Rhino.Inside

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Introduction

Figure 1. Example of standard roof to scripted roof made with Grasshopper

Rhino.Inside is a WIP (work in progress) project of Rhino which allows you to use Rhinoceros and Grasshopper in several CAD programs, such as Revit, AutoCAD, ArchiCAD or even Unity. Rhino.Inside will work as an add-in for these programs, making it easy to work with (computational) scripts in programs that do not support this functionality normally.
The Rhino.Inside plugin includes several commands in the hosting program (e.g. Revit) making it easier to import and export geometries from one program to the other. Next to that this modified Rhino version (e.g. Rhino.Inside for Revit) has additional features and commands, making it easier to maintain the data structure of the used CAD program. For example you can change the roof geometry of a standard Revit roof with a grasshopper script but maintain the roof its built-up which is specified in Revit.
This following tutorial is written for Revit but is very similar to other CAD programs. Keep in mind that the Rhino and Grasshopper versions of the add-in are modified and thus different from the original Rhinoceros and Grasshopper!

Rhino.Inside for Revit

Installation

Figure 2. Add-Ins tab of Revit with Rhino.Inside properly installed
Figure 3. Rhineceros tab after opening Rhino WIP button (see figure 1)


  • Step 2: Install Rhino.Inside. After the installation run Revit and go to the Add-Ins tab (see figure 1, however keep in mind your Rhino logo will look different). Click on the Rhino logo, a message will appear that you need to install the latest version of WIP Rhino.Inside for Revit. Click on the given link and download the installer. Close Revit and install the WIP version of Rhino.Inside for Revit. It is important to know that this version of Rhinoceros is different from the original Rhino!


  • Step 3: After the installation reopen Revit and go to the Add-Ins tab again. If the installation was successful the Rhino logo changed to the WIP logo. Click on the logo, a pop-up message will appear asking you to login on the Rhino server. You will be redirected to the Rhinoceros website where you will be able to login.


  • Step 4: When the license is activated (by logging in) you can go to the Add-Ins tab again and open the Rhino WIP plugin (as highlighted in figure 2). If everything was done successfully a new tab will appear named Rhinoceros (see figure 3). You can open Rhino inside Revit by clicking on the Rhino logo. The same goes for the grasshopper logo.

Example workflow

Figure 4. Example of a grasshopper script that alters the roof its form but keeps the layer built-up
Figure 5. Final result in Revit of Rhino.Inside edit

In this example we will transform an standard Revit roof (from the original Revit architecture example file) to a complex (computational) shaped roof, while maintaining the original data roof data allocated by Revit. This can be important if you use Revit for a BIM project (as every element requires data about that element). To download the example grasshopper script click on: File:Example script rhinoinside.zip.

Step 1: As highlighted in figure 4 the script has 5 main components. The first component (1) imports the Revit shape to Rhino.Inside. The host tool is easy to use as you can right-click on the tool and select the geometry in Revit. Next is the transformation tool named Element Geometry. This tool filters all the non-geometric data out of the import and leaves you with an usable brep which can be modified in Rhino or Grasshopper.

Step 2: Between component 2 and 3 is the grasshopper script that transforms the original Revit geometry to the needed complex shape (hidden in figure 4). During your script you can use your Rhino windows or even your Revit file to see changes in your brep (constantly updated!). Component 3 represents the final brep (output of script) and the geometry name, it is important to give your new brep a proper name as this will be the main element name shown in Revit.

Step 3: Component 4 is the Revit specific part of the script (found under the Revit tab in grasshopper) as it extracts Revit/BIM data only. In this example (bottom two components) only the Material data is extracted, as you can see this result in the roof built-up. The top two components allow you to categorize the newly made brep into one of the known Revit categories. In this case we use the Roof category.

Step 4: The final component (5) combines all the different data to a readable Revit element. As it gives the new element a name, category and material. Right-clicking this component gives you the possibility to place/bake the component in Revit. The final result is shown in figure 5.

Video tutorials

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