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Rhino 5 Wishlist

Summary: Wishing for something in Rhino? Please start a conversation on Discourse, or create an account and log a bug in YouTrack.

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  • Set Object Display Mode - select between apply to one or all viewports, add “per layer” option.
  • Add “Keep Verticals Straight” mode to camera - kind of tapered distortion that straightens the vertical lines in the viewport. This would be very useful for architectural use.
  • Ability to hide selected object edges (i.e. to have polysurface display the boundary only).



  • Place background bitmap on a layer.
  • Multiple bitmaps per view (on multiple layers).
  • Rotate bitmap.
  • Change cursor crosshair size.


Lights in blocks

It's unfortunate lights can't be in blocks. I'm working on a street rendering and have to adjust all the streetlights individually. It would be a huge timesaver to have the ability to instance them and just adjust one.


Light-linking would be great, so specific objects (or layers, even better) could be removed from being illuminated by a given light. Or is this render-engine specific?

Advanced OpenGL Realtime Render Preview

…as Showcase and Alias actually do..should be a great thing to improve the OpenGL RenderPreview adding reflextion and shadow casting on background and objects in order to have a powerfull realtime render window to save instead of calculating a static rendering. The possibility to save in a library the modified Rhino basic materials including textures will be great as well!! ¥S¥

Camera to Max

I sometimes build cameras in 3dsMax with the same lens length, target and camera coordinates as Rhino cameras, render in MAX, and then underlay. Works perfectly. So, a wish is that you could export cameras to MAX with the geometry or seperately. (Or can you do this?)

Optimized Wire Display of Mesh

Optimized wire display of mesh as iso for NURBS. Best for work easily on high density mesh.

Rhino to Kerkythea

I would really like an exporter for Rhino to Kerkythea with material and camera export options and maybe a direct render option! XML is the default Kerkythea format. For info see

Advanced Mappings

I would really like to see much more advanced mappings that would allow for some really great renderings. Maybe the ability to use a dummy object to create projections onto a renderable object. Also, a uv unwrap feature would be priceless.,


Rhino 4 Wishes

RhinoScript IMHO is pretty ugly. VBscript is somehow existentially tainted with Microsoft. Why isn't something like an adaption of PHP possible instead. Robust, much more beautiful and complete, very, very large dev community. For example, arrays in PHP are great. In VBscript they are weak.

Make RhinoScript a much more integrated part of the program. The command/macro/script distinction is pretty strange. In Maya, whatever you do outputs usable script. It's extremely elegant, integrated and provides an easy way to learn the language. Scripting in Rhino is pretty buried and difficult to learn and implement. When it works it's great but it's not very accessible.

Naming! Naming in Rhino is so inelegant and difficult. First there is that huge machine-readable name. How is that useful? Why can't objects receive a human readable name upon creation like (again) Maya? This is so much more accessible and would tie into the dynamic creation of objects in scripting much better.

Go Parametric! Emulate Max and Maya in this regard but keep Rhino's amazing precision, clarity and interoperability. That would be awesome.

Postscript: I guess some of these issues are trivial for a programmer. I'm a somewhat scripting savvy designer. I've written some RhinoScript and used Rhino an enormous amount for several years. I love the program and think it is a fanstastic modeller. But the wishes and bugs above I see as fairly glaring flaws that have been around since I've started using Rhino. And they make the program much less usable for someone like me. Rhino could use some really good UI and User Experience designers for what is, at its core, an excellent program. Taking after Microsoft Word for your UI is not the best way to go.

Finally, I think Rhino 4 is not ready to ship. The bugs listed above should be addressed first. They are really glaring when you use the program.

Regards, Josh Draper


Some Ideas

1. When working with weights, one easily gets lost with the individual point`s values, as there is no way to display them. It would be great to have a shade option which maps CP weights to vertex colors, or to have an analysis mode coloring the surface according to how it is influenced by weight.

2. OpenGL hardware Wire Render with vector output, supporting all linestyle options. It is probably very difficult to to realize something like that, but there are programs which can produce OpenGL screenshots. So maybe the GFXboard can be used to create the vector output. Hidden lines in vector at the press of a button would be a dream, using Make2D in complex models or perspective views can sometimes just take too long.

3. A HUD style display for command window, status bar, properties etc. would be great.

4. AA-enabled wire rendering for Flamingo/Rhino.

5. Last but not least, I may repeat my wish for the Trackball mouse rotation feature to be revived, it really was a great option for freeform modeling!

Thanks to all for this great program,

Daniel Kerbler : dkx1(at)a1(dot)net

PDF export

Would be nice to be able to export drawings to a pdf

Morten E

You can print to pdf from the print dialog if you have a pdf writer installed. There are many of these available. Some perfectly good ones for free, on the web. I've tried CutePDF, PrimoPdf, pdf995 and PDFCreator. -Pascal%Normal%

Printing to PDF is nice, but if you want to export a whole batch of plans, it's a pain: You can script it, but the print dialog asks you for a filename every time. Exporting PDF like DXF or dwg would be much nicer in this respect….. - fabian

Printing or exporting to 3D pdf that everyone with the latest version can look at would be great for client presentations where you n realtime can view and change sectional cuts for example. -cemw

Wish for MAXWELL .mxs export or save as function

Hopefully Rhino 4 will be able to export directly to maxwell including materials, cameras and other scene data.

And also Landscaping tools to easily create landscapes in Rhino would be nice.

Morten E

Multiside Surface Match and Splitting

Hi, here are two wishes:

  • Multi side surface match (like MatchSrf command with option for 1-, 2-, 3- or 4- side surface matching with at least G2 continuity).
  • Auto extending splitting curves and surfaces.

Klemen Tavcar


To be able to enable history for sweep as well!!!

Texturing in general

How hard can it be to add texturing in general? How can you be satisfied with just coloring? It seems like a copout to have to export into another tool, perform the texturing there, and then bring it back… Just add the facility or ask the community to create a host of free plug-ins that do it…

Wilf LaLonde

Splop array

I am sure there is a huge group of young architects (including me) wishing for a “splop-array” command.

The purpose would be to populate a freeform global surface with a local component (of any complex shape) which splop`ed on the global surface would gradually change according to the curvature of the global surface, but remaining a valid solid and connecting to its neighbors to easily create a valid solid for the entire geometry.

The command should be able to array a splop by an increment of the U and V parameters of any NURBs surface – and preferably also across seams on polysurfaces. It could have an option to operate by distance similar to the arch-cut paneling commands. A further wish would be to make it work with history, so that all the splop´ed components would change by updating the global controlling surface.

A tool like this would make very advanced and complicated generative software like Bentley's Generative Components seem obsolete.

Thanks for reading!

Jesper Bork

Ok, my wish is: “Protect my files”

Some softwares have an option to protect the files by password. I am a designer for jewellry industry and most of times the industries do not have their own prototype machine to develop models. So we have to send our STL files to our suppliers in a lot of places wich means sometimes running risk to have our projects sabotaged. I´d like to have a chance to protect my customers files (projects). What about a self-destruct file or a file could be opened once? I know you guys have thought of it before I did. Please give us a chance!!!

Leandro Portela (greetings from Brazil!!!) -

Wish: improving the command “ArraySrf”

I would like to space objects onto a surface with a fix distance. At this moment the command just allows you to give a number, not a distance. Is it possible to add something like this?

Sketching with brushes and movies as mappings

Dear Rhino Team, thanks for the great event in London!!!

Can you incorporate a way to sketch in Rhino, maybe on the page layout? Maybe something like a pencil and a few brushes to make notes and design changes by sketching on the screen. Something like a sheet that you can just pull over the 3D quickly and then just take a quick brush to sketch over it as if you are using sketch paper over a printout, just without printing.

Is it possible to map movie or quicktime files onto objects and display the moving image in shaded mode? I know Rhino doesn't know about time in 3D models, but the Rhino viewport is becoming very nice for real time design presentations.

We imagine to be able to show moving images as maps in our realtime presentations, like a burning fire or water in a pool or a TV that shows moving images while we are in the rendered shade open gl mode. Is that possible? Thanks.

Ability to modify sweeps and lofts simply

After a loft or sweep, the ability to grab points on the original rail and adjust the shape of the loft/sweep. Some poly modelers feature this.

(Sample done with Hexagon) Nate Owens

Wish for “Change Object Layer Button”

There used to be “change object layer button (right pointed arrow)” on the top part of the layer window. It is gone on ver. 4. That is one of the most helpful buttons for me. I would love to have it back on ver. 4. Otherwise, when changing object layer, I have to choose object, right-click the new layer that I want to copy and choose “change object layer”. It's so much easier to just have the button.

Yo Oshima

Reply: In the meantime you can assign this to a button of you own.

'change to active layer

 Dim strObj:strObj = Rhino.GetObject("Select object to change",,True,True)
 Dim strActiveLayer: strActiveLayer = Rhino.CurrentLayer
 Rhino.ObjectLayer strObj, strActiveLayer

Eric me(at)cemw(dot)net

I second that!!!

The old DETATCHED Layer window was far better. One-click “change object layer” is esential.


Wish to “Scale Through Length”…

First select objects to be scaled, then select origin point, then select first reference length using an edge or curve (or enter a numerical value), then select the second reference length using an edge or curve (or enter a numerical value)… The output object is uniformly scaled based on the difference of the two input lengths…

jonah barnett

Wish to render the ZBuffer

I wish the Zbuffer could be rendered, or at the least could be a second alpha channel in a render. Also I would like a simple on/off icon similar to x-ray, ghost, etc. This is great tool for developing heightfield surfaces, and also for creating precision alphas to use in external 2D/3D apps. thanks…

jonah barnett

Wish for n-gon support on polygonal mesh

I wish Rhino could both import a poly mesh with planar n-gons, and also have option to create n-gons for coplanar faces when exporting a mesh. Also, Rhino needs a “merge coplanar faces” tool for meshes. thanks…

jonah barnett

Wish for camera production frame

Would be very nice if we could have an onscreen frame that shows the rendering area, with a “safe” margin displayed at around 90% of the rendering frame. Thanks…

jonah barnett


Exporting of individual toolbars.


Dimosthenis Stogios

Wish for multiple levels of cage editing

It would be great if we could use multiple levels of cage editing to deform an object. For example, first create a high-res cage to deform an object, then create a low-res cage to control the high-res cage. So we could freely deform the object on mulptiple levels of larger or smaller details.

jonah barnett


Option so that the hidden part of the clipping plane appears ghosted instead.


Dimosthenis Stogios

Wish for projecting objects to surface…

The new morphing tools are amazing to work with, but I have a couple of suggestions…

  • Could you add the option to maintain draft angles relative to the Cplane when morphing to a target surface? Using splop for example, it would function like “Project”?
  • Could the object be projected across the seams of a closed target surface without splittng?
  • Could it be projected across the seams of a polysurface without splitting?

jonah barnett

Wishes for heightfield…

I have been using R4's Flow Along Surface tool combined with heightfield surfaces and the results are amazing, but I think it would be better if we could…

  • Create heightfield directly to existing target surface.
  • Add option to maintain tangency of the original target surface (maybe using a radial falloff).
  • Add option to maintain tangency along any trimmed edges (again using radial falloff).
  • Apply heightfield directly to target surface within a polysurface and maintain tangency along joined surfaces edges.
  • While creating heightfield, add parameters to shift control points along U&V directions so there will be higher point concentration where the image has greater contrast.


jonah barnett

Wishes for point selections

  • Select 4 points by selecting the quad area between them.
  • Select 2 points by selecting the span between them.
  • Select all points which are between currently selected points.
  • Ability to “freeze” selections of points, to they are unaffected by movement of neighboring points.
  • Soft selection of points - like subd modeling programs use to control the influence of a selection with a controllable radial falloff and hardness. Usually the influence is displayed as a color gradient across the points.


jonah barnett


When picking points for a line using “Ctrl”, it would be nice for the Ortho snap to have effect.

+ Ability to snap only to visible surfaces.

Dimosthenis Stogios

Desirable features

First I want to say that I love to work with Rhino. I appreciate its power combined with its easy and comfortable handling. That’s why I’d like to help to make it even better! So in progress of working I came across some points which could be improved or added. I didn’t find a section about the newest planned updates and I don’t know all about this extensive software so if there are points which are already fulfilled or have been mentioned already by other users (probably you have heard one or the other idea a thousand time before ;-) then please excuse my ignorance :-$.

  • Selection (Tools):
    • Lasso/Polygon-Lasso-Tool - so you can make an non-rectangular selection not only for points but for all
    • Add-to-selection-Button - so you can make selection of many spread objects without the need to always hold the shift key
  • Fillet Edge:
    • Champfer-Edge-Option - would be nice so you can choose between a blending fillet or a sharp cut edge and a “plain” blending

V4 has ChamferEdge, FilletEdge, and BlendEdge all with variable radii and rail types. -Pascal

  • All-Option – like the “select segment” in the blend-surface-command. This would it make way easier and faster to select edges which belong together but were cut before (e.g. polar symmetrical objects).

V4 has chain selection of edges and curves. Use the Chain command when prompted for these. -Pascal

  • Chain function/select only visible (edge in the foreground/aimimg towards you) edges: when selecting a line to fillet at a complex objects, then only the further lines which are connected to that first selected line, are visible and/or selectable, this way one won’t misselect edges in the background/aiming away from you.
  • Variable fillet radii: after selection of edges to be filleted is completed, one can then select any points on these edges and define any radius seperatly for each single point one selects

V4's FilletEdge allows this. -Pascal

  • Blending Surface:
    • Preview Button – so one can see the whole surface and only the “path-lines”.

V4's BlendSrf allows this. -Pascal

  • Split:
    • Option to split all selected objects with itself – e.g. for curves: if you had selected 4 lines arranged like a sharp (?), and chose this option, then you would get instantaneously 12 pieces. (To get the same result with current tools you would have to split the 2 parallel lines with the other 2 crossing lines and then you would have to (?) the remaining lines get split by the already cut lines – in comparison, quite a lot of work…)
    • Unsplit function analog to the „untrim“ command
  • Revolve:
    • Option to revolve around a curve
  • Curve:
    • Bisectoral curve option – meant similar to the “bisectoral line”-command. At least for 2D-curves would be useful – for 3D-curves would be magnificent. E.g. one have 2 intersecting arcs and with this command one could get a curve that lays in the middle of those arcs. For more complicated curves and combination this command would impossible or senseless but then it would usually be obsolete anyway.

V4s MeanCurve allows this, if I understand the wish. -Pascal

  • Trim:
    • Capped/Joined Trim Options – For Curves: e.g. if one cut 2 parallel curves then 2 new produced ends would be connected/joined by the itself trimmed (intersecting) cutting curve (alternatively connected by a straight line or automatic blending). For surfaces: would mainly be interesting for polysurfaces which contain a volume, so the cut polysurface would automatically be capped by the cutting surface (which therefor is trimmed itself by the before trimmed polysurface = boolean intersecting) or alternatively automatically be capped by the “cap planar hole”-command.

Stanley Lechtzin, Professor, Tyler School of Art also wants this feature.

I am not 100% sure I understand the wish but the WireCut command may help. -Pascal

I think what user are looking for is a “Keep Solid” option to Trim for trimming a closed polysurface.-Max

  • Duplicate Edge:
    • Duplicate Subedge Option – it would be useful and comfortable if one could select an edge and then specify the wanted fraction of it e.g. by setting an start point and end point on that edge (this is NOT similar to the extract-subcurve-command in the bonus tools (which is an 2D-analogon of the extract-surface-command)! The wanted option would allow to create a originally new curve(length) and not merely extract a contained subcurve that was contained and there because of a cutting and/or joining.).

For now, use a macro: ! DupEdge Pause Sellast SubCrv -Pascal


Perhaps DupfaceBorder will help -Pascal

  • Chain function/select only visible(edge in the foreground/aimimg towards you) edges: when selecting a line to duplicate at a complex objects, then only the further lines which are connected to that first selected line, are visible and/or selectable, this way one won’t misselect edge in the background/aiming away from you.
  • Middle mouse popup menu (Most-recently-used-commands popup menu):
  • Option for alphabetical order – I myself find it often more useful if that list is not ordered by the “chronological sequence” but if the most recently used commands are alphabetically ordered. So it would be nice, if there is a radio-checkbox so one can choose the personal preference.
  • It would make big sense to have an option that the commands which are listed in the “never repeat this commands”-box (Rhino options –> General) don’t appear in the most-recently-used-commands-list (because if you don’t want these commands to be repeated, then you usually don’t want/need them in the most-recently-used-commands-list [viewport commands, option commands etc.]) or there should be an additional box were one can enter commands supposed to be obsolete for most-recently-used-commands-list.
  • Context menu (Right mouse button menu):
  • Editable – making the context menu editable like the tool bars or at least the possibility to add some own commands would make that popup menu quiet powerful (it would be a good add-on to the command list for the middle mouse popup menu, which’s list then would not be so big/long)

In V4 the context menus are editable. There are three of them- see Options > Context Menu -Pascal

  • Offset edge:
    • Offset an edge orthogonal to the viewport plane – for nonorthographic views

For now, use a macro: ! Cplane View Offset Pause Pause CPlane Previous -Pascal</color * Mirror: * use surface/line: additionally to define a mirror axe/plane in the viewport, it would be quite comfortable to select any plane surface (in a way like the “Extract Surface”-Command) or a straight line (for orthographic viewports) as the mirror-plane. This makes it possible to do quite crooked mirror operations easily (even in the perspective viewport). V4 allows setting a 3point mirror plane, which should help. -Pascal

  • Layer:
    • Sublayer: Possibility to create Sublayers like Subdirectories/folders for better organization and structure

V4's layer control allows this. -Pascal

  • List of Objects, Groups etc. on the layers
  • Copy / object properties
  • Copy object render-properties (color, reflection, textures, bump-maps etc.) from object to another object

Use the Match button in the properties dialog. Is that what you mean? -Pascal

  • Extrude
    • Additional option: extrude FROM point; would complement the extrude tools – often it is better to have the possibility to extrude from a point instead to a point, e.g. if one tries to bevel surfaces on a sphere especially if u have only the outer measurements of an object.
  • Move:
    • Move along curve (free (default), distance (certain length along the chosen curve), to point/knot (on the chosen curve))
  • Group:
    • Group-Manager-Tool: which contains a list for all named and unnamed groups with their (nesting) hierarchy; this list should also contain the numbers and nature of the objects within a group; highlighting a group in the manager tool should result in highlighting that certain object in the viewports.
    • Instead or additionaly to highlighting listed objects, a preview window to show a certain group would be helpful.
    • Before assigning a name to a group it should be checked if that new name is already in use – unlike the current state, this way existing groups can’t get overwritten.
    • Copy layer (option: with or without objects; with or without Layer state, with or without Layer Properties).
    • Extract a whole group at once - remaining their group bonding - out of the parent group just as one can add and remove multiple single objects. The problem at the moment is, if you have several groups nested in each other then you have to ungroup/unnest everything in order to reach a certain group and that costs a lot of time.
    • It would be a nice-to-have if one could use a space in group names.

You can use a space but you must surround names with spaces with “double quotes”. -Pascal

  • Scale:
    • Variable scale/stretch function in a way that only certain chosen parts of an objects gets changed differently (similar to the maelstrom-function) – e.g. if the height of a block is to be changed one could choose different scale factors at the front to the middle and another from the middle to the back or any other location etc.
  • Tangent-functions: additional option to manually select the curve to which one wants to create a tangent to (often one have crossing or overlaying curves and then it’s extremely difficult or even impossible to get the results one wants).

You may want to try the OnCrv osnap in this case. -Pascal

  • Inconsistencies:
    • Why can I undo Layer (properties) changes but not REdo it? E.g. I can move an object to another layer and can undo this using the undo-command but I can’t undo the undo using Redo, like it is possible with other commands. The same issue comes up when changing the layer properties such as color, name etc…
  • Line/Curve:
    • Merge: would be helpful to have a command that merges lines/curves similar to the “merge surface” tool. And of course it would be best if it would work both for trimmed and untrimmed curves/lines.

Simplifycrv may help here. -Pascal

  • Curve:
    • Command to “Convert kink into knot”
  • Import:
    • Option to import multiple files/objects at once (multi selection option in the dialog box)

Have some more suggestions, but have to write them down clearly first…

Heinz Nachtigall


I wish there was a key to lock the mouse position, because sometimes when I am about to press the mouse button to define a point the mouse moves slightly.

+ Grouping of edit/control points. + Sometimes I want to edit an object which is surrounded by many others. At those times it would be useful to have a function that freezes/unfreezes all the objects in the scene except the one selected.

Use the Invert Hide or Invert Lock buttons in the Visibility toolbar. -Pascal

Dimosthenis Stogios


  1. It would be great to have more control over the camera. And creation of scenes.
  2. Rhino for Mac OS X or at least MAC/WINTEL support.
  3. Support for import of blocks from e.g. AutoCAD.
  4. Better Render Plug-in support, and more render options.
  5. Better control over dimension formating and editing / overriding text attributes etc.
  6. More stable and precise 'make2d' function

Thanks for the best best 3D model tools on the market.

M. Engel

Rhino interface

This is a list of features from Rhino 2.0 which I am missing ever since V3 came out. It would great to see them back in the final release of V4!

  • The essential feature Trackball-mouse-rotation is missing; it offers the most degrees of freedom when rotating, allowing closer interaction with the scene.
  • In V2 it was possible to define a falloff for OpenGL lights in the .ini as well as activating a depthCue(Z-fog).These features were very useful for Realtime OGL rendering!

V4's Advanced settings in Options>Appearance allows at least some of this. -Pascal

  • Another feature once available in V2 was the Z-buffer command for exporting depth.An irreplaceable tool for compositing OGL-captured footage from Rhino.

V4's ShowZBuffer allows this. -Pascal

V4 wishes

  • The linetypes in V4.0 do only affect lines & curves when displayed in a OpenGL viewport. It would be nice to see them working on surfaces and solids as well.
  • When using a spacemouse, the possibility of not only manipulating the camera, but also objects, would greatly increase one's ability to manipulate the scene.

BTW, Rhino is the fastest and most intuitive modeller I ever came across, an indispensable piece of software!

Thanks for reading,

Daniel Kerbler :

I've been using Rhino from the start and use it daily.

One irritating thing is tapered extrusions. I always have to extrude tapered, then take curves from top and bottom and then loft with new curves, This because of the small tw extra surfaces on the corners. Could it be more like loft so all sides would remain one surface?

This in a sharp cornered extrusions.

Use MergeAllfaces to correct this. -Pascal

Thanks! Tommi Jäntti

Bolt Hole interface

The ability to define and place a bolt hole. (C'bore, C'sink, Tapped, etc…) User definable fields (i.e. counterbore diameter, counterbore depth, through hole diameter, etc…) with a save feature, for custom bolt holes, so you don't have to keep redefining it you can just pick and place. Optional switches for through and blind holes.

Also, Ii at a later date I want to add bolt holes to a design but can not remember the parameters used previously, instead of measuring a hole to find out what it is, if I could pick an existing hole and capture its parameters, that would be extremely helpful.

Also, now that the work is done how about a dimension feature that when you pick one of the predefined holes it gives all relevant information for the hole. (i.e. counterbore diameter, counterbore depth, through hole diameter, etc…)

Thanks a million! Great program.

Don Lewis

Support for other platforms

I'm studying architecture and I find that more and more students are using Rhino alongside other CAD apps like Microstation, AutoCAD, and Vectorworks.

How about an OS X version? Yes there is boot camp but it's not a very good solution. As mentioned below and by, hopefully, your own sales, Rhino is becoming more and more popular and is becoming an industry standard. It would be great to see it on some other platforms too. (We all have our preferences.) Have a look at modo and FormZ. They can manage to release software for both Mac and PC. I'm sure you can do it too. There is a market out there within the Mac community especially for architects and other designers. In a lot of cases we use more than one piece of software for 3D work so there is always more room for another 3D app.

-Filip Remplakowski (

Totally agree MAC users want Rhino, and need to use it. Please release a Mac version.

-Fernando Escalante (

Wishes from Oluv

A switch to display selected objects, or entire layers as placeholders, or bounding boxes, or in some other simplified form would be very useful if working on a huge model, and the performance is getting slow. This way some not so important parts could be simplified, but would be still visible as placeholders for reference and of course would be rendered normally. Would also be helpful if many complex library-models are imported into the scene like cars, trees, people, etc. With one click I could switch them to bounding boxes, and concentrate on my main design, and they will still render normally.

Also, Rhino's display performance could be improved a bit further. When working on a huge model, rotation, object-selection etc is getting very slow. But the same model imported into Max, for example, runs still quickly there (although Max is not the fastest either).

Singular “Part” Editing without having to edit directly on the scene where that part lives

This would be a wonderful wish!! - if it came true.

Imagine that you are working on a very complicated model - a remote control - basically, a design that has many parts to it - when a user has to change a button or screw length (change the radius of a fillet). They have to edit that piece directly where it's already positioned. It would be helpful to have the ability to define a part that would open a blank project for that part - that can be edited on its own at a later time.

It seems that using blocks might help here. -Pascal


User selects “button” piece - it looks as if it's grouped - but this part cannot be edited - or changed in that window. Let's say the user needs to change the edge fillet radius on the top of the button, but that button has already been rotated into place, and scaled. This makes it a pain in the ass to edit in place!

User right-clicks on that part and clicks “edit part” in the contextual menu.

The project minimizes and you only see that part as a top view - front view, etc… not rotated or scaled…just a part as if it were flat on a cplane. Basically, that part extracted out of the model - nice and linear.

User edits the part…changes the fillet-edge radius…etc.

User clicks “done” on that part…

Model comes back. Part is shown exactly where it was, but the change has been made. If user tries to scale the part it will mimic that scale so when the user goes back to edit that part it's properly scaled to match the model.

This process bypasses the need to change the c-plane or use the u-plane command for little parts that should be able to be edited on their own!!! And it helps with instances of a part - edit one…and they all change!

This is nothing new. Has been around in many 3D apps…I know you guys know this…had to mention it. Would be A HUGE USABILITY GAIN IN RHINO. Yeah…I get excited easily.

Cheers, Chris Jacobs

Hierarchy of meshing rules, and custom meshing logic

At present, a Rhino file has a single set of meshing parameters that govern how render meshes are made for all objects within it. I'd like to propose a system that would remain backward compatible with it, but permit the modeler greater control – at the layer or even object level.

V4 allows per object meshing. -Pascal

The idea is to permit the modeler to assign a set of meshing parameters to a layer, and even to a NURBS object. By default, those templates would be empty, or have a check box to disable them. When generating render meshes for a given object, Rhino's behavior would be to use the object's own meshing parameters if they were enabled, else the object's layer's, else the file's catch-all rules. This same logic flow could be leveraged when exporting mesh formats.

Embellishments on this idea would be to permit the modeler to take a mesh object he manually created and associate it with a NURBS object. In effect, this step would be saying, “remove this mesh from the object workspace, and consider it as the mesh to use whenever a render mesh is required for this object”. This would permit modelers ultimate freedom in cases where the parametric model of creating meshes is just not cutting it for a given item in the composition.

The second idea is to throw in special case logic when creating meshes for primitives that would throw out the generalized logic altogether in favor of a specific treatment catering to the geometry of the primitive in question. An easy example, the only question to ask someone who needs to see a cylinder meshed is: how many sides do you want on the extruded regular polygon?

Better constraints and Postfix expressions

Consider this series of different ways input to a command could be made more flexible.

1. Allow units-of-measure suffixes on numeric entries. e.g.: if the user knows he wants a point 2 inches up in Y, despite the fact that his workspace dimensions are set in metric, allow him to Point 0,2in,0

Units that spring to mind are m, mm, cm, mi, yd, ft, in, nmi

2. Similarly, postfix expressions are very easy to support and can spare the user from having to jot out some math before typing out a number, as when asked how many degrees to extend an arc, and knowing he wants 1/15th of a circle: 360 15 /

3. Allow use of ? or some other wildcard in lieu of a number to indicate “I don't know, set this as a constraint and I will click it home afterward.” For instance: Point 5, ?, ? would then fix the X coordinate of the point yet to be clicked in as 5. I think I recall Rhino has some such capability now, but I found it clumsy

4. The present use of “r” (for relative) is too restrictive, as it is applied to all dimensions prompted for. I'd like to be able to apply this in-line, for whichever coordinate wants a relative value: Point 5, r2, r2 would set a point at X=5, Y=lastY+2, Z=lastZ+2

5. Permit in these same entries a few variables, such as X,Y,Z being the coordinates of the present entry, and last.X, last.Y and last.Z being those of the previous entry.

6. Permit dynamic constraints to be entered, such as when prompted for the width and height of a rectangle, allow the entry: ?, x 2 * – the result of this would be that you still had to click a point, but the height was dynamically constrained to twice the width.

You don't have to go far overboard with these, but the sparse set of stripped-down examples above illustrate a to-the-point treatment.

Rhino universal tool cross-platform

Windows, MAC, Linux… Rhino could and should become cross-platform standard for interdisciplinary exchange. Already, designers, architects, and even acoustic engineers use it.

Rhino should be Wine-compatable

Best thing would be to port it natively to Linux. If that is not possible, try compatablility with Wine. This would allow it to run on Macs (via Darwine) and Linux (via Wine).

Interface Issue

Please open up the interface for customization. As we work with different software packages it's totally annoying to have different shortcuts in every tool, i.e. for my taste the spacebar connected to the “enter” and “repeat last command” is totally redundant and useless. I already have right mouse button and the enter key for that. It would be much much more handy to connect it to the maximize viewport command like it is in Maya (and our customized Max versions).

Best regards,

Ron Martin

Big Wish: Object Names and Structure Tools

Please implement any form of a Window which gives users a one sight overview over a scene or a model.

This could be done inside the layer window. It could be a schematic view with nodes for every object, or a window which shows the scene content in kind of a file tree.

It's very very difficult to navigate inside big scenes right now (if I did not miss any existing tool).

Best regards,

Ron Martin


Some more wishes:

  • The automatic update of the surfaces when altering their origin curves to work with all types of surface creation, like “Patch”, “Sweep 2 Rails” etc. (like the way it works with “Loft”, “Rail Revolve” etc.).
  • Instead of the splitting or trimming of a dependant curve (a curve that is an origin of a surface) to result to the surface to lose the ability to be editable thru the origin curves, there could be a dialog asking which part of the curve to be the origin after trimming or splitting. Right now, trimming or splitting an origin curve and attempting to edit another origin curve of the same surface will result Rhino to crash.

Pascal says: This does not appear to crash here. I can trim input curves and have a surface update ok with subsequent edits. Checking with the user for details.

  • If each surface have its origin curves for ever. They could be turned on and off.
  • The surfaces to have as property their creation options. It can be in the properties dialog, in the top pulldown menu, as “creation options” along with “object” and “material”.
  • Option to select the origin curves of a surface in the properties dialog of the surface.
  • The ability to select more than one profile curves in “rail revolve” command.
  • Snap to isocurves.
  • Silhouette snapping. It could be part of the “OnSurface” command, stand alone in the “Osnap” toolbar or persistent snap in the “Object Snap” toolbar.

Dimosthenis Stogios


Hello, my wishes:

  • Being able to see line widths inside the viewport.

V4's PrintDisplay allows this. -Pascal

  • Choose which side of the line the width to be applied, “linewidth normals” can describe that.
  • Curves or surfaces remain tangent across symmetry plane all the time during editing.

V4's Symmetry allows this. -Pascal

  • The update of the symmetrical object to happen during the editing of the source object and not when finishing the editing action.
  • Curves which are created by picking edit points.
  • “Lock edit point(s)” of curves. It would be very usefull in creating curve networks. What I do now is to create two curves, then move one edit point of one curve on top of another edit point of the other curve and continue with editing the other edit points. So “lock edit point” would definitely help.
  • “Lock intersection” of curves (not kinky). It would be great if it was possible to apply every type (or at least some of them) of point editing (edit points, control points, handlebar editor) on, for example, two intersecting curves while in the same time their intersection stays still in the 3D space.
  • Customizable menus, like customizable toolbars exist so far.
  • Defined area in which grab will be effective, all curve creating methods available and antialiasing filter in the icon editor in the “Edit Toolbar Button”.

Dimosthenis Stogios

Wishes (B Somol)

Yes, please make Rhino for Mac… Please!

Wishes (Arthur McDent)

Rhino to run on the Mac. (Now with the Intel transition, that should be easy) There is a huge market out there hungry for the best CAD program… P L E A S E give it a try!)

And, (more pragmatically) parallel offset (turn surfaces into solids by extruding in both surface normal direction)

V4's OffsetSrf allows this. -Pascal

Finally, a better layer management, including grouping, snappable etc.

Wishes (R Stowey)

I've been thinking about the way in which I use Rhino, and often I will use it as a simple illustration tool when looking at a number of options for a particular build to be demonstrated to clients quickly and clearly.

One thing which would be useful would be a “Adobe” style layers menu. The locking and hiding of layers is great but something else would be the ability to drag layers up and down the list, and also drag them onto the “new layer” button to duplicate the layer, or drag it onto the “delete layer” button to remove the layer.

Another feature available in the Adobe layers menu within their programs is the Layer folders option. This would be extremely handy, along with these being copyable.

I have no idea how this would interact with the import and export of the layers into other programs, however as a limitation within Rhino it certainly would be most welcome!

Another thing which recently came to my attention is that when working on multiple projects, when choosing any of the “Save as…” “Open” and “Save Render” commands, the location which opens is the one which was used last. It could be an interesting option to have to enable a file to have a set file location or directory structure to where it will save the renders, save incriments, import bitmaps for materials, or use bitmaps for backgrounds etc. If one could specify a project directory for use with a file, or even specify a single file from which all other files are created, this would be of much use. Possibly the file in question would only be used by a sub function of Rhino to keep all of the attributed files within ease of reach and quick opening, saving and managing of individual projects.

Richard Stowey

Wishes from Andy Church

  • Selection masks (ie curve, surface, polysurface, etc.)
  • The ability to specify tangency on the starting and ending sections in the loft command (or the ability to specify no tangency on one end of the blend surface command).

Loft allows this now if the inputs at the ends are surface edges and there is at least one more curve between. BlendSrf in V4 allows independent settings at either end. -Pascal

  • Faster tesselation in shaded views. (In the current WIP, this is a productivity killer on even medium sized files).
  • A more interactive version of 'Match'. Similar to the tool in Alias Studio (or like the blend surface command with sliders for the magnitude of tangency).

BlendCrv allows this. -Pascal

  • An object listing or tree.

Andy Church

Wish for topographical / contour mapping

I would like a topographical / contour mapping tool which colours ranges a surface according to it elevation. This makes complex surfaces much more understandable.

Neil Ryan

Suggestion for MoveUVN

I’d like to see visual feedback while using the MoveUVN dialog box. The way I visualize it, when the mouse cursor is over a button or slider in the dialog box, a short line would extend from the selected points in the direction that they would move. Visual feedback would also be useful with the point selection commands on complex surfaces.

Tom Murray

Wishes from David Trubridge

  • The basic snap range extended to work like vectorworks or concepts.: such as snap to origin, and snap to perpendicular (say for easily drawing the 3rd side of a rectangle)

V4's SmartTracking allows this. -Pascal

  • Dimensions linked so that they change with drawing changes (adding weight to existing similar wishes).
  • Improve unroll surface actions, so that you can unroll surface, work on it in 2D, then roll it back up again to its original position. I have tried working with create/apply UV curves and project/pull back but they are clumsy and unreliable (unless you have better suggestions?)

Wishes from Dave Mercel

  1. It would be amazing if Rhino could use the Cloudworx plug-in for AutoCAD. This is a plug-in that enables the viewing of millions of points in point cloud form and allows you to use them as references for modelling. You can view them clearly and it saves the intensity information that comes with so many of the laser scanning point types. This would open a whole new arena of Rhino users.
  2. More manipulation peramiters for modelled elements. Those similar to Maya or Max where you can grab each element of a model and manipulate its position precisely, such as control vertices and isoparms. I know you can access these in Rhino at the mo, but the level of control is not the same, and can be quite frustrating.
  3. Other than the two above Rhino gets the thumbs up every time. I love being able to out perform other CAD packages that everyone else swears by. Rhino seems to just work…

Dave Mercel

Command Line Calculations

  • I would like the ability to enter a formula when a command expects a point, for example, End of line (BothSides): 14in pi, 13mm sin(14.2), 1. I'd be happy if it just did arithmetic, but it would be better if it also did unit conversion, trig functions, etc. I use the RhinoCalc plug-in ( that works fairly well, but it doesn't work in all cases, and it will only work in one instance of Rhino at a time.

(Mike) You can do that (almost exactly: (14in) pi, (13mm) sin(14.2), 1 ) in ecncRHcalc4 (RhinoV4 expression evaluator). It is native Rhino 4 plug-in, so it works with multiple Rhino 4 sessions. You can download it FREE at Mike

  • I would like an easier way to reference existing geometry when entering points, for example, End of line (BothSides): ref end <click the end of an existing feature> r6,0,0

I used Computervision Personal Designer for years and these feature made quick work of creating geometry.

Stan VanDruff

Wishes for Rhino Drafting Tools

My wish < Xref function >

   I want the Xref function
   which is similar to AutoCAD or Illustrator...
   Other files are can be linked with active (working) file, and display the same world.


My main wishes (José Luis Pérez )

  1. Hypernurbs and polygon editing tools as found on cinema 4d, which also supports n-gons.
  2. Realtime, parametric simetry modelling
  3. 3D curve exporting to .c4d or any other popular format.

My wishes (Chris Moor)

  1. Parametric unfolding of surfaces into 2D patterns preventing expansion or contraction. If it has to be split suggest the amount of material to be added or removed. Reads each contour and offers a dialogue for contour surface resolution. Place the 2D patterns on their own layer each. Allow seam allowances to be added associated by each curve. Parametric being the fact that if I change the 2D pattern it affects the 3D model accordingly. Patterns and model associativity on the fly letting me diagnose 3D-2D-3D easily. The T3D interface is however difficult for initial object creation. The unfolding utility is actually just a separate view. The interface gives grid locations where stretch will occur allowing me to assign my darts somewhat
  2. Match properties button on a single click; >select object to match, >select objects to change. Can't script it but I could use this feature dozens of times a day. Too many steps in current set up.

Clipping planes (j.andre.)

I'd like to be able to make shapes/solids that would act as clipping planes for views and Make2D command. I'd like it to work like solid boleaning, but with out having to actually remove parts of my model. form z has a great feature like this.

it would be very nice if when you cut/paste lines from one file to another, if they kept their linetype done

Camera as object (Sam Page)

It would be very handy to be able to treat the camera like an object, so you could group things to it, as well as use standard transforming commands on it, such as move and mirror. Also if they acted like objects, it would allow you to break the camera per viewport idea a little bit, i.e. you could place, copy, move, or mirror as many cameras as you wanted, each time you duplicated a camera, it would ask you for a unique name, which would then appear in the set camera flyout.

I concur. i'm very much for this too. – J.Andre

Yes, Camera and object widgets would be very helpfull. – S.Schneider

Lofting Wishes (Sam Page)

  1. Loft between surfaces, which leads to wish 2:
  2. Have start and finish blending options if the start or end input is a surface or point. For example, if I have a bunch of rings with a point on the end, when I loft I get something like a pencil shape, if there was a lofting option for the end blending option, I could get something more like a hotdog (very handy for aircraft nose + wingtips). For lofting between surfaces, say I'm lofting two circular planes 6“ in diameter, in plan they line up on top of each other, one is 12” above the other. With no blending options, I would end up with a cylinder 12“ tall, 6” in diameter (just like if I extruded the edge curves). With blending options, I would end up with a shape that would be the same as if I had drawn two parallel lines, 3“ long, 12” apart, ran a blendcrv on them, then revolved the results. Perhaps the blending options could be handled in a similar way to blendcrv in terms of having control of the result.

View capture to file (j.andre.)

I'd really like it to remember the last settings used… example: the last resolution to be remembered, and the last file type to be remembered.

Exploding AutoCAD Dimensions. (j.andre.)

I'd like to be able to explode AutoCAD dimentions into usable lines. They are unable to be snapped to unless you turn on thier points currently.

You can explode dimensions in V4

OpenGL, real time rendering.

We are a big global design group, and we use Rhino for our main design activities because is fast and easy. The only limit we have is visualize our models with nice rendering losing time for set-up lights, materials and waiting for the complete calculations of the picture.

We use the environment map because is fast and easy, but as you know there is some limitations (this feature are not present real time antialiasing, real time materials rendered with bitmap, bump, reflections,real time shadow casting). Other programs as Alias Studio, 3D MAX have this kind of feature that will be nice also in Rhino.

Rhino on Linux

I'd love to see Rhino run on Linux. It does not need to be native, but just a little more compatiable with WINE or Crossover Office.

That's a real me too :)

Array with varying scale

It would be great to be able to array objects (solids, polysurfaces or surfaces)in a varying scale for example decreasing or increasing in scale.

Khaled El-Chiati

Exporting to 3dsMax

Exporting rounded surfaces or solids to 3dsmax is a problem for me. For example, a little sphere needs many polygons. Is there a easy way for this or can u make this? I need little file sizes, i.e. when I model a project in Rhino it gets 3mb but the same project whne modeled in 3dsmax it gets 200k…(I'm exporting model in 3ds format.)

Object Names displayed in selection list

I would like Rhino to display the names of the object in the selection list rather than “polysurface, polysurface, curve, curve, curve”. In complicated drawings I have to scroll thru the list to see which object highlights. Displaying the name next to the TYPE of object would be really helpful. So if I clicked on a crowded area the pop up box would list “polysurface (Main Axle), polysurface (Bearing Support Assy), group (bearing retainers), etc.)

It could even be set in the preferences to turn this on or off.

(Pascal) you can do this now in V4. The options of the selection menu (right-click on the selection menu or see Options > Selection menu) let you choose among several bits of info to display in the menu.

Multiple trim and extend (Sam Page)

Select the boundry or trim to object, then select a multiple option, you can then draw a line through what you would like to be extended / trimmed.

Polar Move (Dimitris Avramidis)

An old wish for me, but quite a need for my work sometimes. Imagine you've drawn a circle (radius A) and have arrayed 8 objects along the circle. I just need to place them in a different (but equal from the center) distance than the first radius (A). A polar move would be a good solution (instead of redrawing a circle, moving the object to its new location and rearraying). Selecting all the objects, first click on the center, second click on one of the objects and moving it to the new location, transforms all objects accordingly. Something like scale 2D, but without… scaling

It could also be done in 3 dimensions…

Dimitris Avramidis

(Pascal) V4 History should make this possible- array your objects using ArrayPolar or ArrayCrv with history recording and playback turned on (HistoryManager) and then move the original to a different radius. The others will follow and move outward to the new radius as well.

(David) This is possible in Rhino 3 with a dotNET plug-in which can be downloaded here:

Robust_Shell_and_offset_surface_comand|Robust shell and offset commands

Submitted by

Multiple Object Selection Wish

When you do a mouse pick and the Selection Menu appears be able to hold down shift key and do multible picks.

Submitted by

My wish (edit: new wishes added)

My wish is fix the middle button (wheel) click bug with Microsoft mouse drivers.. When is on wheel click assigned default value (autoscroll) it works in Rhino (popup windows or run of own macro) but when I define in MS Intellipoint other value to wheel click, for example doubleclick, in Rhino wheel click don't do anything… I think it can be fixed in next SR, but, I want to have this fix in Rhino 4 :)

Eh, and next wish - is possible “record” my actions to script file and then run it? So I can have for example in script all actions of modeling, so when I run script again, it will make for example model of rim. (When I record all progress of rim) Because it can be next generation of “video tutorials” so user download for example 10MB of script and he will see all modeling of rim instead downloading of 50MB video :) possibly ability of pause running script, slow down run of script etc… I dont know if its possible, but Its my big wish :P

Okay, next thing - It will be nice if in RH 4 will be fully customizable UI - now I think colors - I want to make dark scheme (with dark color on toolbars, etc. but color of toolbar you can change in RH 3 only over edit of windows color scheme… my idea of schemes is ,for example, in 3ds max (you can define own colors of ANYTHING what you see) and if in RH 4 will be this support of coloring, plz, make a dynamic change of background of icons (so grey color of toolbar will do grey color of background on icons on toolbars, same in black color etc. ) (just transparent background =) ) sry for my english, it's bad, but I hope you understand my wishes and I hope I'll see my wishes in reality in final RH 4 :P

Possibility of several 3DM files opened in one instance of Rhino (and switching between them by “window-name_of_project” (as for example in MS Word) or by “panels” as in Mozilla Firefox ;)

Jiri Komon

Three Rail Sweep & More robust fillets Dave Mefford

Saved Selection (Scott Corey (<>)) Edit: new wishes

My wish is to use groups like saved selections. When you click on two objects they get highlighted and you get a choice of which object you want to select. I wish groups acted like an extra selection instead of nesting different groups on top of one another.

A second wish I have is to be able to scale the space between objects. Let's say I have 15 various objects like buildings that are different distances and I want them to maintain the proportional distance, I could scale the objects closer together without the actual objects changing size, just the space in between them becomes smaller.

How about making Layer “Trees”. It would be really handy to be able to have “sub layers” rather like the folder layout in windows, which can be controlled a master layer. For example, you could have a master layer called “Deck” and underneath that you have “deck lights”, “cleats”, “winches” etc. That way you could turn off the master layer and quickly work your drawing. Rather than having to sift through 50 odd layers and turn off the ones you dont want at any given time. Am I making sense? Surely this would be an easy and useful addition. This describes how the V4 layer manager works

PDF 3D exporting (Riccardo Gatti)

In my opinion will be very usefull if Rhino 4 will be able to export in 3D-PDF format.

Riccardo Gatti

Also Mauro Gatti are of the same opinion, the export of documents pdf-3D for many applications is a lot interesting.

Suggestion for BoundingBox

It would be nice to have a “dimensions only” option for getting the dimensions of an object in the command line without the actual bounding box.

Tom Murray

Suggestion for a BooleanTree or HistoryManager

We seriously need a Boolean Tree like 3ds Max to make Rhino more reliable and efficient!

Check out and you'll see what i mean.

Ben Reynolds

Wish: Analyse Thickness

An analysis tool that graphically (like a curvature or draft) represents distances between tw0 surfaces.

And wall thickness of a closed polysurface volume. This would help to design plastic parts with minimum sink marks.

Artur T

Two wishes

When printing, I'd like to automatically print a (customizable) header like in a spreadsheet or other with fields like date, file name, path, etc.

Drawing origin could be selectable with an osnap like an endpoint ?

Gilles Romano

Wishes from Willem (jan 05 2006)

“Isolate Selection” feature like in 3dS-Max


Wishes from David (Jan 29 2006)

It would be great to be able to edit texture mapping coordinates. I am importing models from Photomodeler with photographic textures. The textures for the whole model are retained on a single texture bitmap file. Being able to edit the texture mapping coordinates would give complete control over placement of external texture files.

David Ramsay

A Wish for Booleans for Meshes and Mesh Remapping

  • It would be nice if it were possible to perform boolean functions (union and difference) on meshes.

Dale says: In Rhino 4.0, try the new MeshBooleanDifference, MeshBooleanIntersection, MeshBooleanSplit, and MeshBooleanUnion commands.

  • It would be even nicer if you could readjust mesh density on a mesh.

Jack Meyer

Wish From Mike

The ability to use a pdf file as a background bitmap to be able to trace over when the pdf file cannot be imported using the file import option.

Wish from Steve

Multiple Transform,Rotate,Scale (like Centriforce Vector copy/paste).

Lock control points

It would be nice to be able to lock control points on spline to allow one section to remain straight while the remainder of the spline is being manipulated. This would help on hull keels with a flat running surface and a swept bow.

Chris Smith

Wishs: Polygon/pencil Marquee Selection and better join/merge

A tool similar to the tool of the same name in Photoshop. It would be useful in situations where the standard rectangle won't work, and where clicking on each object individualy would take too long. I'd also like to see a more advanced join/merge command which would not just 'group' objects ala join, or merge them as it currently does, but actually does both, not changing the current shape as it would appear when joined, but merges them into one solid object which would work better when exporting IGES to maya.

Jeff DeJong

Wishes: Displacement copy/move, group intersections, expanded scripting

  1. Displacement copy/move. The ability to enter a Displacement for copying and moving (x,y,z) instead of a beginning point and an ending point. Similar to entering (0,0,0) and then (x,y,z), but removes a step. It may seem small, but it adds up after 100 or so hours on a model. This could easily be accomplished by taking the first coordinates entered as the Displacement if no second coordinates are entered (similar to AutoCAD functionality).
  2. Group intersections. Being able to intersect one group of objects with another group of objects without any in-group intersections. Currently it seems (and correct me if I'm wrong because it's hard to tell) that all selected objects intersect with all other selected objects, regardless of grouping or selection order. Group intersections could be accomplished with a two-part selection sequence, where the objects selected in the first part are not intersected with each other, and the objects in the second part are not intersected with each other, but the objects in the first part are intersected with the objects in the second part. This operation may sound obscure, but it's actually used quite often in architecture.
  3. Auto-layer-off-deselect. Try this some time: select about 4,000 objects on a layer and then turn the layer off. It takes about 5 minutes. If you deselect them first, it's instantaneous. It would be nice if Rhino would either not take so long or would automatically deselect the objects first.

Patrick Carmody

Mesh wishes - Stitch, Smooth, Tessalate - Subdivide

  1. A tool for stitching mesh point similar to handy tool in MeshCad or MeshWorks to reduce and simply modify mesh geometry.
  2. A tool known in Max or other application as Tasselate or sub divide - handy for smoothing what is my last wish.

Viktor VTR Tonner

Blend and Curve Fillet Wishes

  1. Blend curves through point. The ability to create a blend (with curvature) between two curves that passes through a point in the middle (with out having to create two blends and intermediate curves).
  2. Blend Curves fillet (i.e. creates a curvature fillet on two curves rather than a tangency fillet).


Wish for Features

  1. I'd like to see a simple means to export a point cloud to a text file, formatted in the specific manner to work with popular laser projection systems (ex: Virtek, Assembly Guidance). The format typically contains for each point the point name, it's XYZ position, and a surface normal.
  2. I'd like to be able to orient all the surface normals in a model towards a defined point. For example, one would define a point in space, then select the target surfaces. This would be useful for common surface analysis type work in which measured point data is compared to surfaces, and for which often times a great deal of prep-work consists of (in the case of a female mold) telling the analysis software which side of the mold surface the measurements are being performed on… That info is required because, in the common case of a round probe, a compensation must be made for the radius of that probe… And for that effort the surface normal must be properly conditioned beforehand. Also, in the case of laser projection systems, the surface normal determines which (in a system comprised of multiple heads) projection head is “most near normal”, so that it is the one chosen to project an image onto the work surface.

Alex Bereczky

A Simple Wish

Or so I hope. Years ago, I first learned to model with a program called CDRS, (A.K.A. ProDesigner), by PTC. As unstable as this program was, it offered many neat features which are still not available in Rhino. The one I miss the most is to be able create an unlimited amount of “Sub-Layers” under any Layer. The main advantage was that if you turned off the parent layer, then all sublayers would also turn off.


Dale says: In Rhino 4.0, the Layer command lets you create hierarchical layers.

Measure Line

Could you extend the 'measure line' feature where it will give the total of all lines selected?

Sam Shields

Dale says: In Rhino 4.0, the Length command lets you select one or more curves.

Heightfield Projection and Show/Hide Wishes

  1. Ability to apply heightfield maps like decals with the various options for projections (cylindrical, spherical, etc.) to any shape surface.
  2. Multiple hide “layers”. not really sure what to call them. I use show/hide quite often as it's easier than turning on and off layers. maybe i'm just lazy. if there were a Hide1, Hide2, and Hide3, with corresponding Show commands it would make quick work of some simple tasks.


Dale says: In Rhino 4.0, the scripted version -Hide allows a named set of hidden objects. The -Show command prompts for a name. Once the objects are shown, the name is removed.


I'd like to add a wish for Rhino on Linux. Yours is one of the few Windows programs I still use, and I think Rhino is a fantastic piece of software with a great user base, but Windows…woof! What a dog…if I added up the billable hours spent starting/restarting Windows/Illustrator/Photoshop/Outlook, maybe I would pay you to port to something else.

Severn Clay

Tangent Line at Angle

Create tangent line at angle (the ”<“ constrain not work in tangent line command).


MY Wish List

Being able to choose when meshing between triangles and quads (relevant for export to ZBrush)

Norbert Palz

Make it parametric. As a violin maker this would help me to reuse models and parts of models easier.

Steven D'Antonio

Wish List

  • Middle-click on a button for the last command-repeat (which refers on that button), not on the last command operation…
  • I'd love to see something like 'Subdivision Surfaces' starting from a chunky Mesh 2 get to a SmoothNurbs. Additional Controlling over the edge smoothness via handlebar editor should be given. I can think of something like a cloth…

Thanks for V4. Great Job!

Iionnis Zonitsas

Lights in Blocks

  • I'd like to be able to put lights inside blocks in Rhino so that when modeling lighting. The actual lights and the lighting fixtures could be edited and inserted together.

Edgesrf command through VBScript

  • It would be a major convenience if we could select a surface edge through scripts.

My Wish list ;-)!

Halo, I wish Rhino could have a fully editable Coordinate System just like 3D Max. This coud be extensive to the principal transformations for objets at the editing time. It could be like the floating paletes.

A picking list to chose by name the objets in any pallete, like layer select or another idea. Some times I can't remember the objects names.

Scklava 3arkeov

Multiple Monitor Support

Something like Microstation's two application window feature. I always seem to be pulling toolbars back into position after the window has been minimized. Thanks for a great product though!

Matt Smith

My Wish List

  • Blend curves on surface.
  • Interpolate curve on polysurface.
  • Convert mesh to NURBS (without having to buy a plug-in that costs more than Rhino!).
  • Interpolate on polygon mesh.
  • Persistent snap to surfaces/polysurfaces/meshes (all not only the selected one).
  • Control for affected distance of match surface/curve commands (how much of the shape will be modified).
  • Tool that actually fixes naked edges (not only change tolerances but modifies surfaces).
  • Rotate-scale (command that does both functions at once).

Use Orient for this, with the Scale options.

  • Also, it would be cool if the sketch command worked more like the Illustrator pencil tool, so if you dont like the line or part of the line you sketched you just sketch over it again to change it. In Rhino when you sketch over a line it makes a second line instead of finetuning the first one. This sucks because you them have to escape the command and select it again, wich is slower. This is my favorite way to sketch with my Wacom tablet, so it frustrates me that I can't use it with my favorite program, Rhino.
  • Rhino should team up with the guys from David Laserscanner to create a Rhino plug-in for homemade laserscanners.


— Maybe I'm old fashioned and this already exists in the latest version, but when I make a multiple surface monster of a model, some of the CAM (computer cutting machines) software I use really likes single surfaces in order to cut along the natural NURBS directions of the surface…So I'd like a Super Join command that just works, no matter what, filling in slight edge misalignments too, to turn many surfaces into one smooth NURBS surface be it open or closed (solid). What I have done in the past is take a mesh and project it onto the surface with high resolution, then convert the mesh to NURBS. This must be done in several steps to get all the way around the model. I forget the details of how I did it, since I don't bother any more.

Simple one? I always use the 'select objects' command by right-clicking on a layer from the layer tree, but wish that I could select multiple layers at once and still be able to use the 'select objects' command which doesn't appear as an option once multiple layers are selected. Thanks!

This works as you describe in the V5 WIP.

Another simple one? Dynamic trim, the opposite of dynamic extend. This could also be part of the dynamic extend command. If the cursor moves beyond the curve end it extends, but if it is moved short of the end of the curve it is shortening or trimming. also, the ability to call out a specific trim value the same way you can with extend, for example entering a value of ten units the object curve by ten. seems like the math is already written from the extend command.

In the V5 WIP, Extend will accept a negative number to shorten a curve by the entered amount. There is also the SubCrv command which may help. It accepts distance constraints to set the length of the sub curve.

Object Planar to Camera

For the architectural designs I work on I would really appreciate the silhouette of a 2D human to stay perpendicular to my camera. It increases insight in scale and proportion as I design. Some polymodelers already do this. Can it be done for Rhino?

Pim Marsman

Find Replace - How about putting a find replace option for text

Hatch Boundary

The ability to extract the boundary from a hatch, or to even OSNAP to where the boundary would have been.

Wishes of Blastered

-Add object(s) to mapping widget -Remove all mapping widgets of selected object(s) -To be able to resize floating window size from view port properties -Render in window with lasso selection -Show U,V direction on surface edge when rebuilding -Chamfer Edge tool: Different distances from edge option -Draw circle with circumference

A viewport appearance option that allows you to hide joined edges on polysurfaces and will show contour edges and sharp edges only no matter how you rotate the part, like a constant silhouette. This would make for much nicer renders. Or at least be able to hide selected edges.

In the V5 WIP, use the Technical display mode. Is that any better? Use the Tech* commands to set specific characteristics like hidden lines and so on.

And the ability to use many curve styles while building one curve, so you can start interpolating a curve then make a straight section in it then do a control point section. This would really speed things up and create tangency between them.

Add a normal to surface otion when using soft edit surface.

And a spherical solid “drape” type command that allows you to take meshes or multiple objects and create a sphere that then shrinks around the objects to create a watertight solid. The shrink amount could be adjusted with a slider to create sharp edges or round corners. Then you could even select specific areas to adjust the shrink effect on to have sharp areas and smooth ones. Think of a 3d ballon being vaccum formed around your model. This would solve naked edge and multiple blend issues.


On mouse controls, it would be nice there was an option for keyboard shortcuts to middle mouse button or to make the button act as enter in the window (more like AutoCAD) and allow mapping of the spacebar.

Thanks, Dave


When Sub layers are created from a parent layer, it should be inherited not as a new layer, i.e. the sub layer attributes should be same as the parent or there should be some option for this.

Ganesh Babu Sekar (

Pipe History

Give the Pipe command the ability to record the history.

Margaret says: This is done in Rhino 5.

rhino/wishlist.txt · Last modified: 2018/08/29 by bob