate the computational grid. The geometry needs to be watertight, without manifolds, and it needs to accurately represent the real vessel. For us, Rhino has always been and continues to be the main tool for adjusting the input geometry we receive from our clients. This is mainly due to the quality of the STL files that it produces, which is the input format for our simulations. In this example, we used Rhino to prepare ship geometry for a CFD study on the influence of rudders on overall propulsion power."
Thursday, September 17, 2020
How does parametric design work?

Are you struggling to understand the concept of parametric design? Kaushik LS wrote this post last February with a 4-minute explanation.
Kaushik LS is an architect, computational designer, and visual FX artist.
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
ShapeDiver and Swarm Merge!
While ShapeDiver started its business around eCommerce applications, Swarm was built with a focus on AEC workflows. Together, ShapeDiver and Swarm will offer a large and powerful cloud-native, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for building applications based on parametric models.
In the short term, the investment will give ShapeDiver more resources to increase the speed of their release cycle for new features in the plugins, viewer, and platform.
On a slightly larger scale, they’ll be merging the Swarm platform and apps into ShapeDiver within the first half of 2021, adding all of its unique features and capabilities to ShapeDiver and combining the strengths of both products and teams into an even more powerful, stable and useful product.
Tuesday, August 25, 2020
A fan inspired by an earwig?
A fan inspired by an earwig? Harvard University published a research article for the earwig fan developed in Rhino. 6.0 and Grasshopper.
They proposed a crease-pattern designing software developed in Rhino 6 and Grasshopper. An origami simulation toolbox of Grasshopper, Crane, was used to simulate the folded shape of the generated crease patterns. The folding processes and Movie S5 were drawn via the online application Origami Simulator.




















