Opinion: Rhino to SU Export.

JClements

I am asking this question of SU folks that also use or have experience with Rhino v4.

Rhino was my first exposure to a 3D application and I used it occasionally from version 2 through version 3.

When SU2 came along, I realized that I do so much of what I used to do in Rhino quicker/easier with a lot less aggrivation.

Soooo ... I haven't used Rhino in the last 2 or 3 years at all. There are tools in Rhino, however, that can do things extremely easy. Blends, patches, etc.,

I was briefly looking at the capabilities of Rhino 4 and possibly getting an upgrade from v3. Before doing so I would like your opinion on how well Rhino geometry comes into SketchUp and the "editabilty" of that geometry.

Regards, John

gksl4

You can try an evaluation version
http://www.rhino3d.com/download.htm

SketchUp exporter (v6) at
http://download.mcneel.com/download.asp?id=SketchupExportPlugin

After Rhino 4 released, I have changed my workflow from AutoCad-SU to AutoCad-Rhino4-SU. Works fine for me in highway engineering details.

rabbit

I use rhino and sketchup as my two main design tools - they complement each other very well. mostly I model anything I know needs to be fully documented in rhino V4, and use sketchup to visualise the model, texture it etc, but it depends on the job - sometimes i model directly in sketchup, then export section views to rhino to dimension etc.

Rhino has a skp import / export option, which works pretty well, although on a big model the exported skp file will be very big - rhino is much better working with big or complex files than sketchup.
I have found that dwg works very well for import / export between the two - in rhino you can tweak many of the dwg export parameters till you get the model to mesh how you like.

Rhino can make curved surfaces and complex curves with ease, that sketchup has great difficulty in doing.
V4 is a big step up from 2 and 3, in that it has solid editing tools that are similar to sketchups push pull, and also has full 2D document tools like line weight, line types, hatches, paper space etc...

They are both great programs, with different though complimentary strengths, and also both have a great company ethos, and are very easy and helpful to deal with - more than happy to give both these companies money for their products, which is certainly not the way i feel about many other software companies and vendors, but lets not go there....

cheers

rabbit

toxicvoxel

I can only reiterate what has been said before. Sketchup for speed in conjunction with Rhino for complexity works very well indeed. The new exporter does a pretty good job too.