MLAV.LAND

Setting up Rhino

First moves before working with Rhino

Once Rhino is installed on your computer, some actions are required before doing anything. We will go through these actions step by step in this setup documentation.

This documentation has been written with Rhino 7 for macOS. Some paths and commands might differ in Rhino for Windows.

Installfest

Steps to install all the required elements

  1. Install Rhino

  2. Install VisualARQ

  3. Install Speckle

  4. Optional: install VRay for Rhino

  5. Install Arial Narrow font

  6. Then, in Rhino options:

    1. Add keyboard shortcuts

    2. Set background color: RGB(64,64,64)

    3. Download scripts

    4. Install plugins (optional)

      1. SafeLayout

      2. Ladybug Tools

    5. Add aliases

    6. Remove creation of .bak files in Rhino

Keyboard shortcuts

Using keyboard shortcuts is a game changer when it comes to productivity and efficiency in Rhino. Learning keyboard shortcuts and knowing them will greatly enhance your experience with Rhino.

Adding a keyboard shortcut

To add custom keyboard shortcuts, go in the upper bar and click Rhino 7 > Commands > Customize.

A new window opens: in the upper bar of this window, you can navigate through tool palette sets. If there is only the default one, you have to duplicate it in order to modify it. You will be prompted a name when duplicating.

One you have selected the tool palette set of your choice, you can modify the keyboard shortcuts by clicking Keyboard Shortcuts in the upper bar.

To add a shortcut, search for a command, for example Move, in the search bar in the bottom left corner of the window. Find the right tool you want to add a shortcut to, and click on it. Informations about this tool are displayed on the right side.

You can then add a shortcut for this specific tool by clicking in the Keyboard shortcut field, and then directly pressing the keys you want to use, for example ⌘E. It is automatically added in the field.

Repeat the action for every tool you want to add a shortcut to. Beware of conflicts you might create when adding keyboard shortcuts. A message is displayed when two shortcuts are in conflict. It is better to solve these conflicts before starting working.

Keyboard shortcuts list

Here is a list of the keyboard shortcuts used at MLAV.LAND.

Aliases

Aliases are another way of quickly accessing commands. We are mainly using aliases to speed up the use of multiple commands at once.

Adding aliases

To add custom aliases, go in the upper bar and click Rhino 7 > Preferences. Alternatively, you can press ⌘,. In the Preferences window that opens, click on Aliases. A list appears with a column named Alias and another named Command macro.

To add an alias, click the + button on the bottom left corner. A new row is created in the table, and you can fill it with your own alias.

Aliases list

Here is a list of the aliases used at MLAV.LAND.

Block tools

Working with blocks is important to reduce the file size and speed up your workflow. A complete guide of working with blocks in Rhino is available in the next section.

A few tools are missing to properly work with blocks in Rhino. Fortunately, Ejnar Brendsdal has developed a plugin that brings us more control over blocks.

His plugin is available here, and contains an installer for Rhino for Windows.

Installing on macOS

Since a macOS installer isn't provided in the repository, we will be using the python scripts directly, and create aliases to refer to them and easily access them.

First, download the scripts here. To download, click on the green button <> Code, and choose Download ZIP. You will get a zipped folder that contains a folder named scripts.

Place this scripts folder in a directory that you won't move. It is important not to move it afterwards, since it will break the path that we will write in the alias.

Once this is done, you can go back to Rhino and open the Aliases window to add new aliases. Here are the three aliases that we are going to add.

In the table above, the text written in red has to be completed according to the path where your files are stored. To get this path easily, navigate to your scripts file, right-click on one of them and click on Get infos. In the general infos, select the path and copy it. You can then paste it in your alias command macro.

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