For the past year I have been using Rhino (Rhinoceros 3D) at work and for a further three years before that, and I am only just starting to realise some of the key things which should be addressed quickly to make sure you can work quicker and therefore cram more work into a shorter period of time.
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Rhino is a quick program to learn and use at the worst of times but there are tweaks to speed up any modeller. I guess some of these ideas and techniques can be applied to other computer programs in general.
Toolbar Layouts
Customisation is one of the best methods for increasing production speed. The tools you use most frequently should be located within the easiest possible location. With Rhino, the mouse3 button (usually activated by pushing the scroll wheel down) is the best way to put all of those quick and easy functions into a place where you can use them extremely quickly.
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| Default Toolbar | My Custom Toolbar |
The first thing to do is to make the popup toolbar (activated by mouse3) use the larger button size, much more user friendly! To do this go into Tools –> Toolbar Layout…, then scroll down the list and find the Popup list item. Then right click and select Properties…. Now you can alter the pixel size of the icons to large.
The next step is to change all of the buttons on the popup menu to the ones which you use the most. By holding down the shift key you can move buttons on the toolbars and my holding down the control key you can move them. You may have to open up a few more of the toolbars to copy the icons accross but this is laying the key foundations for quicker working techniques.
Create Your Own Buttons
If there are things which you want to do in a few clicks and you find yourself doing these tasks over and over again then you can create your own button for the process. In fact you can create your own Toolbar set.
At work i find myself repeatedly selecting blocks to explode them twice and then join them. Blocks, when imported from AutoCAD, cause repeated problems so i find it easiest to remove them totally. So i created one button to do the job of exploding twice and then joining them, effectively leaving the object available for use and removal from locking layers. Left click to select all the blocks in the document and then right click to do the custom job.
Templates
Templates are simply awesome. By templates I mean storing up series of files containing simple objects and information which can be copied out and then copied into a current document. This is expecially useful for lights, arrows, people, cars and anything which doesn’t change between models.
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So, those are my few tips for improving the speed of working within Rhino. Any queries or questions then please ask! Happy Rhinoing!
