Instrument Body Design Goal:  Individually, create a line drawing of the pattern that you would like to cut out of your instrument top.

Steps:

1.       Open this template file.

2.       Save your file with your name in the file name.  Save it on your school drive.

3.       Perform incremental saves (file menu) occasionally.

4.       Create your design using curves (lines).

5.       Group (control + G – to ungroup, use control + shift + G) all of your curves.

6.       Place your curves on the instrument top, in the proper orientation.

7.       Perform one last incremental save.

8.       If you are creating a pattern for engraving, group your surfaces separately from your curves.

9.       For now, keep the file on your drive.

Some Rhino Tools and Tips:

1.       Views

a.       Understand how the 4 viewports relate

b.      Maximize/minimize a viewport – use the triangle or double click the view name (e.g. perspective)

c.       View modes – triangle tab next to viewport title (e.g. wireframe, ghosted, shaded, rendered – shows color)

d.      Zoom, Pan, Rotate – roller, right click, shift + right click – depends on the viewport

2.       2-D drawing tools

a.       Some tools are on the Standard Tab; more are on the “curve tools” tab.  Examples are polyline, control point curve, and sketch.

3.       Ortho and Osnap, and SmartTrack Modes

a.       Turning SmartTrack off is recommended for beginners

b.      Ortho (bottom of screen) can be enabled by clicking.  It causes all movements to be either up, down, left or right.  When ortho is disabled, movements can occur in any direction.    

c.       Osnap can be enabled to help you position things precisely.  You can choose what parts of things you would like to be able to snap things to.  Some good choices are end, near, int, mid, and cen.  These can also get in the way; you can turn them all off or turn off individual options when they are causing problems.

4.       Cancel:  The arrow icon cancels commands.  It’s a good idea to click it before you try a new command.

5.       Join vs Group

a.       Join (puzzle piece icon) makes one curve out of multiple curves that are touching at their ends.

b.      Group allows you to keep pieces together, in their relative positions, but it doesn’t actually make them one piece.

6.       Moving and Deleting

a.       Click and drag to do simple moves, but you can’t place things precisely this way.

b.      Select and use the delete key to delete.

c.       Transform tab – allows you to precisely move, copy, transform, mirror, etc.

7.       If you want to use Rhino to create a design for engraving…

a.       You will need closed curves (curves whose ends meet one another precisely) that you can use to create colored surfaces. 

                                                               i.      Patch fills in a closed curve to make a surface

                                                             ii.      Extrude planar curve can create a 3-D solid with surfaces.

1.       Explode breaks apart the solid’s surfaces.

2.       You can select and delete the surfaces that you don’t want.  Or select the whole thing, deselect the surface that you do want, and then click delete.

                                                            iii.      Set your view to a mode that allows you to see surfaces (e.g. shaded, ghosted, or rendered)