Flexible CAD software includes new tools for creating rectilinear architectural forms
Rhino 8, the latest release of the flexible Mac / Windows CAD tool from McNeel, is now available. The new version introduces new modelling tools, a speed boost for Mac, PushPull workflows, SubD Creases and better drafting tools. There’s also a more customizable UI, a faster render engine, new Grasshopper data types, and more.
Rhino 8 includes several new modelling tools that can help architects create simple rectilinear models for conceptual design. This includes PushPull, which appears to work a bit like SketchUp by allowing users to grab a face and push or pull it, extruding or extending, Auto CPlanes, which is designed to make it easier to draw on the face of an object, and Gumball, a new direct modelling tool.
Gumball allows users to quickly move, rotate, scale, copy, cut, and extrude geometry without typing commands or clicking a toolbar button. McNeel says Gumball can be used for concept modelling interior and exterior architectural forms.
Rhino 8 has also introduced a number of clipping and sectioning enhancements to help support various drafting and fabrication workflows.
ShrinkWrap creates a watertight mesh around open or closed meshes, NURBS geometry, SubD, and point clouds. According to the developers, it is ideal for creating meshes for 3D printing, but has many other use cases.
For more complex forms, SubD Creases allows the user to create a feature between a smooth and a sharp edge, without adding complexity to the SubD control net.
The Cycles Render engine has also been updated for faster, GPU-accelerated raytracing on Nvidia GPUs and AMD GPUs using AMD HIP.
Rhino 8 for Mac, which runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, features a new dis-play pipeline powered by Metal that is said to delivers a 3D performance boost that’s as much as 24 times faster than Rhino 7. The user-interface on Mac is also now closer to its Windows sibling.
Finally, Grasshopper, the visual programming language and environment has been enhanced with new Rhino Data Types. According to McNeel, this allows users to bake geometry with custom attributes, import more file formats, control blocks, use native materials in the display pipe-line, create hatches and annotations, and many other expanded workflows.
There are many other new features. See New in Rhino 8 for a complete list.
