The first Rhinoceros 3D session of our group was split into 2 exercises meant to teach a basic understanding of the software interface and simple commands.
To compliment the lighthouse we create a small landscape surface. To make this we use the "Surface from 3 or 4 points" tool and create a plan surface. By clicking this surface and using the "Rebuild" tool we can now control the height of individual points on the surface to push and pull a 3D mesh. To finalise we use the "Contours" tool on the newly created 3D surface to extract the contour lines. All of the tools used can also be typed in the "command log" instead of manually locating the tool.
Exercise 1: We began by having a look at the distribution of the interface and tools in Rhino. The first thing we observe is that the viewports are split between 4 quadrants of Plan, 2 Elevations and Perspective which makes manipulating your object easy as you can switch viewports by simply hovering your mouse over them.
Afterwards we had a look at the command panels and other function panels of the software
a - File & Edit tabs
b - Rhino command log
c - Advanced commands toolbars and tabs
d - Layers panel
f - Properties panel
g - Line snapping options
h - Drafting Views
i - Common commands toolbar
Next we had a look at the polyline tool. This is the most common tool used in Rhino as the basis of any modelling in this software relies on crating surfaces from "curves" (any closed or open polyline). After intersecting and trimming lines with one another we moved onto creating solids with the extrusion tool. Just like polylines, extruded solids can be cut or trimmed through one another using the "Boolean" cut tools.
Having had created a few different extrusions it was now a good time to make use of the layers panel. Working with layers as you progress in Rhino is crucial to maintaining clarity and order as you can hide layers of your choosing to reduce the "weight" of the model, making it easier to pan, zoom and orbit around your model. Also you can easily attribute the same properties to all elements assigned within a layer which can save a lot of time.
Exercise 2: In the second exercise of the session we undertook to apply the previously learnt tools to create a coherent object, in this case a lighthouse on a pier surrounded by terrain.
We start by creating the outline of the pier using polylines, this time by typing the measurement values for accuracy. We offset the curve to interior and extrude to create the pier.
Using the "Loft" tool on 2 circles at different levels we create the body of the lighthouse. On the top of the newly created lighthouse we build one post as a single extrusion of a circle located at the edge of the surface. We then use the "Array Polar" tool to copy the post into a circluar array so we don't have to individually copy every post. To make the "railing" of the lighthouse we use the "Pipe" tool on a circular curve and introduce the diameter of the pipe.
We follow up with another cylindrical extrusion for the "house" on the lighthouse and we create an organic roof using the "Revolve" tool on a spline. This tool rotates the spline around a central axis creating the shape.
To compliment the lighthouse we create a small landscape surface. To make this we use the "Surface from 3 or 4 points" tool and create a plan surface. By clicking this surface and using the "Rebuild" tool we can now control the height of individual points on the surface to push and pull a 3D mesh. To finalise we use the "Contours" tool on the newly created 3D surface to extract the contour lines. All of the tools used can also be typed in the "command log" instead of manually locating the tool.
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