Rhino to Arkio and back

The Arkio Rhino plugin allows you to easily export and update models from Rhino 6 and 7 to Arkio. We Currently support exporting NURB and Mesh models with materials and textures, and exporting your Arkio creations back to Rhino on the same coordinates. More functionality will be added in the coming months. The latest Arkio Rhino and Revit plugins can be downloaded from our website.

Rhino to Arkio

To export your models from Rhino you need to have the Arkio plugin installed, just choose a view with all the elements visible you want to export and press the Export button found under the ArkioRhinoPlugin toolbar.

Clicking Export to Arkio will show a dialog where you can reduce the polygons for your Rhino models. We recommend using the lowest settings when planning to use your models in VR, specially on mobile VR devices like the Oculus Quest.

The next time you start Arkio (or at runtime) the Rhino export file will be visible on your create>import drawer. The files will be automatically saved in your import folder on your PC and converted to Arkio objects.

Here the file can either be placed on the table - as a non-selectable fixed reference model with the same coordinates (e.g. a reference model to draw a new design on), or as a free-to-place and editable object in the scene (e.g. a piece of furniture, tree of building that you want to move, copy and place in the scene multiple times).

Automatic Updates

When a change is made in Rhino you can overwrite your model with a new version that can be updated in Arkio at runtime. When a model is importing it will show a spinning indicator on the file overview. When the new version of the model is available a yellow update icon will show above the previous version of the model in the scene in Arkio.

Clicking this yellow icon with your mouse or VR laser will update that model with the new available version. You can also update all the imported geometry in your scene at once by clicking on the "update all" icon on the top left of your import drawer.

Arkio will keep the old versions of your imported models available so you can always revert back to an older version when needed e.g. for comparing design options with others in a meeting. You can access all the older loaded Arkio models in the import dialog grouped by the same model name. If you select an older import date you can update the models placed in the scene by clicking "Update in scene"

Known issues/limitations:

• Loading of heavy files is not recommended, try to keep your models below 250.000 polygons to avoid crashes and VR performance loss when working with mobile devices like the Oculus Quest.
• If you experience issues loading your models try to load the OBJ exports in the Windows 3D viewer, 3DSMax or Rhino to see if the files load well there and what geometry might be causing the issue.
  
• Sometimes imported models can corrupt and affect the loading of other imported files. Cleaning your temporary ResourceCache files can solve most issues.

Best practices Rhino modeling

• Arkio only supports one-sided faces (for now) please make sure your Rhino models have closed polysurfaces and your single face surfaces are modeled with the normals facing outward.
• Try to reduce surfaces with a high number of Isocurves as these are complex and will result in unnecessary high polygon exports. Rebuild surfaces as much as you can into uncut surfaces with <5 U/V isocurves.