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The model used will be a model provided by Rhino in the Tutorial section.
(C:\Program Files\Rhinoceros 4.0\English\Tutorials\Camera-SLR.3dm)

Our object is going to be creating a custom toolbar with a custom button that will turn a “blueprint” preview on and off of our viewports.

Image 2

You should already have your Command Window open. ALWAYS!
Your command window will provide you with just about everything that is going on in the Rhinoceros program. (Including the commands you will need to use to initiate macro commands.)

Next you’ll need to have your macro editor open.

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As stated earlier every button/tool in Rhinoceros initiates these so called Commands in the Command window.
To test this out, go ahead and push the move button in your toolbar and watch the command window. Notice the _Move command which was initiated?
What does this mean? This means you can run Rhinoceros without ever having to click a button in your toolbars. (But the defeats the purpose of having easy to use buttons!)

Rhinoceros has been built to be very straightforward with commands such as Move, Delete, Rotate, Grid, etc.. If you ever are unaware of a command you can simply initiate the tool however you would and see what the command window is using as the actual command. For this tutorial we will be using the Grid and GradientView commands. Seems simple right? Simple but powerful!

No more wasting time, let’s get to the dirty work!
In our macro editor, let’s initate the grid command so we can control the properties of a grid(s).

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Why did we use ! _Grid?

The ! Character will stop any current processes you may have running in Rhinoceros. This will keep you from accidentally running the macro when it shouldn’t be ran. You should always start your macros with the ! Character.

The _ right before Grid is a way of telling Rhinoceros to ignore the specific word Grid and use whichever word is identical in the current language of the current user. It’s always good practice to code this way, however, if you have no intention of sharing your macros then you may omit this while writing your macros.

Ok, so we’ve initiated the Grid command and now see several options we are able to change within the Command window. All we are going to do is type the commands we want to control exactly how you see them.

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As our code is stating:

ShowGrid=No        We are telling the Grid option we don’t want the grid shown
ShowGridAxes=No        We are telling the Grid axis option we don’t want the grid shown
ShowWorldAxes=No    We are telling the World axis option we don’t want the grid shown
ApplyTo=All        This is telling the Grid command that we want these options applied to all of our viewports. (You can choose to have it apply to only specific viewports if you wish.)
Enter This command is doing exactly what would happen if you were to hit the enter/return key on your keyboard. In this case it’s submitting all of our changes and finishing the grid command.

All commands in the macro editor must be separated with a space so watch closely as so you don’t insert or miss a space where it is necessary.

Check it out! We have turned all of our grids and axes off in our viewports!

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Let’s jump ahead and finish our macro!

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One thing to pay attention to is the -GradientView command. We are using the – at the beginning because without it, the command editor will actually skip any of our input and by default turn on/off the GradientView ability.

As you’ll notice I’ve input all of the settings I wish to change while in the GradientView command and closing the command with the _Enter after I’ve changed any settings I felt necessary.
Your viewports should now look something similar to mine.

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Congratulations, you’ve completed your very first macro!

“But wait a minute…. How do I save and use this macro by pressing a button?”
Have no fear my Rhinoceros minions!

Introduction

Ok, first things first. In this tutorial I will show you how to prettify your experience in Rhino. Right now, in Rhino viewport the lines and everything else is pretty much jaggy, and without any antialiasing. Of course that is changed in V5, but until it is released here are few tips on how to make your user interface a bit more better looking.

So lets see the comparison of two Rendered viewports.(note that the images below are 2 times smaller for the purpose of web, so the AA is smoothed out on the first one a bit)

Comparison & download demo model

STEP 1

I don’t know if this can be called a step, but never mind that now. First I’d like to differentiate two things that I will be using and changing here. First one is Options dialogue. This dialogue can be accessed through menu Tools->Options. In here you can change how Rhino works. From user interface options like colors and viewports to settings for rendering mesh quality. But we will focus on the viewport mainly. The other one is Template. Template is like your own workspace, and you are prompted to select one of predefined templates every time you open your Rhino, or select File->New menu option. Templates define, among other settings, how many layers you have, what the names of them are, and every layer option (material, color, line weight, line type…) dimension properties like global scale, dimension numbers, sizes, arrow types etc, and grid settings.

Important: Templates settings are saved in a Rhino .3dm file and therefore if you don’t save it you will lose your settings, and Rhino Options are saved everytime you exit Rhino, so if your Rhino crashes your settings will not be saved, and if you reinstall Rhino you will lose your settings and templates. So, you can export settings .ini and your template to a safe place.

Ok, so starting point would be setting the Antialiasing level in Rhino. There are some Test commands in Rhino v4 that I will not use, but rather will use graphic card setting in windows control panel. Now, I’m not sure how to achieve this with ATI cards because I don’t have one, but I’m sure there are similar options.

So, lets first head out to our Control Panel, and find there our NVIDIA Control Panel. There, under 3D Settings, go to Manage 3D settings. In the Program Settings tab you will have to add application. So, click on the Add and browse for rhino.exe (you can usually find it in C:\Program Files\Rhinoceros 4.0\System\ directory). Then under Antialiasing – Mode choose Override any application setting, and under Antialiasing – Setting choose 8x. On some graphics cards this can be a drag, but I believe you already know that setting AA is going to slow down your graphics performance. So, if 8x doesn’t work well for you, try lowering it. Hit Apply, and you’re ready to start Rhino.

NVIDIA Control Panel

Next thing is a plugin called AuxPecker 1.1 (update: thanks Riccardo for a new link – now, free registration required for downloading). At the time I’m writing this, the web site doesn’t work, and I’m not quite sure why, so if it still doesn’t work download AuxPecker 1.0 here. Installation is easy, just extract the AuxPacker directory from the zip file you downloaded and put it in C:\Program Files\Rhinoceros 4.0\Plug-ins\. Next, open Rhino and go to Tools->Options->Plug-ins. There click on Install button, and browse for Auxpecker.dll. You should have your AuxPacker set to go now. (one more side note: you don’t actually need the plugin itself, you only need environment maps that comes with the plugin, but since you already have a whole plugin, I decided to show you how to install plugin)

Setting your template

First, we will set the environment map on the material we will use in our Viewport. Make sure you have Rendered viewport. Go to Layers and click on the circle under Material, then in a window that popped up under Environment settings browse for Map file, and select one of the materials in AuxPecker directory. Click OK, and that is it. While in Layers, you can rename one of your layers to “curves” because that is the layer needed in most workflows, or set the number of layers how you want and name them how you want and need. You can set environment maps to other layers as well.

Setting Environment map

Now, we will set our grid system. You can either input Grid command or go to Tools->Options->Grid, but I prefer the Grid command and this is how I will do it here. Input Grid, and click on the Extents and input 10. You should do this for all your viewports. So, this is viewport independent. Of course you can set the options the way you want. Maybe you don’t want to have a grid system at all. Or turn off the axis.

Next thing would be setting the Gradient in the background of your viewports. You do this with GradientView command. That command only toggles the visibility of gradient. For changing the settings input -GradientView, and then you can change colors. I’ve got 2 colors (you can choose between 2 or 4) and set to Top=235,235,235 and Bottom=180,180,180. Don’t forget to set the State option to On. There you can also change the View you want to affect, but leave it at View=All if you want all viewports to have the gradient.

Ok, this is it for the template. Now, delete all objects from your scene, and go to File->Save as template…  Now, go to File->New, and select your template and check the box Use this file when Rhino starts if you don’t want to choose the template every time your Rhino starts.

Final look of your template

STEP 2

Ok, in this step we will go through some Rhino options that can help us in our everyday work. First of all, lets set how the objects in our viewport are shown. Go to Tools->Options and under Rhino Options->Appearance->Advanced Settings->Rendered->Objects set the control point size to 4. When you apply NVIDIA antialiasing everything is smoothed but also very small. So, enlarging the control points and points is a good way. Now do the same under Objects->Points. All 3 point types set to size=4. (for the points, it is very good to enlarge them in all viewports, so do this for wire, shaded too).  Now, go to Objects->Surfaces and under Naked Edge usage select “Use separate settings for naked edges”, and Edge thickness set to 2. The thickness of regular line or curve is 1px, so setting this to 2px is going to make your naked edges stand out bit more. You can also change the color of naked edges by changing Edge color usage.

Now, if you want to see the isoparms on your objects too, that can be achieved only if you have Rhino as your current renderer. So, first go check that under Render->Current Renderer->Rhino render. Now, go back to Rhino Options, and under Document Properties->Rhino Render find Miscellaneous and check “Render curves” and “Render surface edges and isocurves”.

Setting isocurve visibility

END

Ok, this is pretty much it, there are a lot of options you can ckeck out too, but before you do, there are a couple of more interesting options I will go through. For example ToolTips (Rhino Options->Modeling aids->Cursor ToolTips), you can display various kind of information in your tooltips like the ones used for Osnap.

Cursor ToolTips

Next one is pretty useful too, it is setting your Ortho degree. By default it is set to snap to every 90 degrees, but I find it very useful to have it snap to 45 degrees. You can change that by right clicking your mouse on the Ortho in status bar and selecting settings. There you will have an option “Ortho snap to every 90 degrees, where you can change 90 to 45 or any other number you prefer.

Ortho snap to every 45 degrees

If you ever find yourself to lose Menu, command line or something similar, you can always go to Rhino Options->Appearance and under “Show the following items” cart you can restore them.

Show menu, command line etc

And one last tip for you is when your Rendered viewport doesn’t show you your model correctly. When you get some jagged edges or something like that. It is just how your mesh is calculated for your Rendered viewport. You can control that in Tool->Options too. Go to Document Properties->Mesh and select Smooth and slower. If that doesn’t work for you, select custom.

Hope you have learned a bit from this short walkthrough of setting your Rhino options to make Rhino look nicer and help you work faster. If you have some questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them below in comments. Thank you.