Final rendered model of our windup clock

When approaching modeling this clock, and any other model, I first try to divide it into parts. Obviously every product has its parts, and naturally you would go model one by one. This is that kind of model where your don’t have to think about which part to model first. This is obvious, first you need a clock body, then you can go about modeling which ever part. Here I first created the body, then the back plate with screws, then the front plate without numbers, bells and hammer, legs, and then in the end made the numbers and handles for the front plate.

STEP 1

Ok, in this step we will be creating the body. Since I lost every clock I had like this, I had to model it from reference images from the internet. So, we don’t have the measures, or technical drawings, but we need to model by eye, looking at the various images and approximate the lengths, distances and so on.

I created a template for my default usage with grid extents set to 10. So, make sure you do the same with Snap command, and clicking on the Extents options and input 10.

Now, we can start modeling. Since we don’t know what the accurate dimensions are, we will need to use our old method of trial and error. We will first create three straight lines with Polyline or Line command.

img1

Next thing would be to connect these lines with curves, and that we will do with BlendCrv command. Make sure you use G1 for both ends, so we get tangency.

img2

Using Join command make sure those lines are all joined together. So, next thing would be to create a surface out of this section curve, and we’ll do that with Revolve command. But, before that, we need to turn on the Record History option, so we can work on the surface by simply editing the curve.

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Now, if we select our initial curve, and using PointsOn command turn on the control points and if we move those points, we will automatically update the surface as well. If we used Record History that is.

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Ok, next thing would be to adjust the curves a bit so the surface is little more accurate. Try to make something like on the image below:

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Using OffsetSrf command, we need to offset this surface to inside by 0.3 units. So, make sure you flip the direction normals when in OffsetSrf command, so they point to inside.

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Then, simply, with BlendSrf command blend the gaps and Join the four surfaces.

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Image 1

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.

Image 3

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).

Image 4

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.

Image 5

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!

Image 6

Let’s jump ahead and finish our macro!

Image 7

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.

Image 8

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.

Yeah, yeah, I know. You must be thinking “Another rim tutorial”. Well, first of all, I’m pretty sure you will learn even one new command in this tutorial.

Resources

Video tutorial  for modeling car rim.

STEP 1

Insert the first reference image into the background of your Right Viewport. I made it 50 grids wide. You can set the background image to be in color, and remove grid with grid command. Using polyline (or just line) command, make simple straight lines according to the background image.

Trim the parts that aren’t needed, and fillet the intersections with the radius of 2. And offset by 0.4 inside.

After you made a profile for the rim, insert second reference image and using scale background image and move background image commands, position it so it somehow fits your profile curve.

Using Curve: Interpolate points command, create another profile… like on the image below. You can create one polyline in the middle of the rim.

Trim off the parts of curves you don’t need, and on the inner side of your spoke, fillet the straight line and curve with 2.

NOTE: at this point, I have rotated my curves from front view by 90 degree and positioned so the far right end of curve is in origin (0,0)

Using Remove Knot command, remove selected knots. So you end up with uninterrupted curve, so when you try to explode it, it says this: “Cannot explode single curve segments.”

I have corrected the wrong name, instead Slide Rule, this is actually called Vernier Caliper. So, thanks to Chuck Hoffmann for pointing that out

Resource files

Images

Blueprints (pdf)

Video tutorial

http://www.rhino3dhelp.com/video/modeling-slide-rule-video/

Introduction

I’ve decided to make a slide rule as my first tutorial because it will be the most used tool to measure object I will model. That way I can provide you very accurate blueprints and models for you to use and download.

Step 1

First, we will set up our scene with some background image that we will use as reference for modeling. Please note that I will not follow the curves in background image all the time. It is solely for reference, and my modeling is strictly based on my taken measures. Before we start, you need to open the centimeters template in Rhino. As we will have grid laid out as centimeters.

First we will measure the length of our slide rule. I don’t have another slide rule, so I’ll use regular ruler. If your Osnap is not enabled, please enable it now as it is the tool you will use the most! You just can’t live without it, and sometimes with it. Something like having a girlfriend.

I have measured 22.4 centimeters, so lets make a nice polyline long 22.4cm starting from origin of coordinate system (0,0). You can click on Snap so your cursor snaps on intersection of grid lines. That line is mostly for orienting the background image we will insert next.

So, lets put the background image. Go to View->Background Bitmap->Place and browse for your reference image (you can download it from this page). Again, if your snap is not on, click on it so it gets bold (that means it is on). You can either write in the command line 0,0 or you can click on origin. That is the first corner, and next you need second corner. Just move your mouse and stretch the box so it is a little wider than your 22.4 line. After that you are still in the command, and you can choose some of cool options, like grayscale image. It is default to yes, so you can click on no. I like it that way.

Now, we will adjust the background so it fits our reference line 22.4. First we need to move it a little to the left. Go to View->Background Bitmap->Move and move it. I believe the image is self explanatory. Next we need to scale the background image down, go to View->Background Bitmap->Scale.

This is what you need:

Step 2

In this step, we will be making the base top view for our model. You need to have the documentation preferably printed out on A4 format for better comparison and readout of dimensions.

Ok, we’ll start from the upper right corner of our slide rule, and we’ll use polyline to create the base closed curve. Lets create first 5 segments of this part. Select polyline (or type in command line _Polyline) and click on that far upper right corner, and type in the command line 1.5 and press enter. Next input (you are still in the command) 21, then 1, then 0.1 and in the end 5th segment is 2.8 in length. You have something like in the picture.

(please note that in technical world point “.” is used for decimal point, and comma “,” is used for separating the coordinates. i.e. 5,4 is a coordinate with 5 units as x or abscissa and 4 as y or ordinate, while 5.4 is length – if you are interested you can refer to wikipedia’s Cartesian coordinate system)

We’ll continue with the segments, this time on the left upper side. We can start with putting the point in the start of our first reference line we created in step 1.

That point we need to move along the reference line for 2.2cm right. So use the move tool, click on the point, and input 2.2 in command line and make surein the osnap settings you have Near checked. Or, you can click on Ortho and move the point. Next, we will again use polyline and this time we will start from the moved point. Again, make sure you have Point checked in osnap settings. Input 0.3 in polyline command, and go up, then click, input 2.2 go left and click (it is a lot easier if you have Ortho on the whole time you make this) and then input 1.8 and go down and click. End the command by hitting enter, or clicking right mouse button. Now, you need to disable Ortho and make that angle line. You can use polyline again for that. Now you can position the line according to reference background bitmap. Start from the end of last line, and end where the part is starting to curve according to background bitmap.

Next, you will create another line, starting from the end of right line, and make it parallel to x axis and length random. Use Ortho. Then, using blend command, create blend between that parallel line you just created and that angled line. You should get something like on the image below:

Using Trim command you can trim that reference line and that Point we created earlier. Join all lines and curves, and you should have closed curve which you will use as a base curve for creating the model.

Step 3

Lets create the little holes for screws. Using Circle command we will create two circles according to position like on the image. You can either create two circles one by one, or you can create one and mirror it so you are sure the proportions are ok, and that both circles are exactly the same distance from the base closed curve. I have used the second method. Activate the Circle command, and point in the center of upper screw. For the radius input 0.15. Now, make sure in osnap settings you have cheched Mid, and select the Mirror command. We will mirror that circle according to the Middle point on the right line, and now again we will use Ortho.

Finally we are moving from 2D to 3D. So, select (Hold Shift + Click = Adding to selection || Hold Ctrl + Click = Removing from selection) the closed curve, and both circles. Type in the command line Extrude and 0.3 for extrusion height.

Next we are moving on the opposite side again, and we’ll make little cuts on the curved part. The cut itself is 1cm wide, so again, you can use the same method with Point to start the line. So create the point in the far bottom point, where curved line ends, and move it up by 1cm. Make sure the point is on the top plane of your model. Start the polyline from that point and move left and down according to image.

The shorter line needs to be adjusted a little. You can select the L polyline, and using PointsOn command turn the control points on. After that, control point that is on the edge of the object needs to be lowered down by 0.14cm. Be careful, as there resides the Point you created earlier, so when you click, you will be prompted which one to select, and select Curve Point. Using move tool, and Ortho, from Front View you can move it down. After you’ve done that, using PointsOff command turn off the control points, and using Explode command explode the L line, into two lines. Next using Sweep1 sweep the shorter line along the longer or vice versa. extrude the shorter line up (use the direction [d] for specifying the direction of extrusion if it is not as we need it).

Now, join those two surfaces. You can mirror that joined surface, even though I didn’t do it that way in video. Using trim command trim your base object with those two flat surfaces (actually it is one, as we joined it).