Rhino 3D is the world’s most popular NURBS modeller.

Rhino is an extremely capable surface modeller used by designers, architects, engineers and manufacturers throughout the world. Put simply, there's nothing to equal Rhino in terms of price and performance. Equally at home as a stand alone application or as a companion to parametric solid modeling programs, Rhino features uninhibited free-form 3D modeling tools that allow you to accurately model any shape you can imagine.

Rhino can create, edit, analyse and translate NURBS curves, surfaces and solids - there are no limits on complexity, degree or size. Rhino has the accuracy needed to design, prototype, engineer, analyse and manufacture anything from aircraft to jewellery. Rhino reads and writes data in most industry standard 2D and 3D formats so your designs can be communicated easily and best of all Rhino is priced like ordinary Windows software, can run on ordinary hardware and there are no maintenance fees.

Now with v4, the most significant Rhino release thus far, Rhino has stretched it's lead over the competition. Product designers will love the new variable fillet/blend tools and G-Infinity blending options. Architects and structural engineers will discover that the new 2D layout tools mean that there's less reason to switch to AutoCAD® for 2D reference. The new deformation tools are ideal for jewellers and artists/sculptors and the advanced rendering support and improved workflow will benefit all users.

Rhino v4 - 3D NURBS Modelling		Ł849
Rhino v4 - Upgrade from V3 or earlier		Ł325
Flamingo - raytracing and radiosity addon		Ł395
Penguin - non photorealistic renderer addon		Ł245
VRAY - photorealistic renderer addon		Ł499
Carriage is Ł12 (All + VAT)

Full Details (in 3.0)

New Details (in 4.0)

Rhino can create, edit, analyse, and translate NURBS curves, surfaces, and solids in Windows. There are no limits on complexity, degree, or size. Rhino also supports polygon meshes. Special features include:

Uninhibited free-form 3-D modelling tools like those found only in products costing 20 to 50 times more. Model any shape you can imagine.

Accuracy needed to design, prototype, engineer, analyse, and manufacture anything from an airplane to jewellery.

Compatibility with all your other design, drafting, CAM, engineering, analysis, rendering, animation, and illustration software.

Read and repair extremely challenging IGES files.

Accessible. So easy to learn and use that you can focus on design and visualization without being distracted by the software.

Fast, even on an ordinary laptop computer. No special hardware is needed.

Affordable. Ordinary hardware. Short learning. Priced like other Windows software. No maintenance fees.

Hardware Requirements

Our suggested minimum system requirements for running Rhino are:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz or AMD equivalent
2 GB RAM
80 GB HD
Open GL Graphics Card
Windows XP

A native version for Rhino on Mac OSX is in development. See the latest information from McNeel about Rhino for OSX here. In the meantime Rhino runs under BootCamp or Parallels Desktop on MacOSX.

What specification is best for Rhino ultimately depends on what you are using Rhino for but here are some pointers on the various facets that can influence performance.

Operating System

Windows XP Professional Rhino 4.0 runs well on Windows XP Professional. This 32 bit application has been around for a while and although it has effectively been phased out following the launch of Windows 7 it is still a viable platform for Rhino.

Windows Vista Rhino 4.0 now runs under all Vista 32 bit versions, however Vista uses more system resources than XP and most professional CAD and modelling users still favour XP because of this. There may also be incompatibilities with some older graphics cards and drivers. See McNeel’s thoughts on Vista here.

Windows XP Professional X64 Rhino 4.0 is a 32 bit application and will run on XP Pro X64 (but only in 32 bit mode) and although this is not officially supported we have found this to be stable in a professional environment. Running Rhino 4.0 in a 64 bit environment will allow it to access more memory (a total of 3GB - this can make all the difference when rendering with V-Ray, Brazil, Maxwell etc) and the 64 bit version of Rhino 5 currently in development will allow significantly greater amounts of RAM to be accessed. Windows XP has effectively been phased out following the launch of Windows 7.

Windows Vista X64 As XP X64 - note that as with the 32 bit version Vista uses more system resources than XP.

Windows 7 32 Bit. In simple terms Windows 7 offers the stability and speed of XP with an enhanced user interface and ease of use. Our initial tests show that Rhino runs well in this environment. If you are upgrading your OS, however, please make sure that the drivers you need (eg for graphics cards, printers etc) are supported.

Windows 7 64 Bit. AS with XP Pro X64, running Rhino 4 in a 64bit environment will allow it to access more memory (a total of 3GB) and the 64 bit version of Rhino 5 currently in development will allow significantly greater amounts of RAM to be accessed. Our initial tests show that Rhino runs well in this environment. If you are upgrading your OS, however, please make sure that the drivers you need (eg for graphics cards, printers etc) are supported.

Processor

Most modern chips from Intel and AMD are multi core but even with 64 bit operating systems such as Windows XP64 or Windows Vista 64, modelling applications such as SolidWorks, 3D Studio Max and Rhino use only one processor core for some modelling tasks whereas rendering plug-ins like
V-Ray,Brazil and Maxwell will make use of all the available cores. Rhino 5.0 64 bit will still use only one processor core for most modelling tasks but will be able to access much greater amounts of memory.

Given that (for instance) a quad core 2.4 GHz processor costs roughly the same as a dual core 3.0 GHz processor and that modelling will only address one core then if your primary focus is modelling then the dual core machine will be much more cost effective and just as fast. For modelling only processor speed is most important whereas if your primary focus is rendering then the quad core machine would speed up your renders considerably and so would be the preferred option.

The latest i7 quad core processor from Intel is also gaining favourable reviews from within the Rhino market. This processor features 'Turbo Boost' dynamic overclocking meaning that when the CPU senses a maximum load it increases the clock multiplier on the RAM by a number of increments. What's interesting about this in relation to Rhino, is that this overclocking can be core selective - so when just one core is stressed (as with a linear modelling process) then Turbo Boost will increase the clock on that core by a much greater margin.

Graphics Cards

There are two main graphics card vendors, NVIDIA and ATI. Both manufacturers produce both consumer cards targeted towards gamers and professional workstation cards targeted towards the 3D CAD market. NVIDIA’s gaming cards are called GeForce and the pro cards Quadro. ATI’s gaming cards are called Radeon and the pro cards Fire GL.

We generally recommend NVIDIA graphics cards as these, particularly the workstation class Quadro cards, are well proven with Rhino. The ATI workstation class cards are very fast and perform well with Rhino provided the correct driver is chosen. The consumer ATI cards are generally fine but require certain Rhino settings to be adjusted to solve well documented display issues. To summarise the safe bet is with NVIDIA.

McNeel’s document on troubleshooting display problems

McNeel’s document on Rhino V4 Display FAQ

Memory

We recommend 2GB of RAM as a useful minimum specification. Not all memory is the same and high speed low latency RAM will make a difference to performance particularly if the cache speed of the memory is matched to that of the processors.

Rhino 4.0 will address a maximum of 2GB RAM when running on 32 bit operating systems; however if the /3GB switch is set Rhino can address 3GB. There can be associated problems with setting this switch. See McNeel’s thoughts here.

Rhino 4.0 will address a maximum of 3GB RAM when running on 64 bit operating systems. The 64 bit version of Rhino 5 currently in development will allow significantly greater amounts of RAM to be accessed when running in a 64 bit OS.


		Rhino 3D, NURBS modelling