Great news for Rhino users! SubD capabilities have been added to Rhino. Designers who have been working with soft, organic forms and plugins like T-Spline and Clayoo will be happy to know that they no longer need these plugins. You can now directly design soft forms using Rhino’s SubD feature.
Rhino SubD Vision
Rhino SubD objects are high-precision surfaces. They can have gaps, sharp or smooth corners, and holes. The focus of Rhino SubD is on fast modeling and editing of complex organic shapes. Unlike mesh-based SubD implementations, Rhino SubD objects are a single, undivided mesh. The Rhino SubD user experience will be the same as the Rhino NURBS and mesh object experience. There will also be new SubD modeling and editing tools based on traditional techniques.
Rhino SubD surfaces are predictable, measurable, and manufacturable. If necessary, they can be converted to high-quality NURBS objects or meshes (quad or triangle). Rhino SubD objects are supported in all Rhino export formats that support mesh and NURBS, including IGES, STEP, OBJ, and STL.
SubD Commands:
ToSubD command
The ToSubD command creates a Rhino SubD from a regular mesh or a surface. The input mesh can be triangles, quads, or n-gons. Meshes that are mostly quads work best. Options: Creases option = Yes/No determines how to handle the edges of the input mesh. If Creases = No, all internal mesh edges become smooth SubD edges. If Creases = Yes, internal mesh edges become creased SubD edges.
SubDivide command
The SubDivide command works on Rhino SubD and mesh. It introduces one or two levels of subdivision for the input object. When the input object is a mesh, the Creases option is available and works like the SubDFromMesh Creases = Yes/No option.
ToNurbs command
The ToNurbs command converts a Rhino SubD object into NURBS patches. It also converts other non-NURBS objects such as circles and extrusions into NURBS objects.
Surface commands in Rhino SubD include:
- Loft
- Revolve
- ExtrudeCrv
If you want to use a Surface command to create a SubD, you can use the Curve and InterpCurve commands with the SubDFriendly=yes option to draw the input curves and get a SubD that exactly matches the input curves.
Rhino Mesh commands that add or remove creases from SubD:
- Crease
- RemoveCrease
These Rhino commands also have the ability to generate SubD:
- Loft
- Revolve
- ExtrudeCrv
If you want to use a Surface command to create a SubD, you can use the Curve and InterpCurve commands with the SubDFriendly=yes option to draw the input curves and get a SubD that exactly matches the input curves.
Rhino Mesh commands that add or remove creases from SubD:
- Crease
- RemoveCrease
Other items that are currently active:
- PointsOn (control net editing)
- Sub-object selection (hold down Ctrl+Shift and then click)
- Gumball
- Rigid transformations
- Delete
- Rigid transformations (move, rotate, scale, …)
- Gumball


- Mesh
Creates a mesh object of the SubD limit surface. The simple mesh command dialog slider controls the density of the output mesh. - ExtractRenderMesh, ExtractAnalysisMesh
These create mesh objects of the SubD limit surface. - ExtractControlPolygon
Creates a mesh object of the SubD control net. - Export to mesh-based file formats (OBJ, VRML, RAW, STL, …)
A mesh of the limit surface is exported. - To export the control net, run the ExtractControlPolygon command and export the mesh it creates.
- Basic commands that work on all objects including Delete, Undo, Hide, Lock, Show, SelAll, Object properties, …
- SelSubD
Selects SubD objects. - ToSubD
Convert an ordinary mesh or NURBS surface into a SubD. - SubDivide
Apply one or two steps of the subdivision to the entire SubD. - ToNurbs
Gets Nurbs form of a Rhino SubD - Join
Join adjacent SubD objects with compatible control nets into a single SubD. - Crease, RemoveCrease
Change SubD edges and vertices from smooth to crease or vice verse. - Loft, ExtrudeCrv, Revolve
Create SubD objects from curves. When creating the input curves, consider using the SubDFriendly=yes options on the Curve and InterpCurve commands. - Flip, Dir
- UDT commands (Bend, Twist, …)
- Detailed list of fixed issues