Hi all. I'm looking into MoI and I have used Rhino in the past. I've searched the forum and didn't find any up to date information for my question. From your experience, what are the main pros and cons between MoI and Rhino and are either of them capable of producing surfaces that the other cannot?

Hi ..

I use both programs and prefer MoI for modeling. It is slimmer and more intuitive than Rhino and the visual graphics are sharper and easier to work with than the options offered by Rhino.
That said, Rhino is good for drafting. I do architectural work and need good dimensions and text as well as visible differences in line weight and type (which MoI does not offer yet) and I use plug-in rendering tools in Rhino which MoI does not offer yet. Though MoI will export files easily that can be used with many rendering programs. I just happen to have purchased ones that run within Rhino before discovering MoI. Rhino also offers a 3d pdf plug-in from SimLabs that I use often ... Though MoI will export a file completely readable by the SimLabs 3d pdf software.
MoI offers better meshing than Rhino.

From my perspective MoI is a much faster modeler than Rhino and I would not want to live without it. I look forward to further development that will include some drafting and dimensioning tools.

In the meantime, Rhino is my favorite drafting tool (though I used AutoCad for many years) and I would not want to do without it though I have a number of other, good and low priced drafting tools that prepare excellent .dwg files.

Depending on what you actually do a great combo is MoI for modeling and Draftsight (free) for 2d drafting and dimensioning. Add the low cost SimLab Composer for rendering and 3d pdf files and for less than $500 you have a master tool kit.

good luck,
eric

Hi Eric. Thanks for the info. I'd be using it for Product Design but I'd also like a tool that I could do Automotive Visualisation with (personal interest). Are Rhino and MoI capable of producing these complex surfaces? Would either one be better than the other at producing them?

I have not done any automotive work at all so I should not really try to answer this ...
but I will anyway. Both softwares are used for this (building complex models like autos). Because MoI has better meshing capabilities and more intuitive modeling I would bet it has a good edge.
But, don't take my word for it. My models, while complex, are mostly built with pretty simple geometric forms.
cheers,
eric

A better question might be "what is your budget"? Rhino runs about 3x the cost of Moi.

Download the demo versions of both!

C.

Hi Playdo - Rhino does have a lot of various tools in it which are not in MoI, including some surfacing tools which could be of interest for automotive like more options for controlling surface continuity.

If you're looking for some kind of advanced surfacing functionality, then you'll probably want to use Rhino for some of those specific tools.

MoI is more of a streamlined and easy-to-use tool - it has a much lower learning curve and also some basic things like just regular curve drawing are more modern and fluid in MoI, which can translate into basic drawing operations happening more quickly and easily in MoI. So because of that some people like to use MoI and Rhino in combination with one another, you can do stuff like draw things in MoI and then move your model over to Rhino in order to use some of the more advanced tools over there. MoI and Rhino share the same file format and you can also just use Copy and Paste to move objects from one to the other.

If all you care about is a kind of checklist of individual features, then Rhino has a whole lot more of those. But if you take into account fluidity and the ease of use of basic operations, that's a much different picture with regards to MoI.

There are demo versions available for both, so you should spend some time experimenting with those. But one good way to go is to get both.

- Michael

That's interesting that models can be interchanged between them. So can they can be interchanged and worked on at any stage? Could you explain some of Rhino's advanced surfacing tools that you'd want to bring a MoI model over for?

I had a look through the MoI gallery here but if anyone has other links to images of complex surfaces made in MoI, it would be good to see.

Btw I have some Rhino experience.

Hi Playdo,

> So can they can be interchanged and worked on at any stage?

Yup, the model data can be easily transferred back and forth at any time.


> Could you explain some of Rhino's advanced surfacing tools
> that you'd want to bring a MoI model over for?

One would probably be the MatchSrf command, which modifies a surface to be smooth to some other surface edge.

Also there are a variety of deformation tools in Rhino like FlowAlongSrf.


> I had a look through the MoI gallery here but if anyone
> has other links to images of complex surfaces made in
> MoI, it would be good to see.

The gallery is probably your best bet, there are 21 pages of stuff in there to look over.

- Michael

It might be worth mentioning that copy and paste does not work from the
Rhino 5 beta to MoI though it works perfectly from Rhino 4. It does work from MoI to the Rhino 5 beta, though.
cheers,
eric

Hi eric - does it work to copy/paste from the Rhino 5 beta back to Rhino 4 when both are open at the same time?

- Michael

Hi Michael ...
No, it does not.
Rhino 4 will not open any Rhino 5 files although you can 'save' to Rhino 4 from Rhino 5.
So it follows that one could could copy and paste from MoI to R5 and then save to R4 and then open the file with MoI
if one had a special need to use something in Rhino 5 that is not available in the others.
cheers
eric

Hi eric - if you cannot copy and paste from Rhino v5 into Rhino v4, that means that they have intentionally turned off the ability to put up clipboard information in V4 or lower 3DM format.

I don't know if that's a temporary thing for the beta or what, you'd need to ask McNeel for more information on that one.

But yeah if you cannot copy/paste from the Rhino v5 beta to Rhino v4, you won't be able to do it from Rhino v5 to Moi either.

- Michael

Hi Michael and eric,
I'm using Rhino 5.0 WIP 90-day Eval 2010-12-14 (to test RhinoBIM) 64 bit and I have installed also Rhino 4 SR8 eval.
No problem in copy/paste from Rhino5 to Rhino4 or MOI v2 and no problem in copy/paste from MOI or Rhino4 to Rhino 5.
In Rhino5 there is at least a new entity called extrusion (used in RhinoBIM for steel beam members); extrusion is converted in polysurface in copy/paste from RH5 to RH4 and in solid in copy/paste from RH5 to MOI v2.

Giovanni

Hi ..

That is really odd. Yesterday I could not copy/past from R5 into either R4 or MoI and I tried it a number of times.
This morning it is working just fine ... all directions.

I feel like an idiot ... so cancel everything I said about the problem copying files yesterday.

cheers,
eric

Duh!
I discovered my errors of yesterday. I tested the copy/paste functions in R5 by placing a small box in an existing drawing and
then copy/pasting it. When I copy/pasted into MoI it came in way, way off screen and though I did zoom out to find it it just
did not appear to be there.
I tried it again this morning with a developed drawing with many layers. All of them were copied into MoI just fine. Of course I lost
things that MoI does not include such as text, line weights, and line styles. That was fully expected, of course.
I apologize for the confusion and am a little chagrined.
cheers,
eric

No problem eric, and thanks Giovanni for posting your results.

So that's great that making clipboard data available in previous 3DM formats is still working in Rhino v5.

- Michael