seeking advice for method to go from rhino to formz

[gfriedman]

I like some formz's rendering options that I find lacking in rhino. I know that SAT is a decent format to export in but I am finding that the nurbs geometry isn't as smooth as I would like. Does anyone know of a way for it to come in at a higher resolution?

 

or does anyone know of any plugins that could help? How about a plugin I could run in formz to reconstruct the nurbz surfaces?

[manta]

Hmmmm...what rendering options does FormZ have ?

[gfriedman]

this may sound really strange, but I have never found another package that matches its straight up hidden line and surface renders. Other packages require costly plugins and learning curves and then their results on exporting to vector files are hit and miss. it's a small thing but I much prefer vector graphics to raster ones for arch vis and you can even get the shadows out in vectors...I haven't played around in formz for years but I think they have added many other rendering types and features.

[Crazy Homeless Guy]

For the past month we have been using the Rhino 5 beta to export Rhino models. It has additional DWG export options that were not available in 4. The new export option will keep the model clean.

 

Others in our firm like to work with IGES for bringing models out of Rhino, so you may want to try that. Try it. I think it will keep nurb surfaces fully intact, but I don't know how FormZ will translate them.

[1eo]

Use SAT or IGES...

 

I used to have better results with IGES...but it has been a while

[jkletzien]

http://www.npowersoftware.com/translators/ptoverview.htm is a possibility, though I'm not sure whether fmz is supported.

 

though what we prefer is to convert the nurbs to meshes within rhino and then export out just the meshes.....just gives you more control as far as face count, and where you're putting your polygons (aka we do it in groups or piece by piece as rarely have we found that a universal value will suffice for exporting all your objects at once).