Rhino

supplying the UK market with CAD add-ons

Second Source (UK) Ltd, 8 Joiners Lane, Gerrards Cross, Bucks SL9 0AA tel 01753-892385 fax 01753-892324

Rhino 4.0

RhinocerosŇ, or Rhino for short, is an amazingly robust, easy-to-use, fully-functioned modeler for creating curves, surfaces or solids. Rhino is developed by Robert McNeel & Associates of Seattle.

Rhino uses NURBS technology. NURBS stands for Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline. NURBS is jargon for a curve that is defined by a generalised mathematical equation. The parameters of the equation can be given different values according to the shape of the curve that is being defined. Curves can range from a straight line to the most sinuous 3D curve. Because of this flexibility in the mathematics a NURBS-based modeler can be used to represent almost any curve, surface or solid that you can imagine. Whilst NURBS technology has been somewhat difficult for designers to understand, Rhino takes all the pain away by making it simple for designers to model the shapes that they want to create. The extensive beta testing over the last two years has brought thousands of suggestions for improvements to the user interface and to the functionality of Rhino. Rhino has been designed by its users!

The range of applications for Rhino is almost limitless: mechanical components, architectural features, consumer goods, people, animals (including rhinos), cars, planes, spacecraft, cartoon characters. Rhino models can be exported in DWG, STL, IGES, Catia, SolidWorks, 3D Studio, Unigraphics and many other formats. Typical applications are in games and video generation, mechanical product design, architectural design, boat design and more.

As of 1st March 2007, Robert McNeel & Associates has officially released Rhino 4.0 as a commercial product after almost two years of Quality Assurance by McNeel and beta-testers around the world. The new features and changes to the interface are numerous. They can be summarised as follows,

	Improved modeling tools, including better variable-radius blend tools and improved Booleans.
	New editing tools, including direct polysurface (solids) editing tools and command history.
	Interface enhancements, including new SmartTrack technology and more advanced display options.
	Improved 2-D drawing tools, including line types, line weights, hidden lines, hatching, dimensions, leaders, page layouts, and printing/plotting.
	Better mesh support. All editing tools work on mesh objects as well as on NURBS objects.

In addition to the above major enhancements there are hundreds of enhancements to existing tools taken from the wish list of improvements requested by users around the world. Rhino 4.0 runs only on Windows 2000, XP Pro, XP Home and Vista. Rhino 4.0 is delivered on CD, which contains the software and the documentation. There is no printed manual.

The Rhino 3.0 to Rhino 4.0 Upgrade includes the software licence agreement and a CD containing the Rhino 4.0 software with electronic versions of the "manual". There is no printed manual available for Rhino 4.0. The Rhino 4.0 Upgrade also contains a Service Release CD that enables existing versions of Flamingo, Penguin and Bongo to work with Rhino 4.0. Rhino 3 needs to be installed for Rhino 4.0 Upgrade to install. If the Installer does not detect Rhino 3.0, then it will ask for the Rhino 3 CD to be put into the CD reader.

Please note that any other Rhino 3.0 plug-ins, scripts and related products developed by third parties other than Robert McNeel & Associates will not work with Rhino 4.0. You need to contact the third-party developers for upgrades or service releases. These are not available from Second Source as we only distribute Rhino plug-ins developed by Robert McNeel & Associates, namely Flamingo, Penguin and Bongo.

Rhino 4 recommended retail price is Ł770 + vat
Rhino 3 to Rhino 4 Upgrade recommended retail price is Ł230 + vat