May 2007

T-Splines for Rhinoceros 4.0 gives designers optimal surface modeling control and full industry standard compatibility.

T-Splines has announced the beta release of T-Splines for Rhino 4.0. T-Splines for Rhino 4 combines NURBS and subd (sub-divisional surfaces) methods, and augments them with tools of its own, enabling modelers to work with models as a single surface instead of as patches. The beta product is available as a free download for a limited time at the company Web site.

T-Splines for Rhino brings the free-form modeling capabilities traditionally found in animation modeling packages to Rhino. T-Spline models are easy to edit, having an average of 50 percent fewer control points than the identical NURBS model. Featured T-Splines workflows new to Rhino include subdivision surface box modeling, creating a single surface from a complex network of curves, and merging non-touching surfaces together into a single surface. The plugin also comes with a built-in translator to convert polygonal mesh files into T-Splines and NURBS.

Designers using the T-Splines product can expect the following benefits:

• Modeling control: T-Splines introduces unsurpassed control to surface modeling, allowing designers to more quickly create complex surfaces and manipulate them with ease, yielding reductions in modeling workflow times of 20 to 30 percent.
• Compatibility: One hundred percent loss-less conversion of T-Splines surfaces to NURBS, as well as conversion of polygonal meshes to T-Splines, ensures full industry compatibility and seamless integration in your design process.
• Value: T-Splines combine modeling methods in one application that were previously only available separately.
• Surface quality: T-Splines surfaces of any level of complexity are gap free and curvature continuous throughout, making them ideal for downstream detail design, analysis, and manufacturing. They are watertight by default and very easy to smooth, making them ideal for offsetting and manufacturing.

With its focus on keeping the surface as simple as possible, T-Splines accommodates both simple and complex modeling projects, and excels at organic shapes. T-Splines is used in various applications by industrial designers, CAD professionals, and animators to create models from scratch or converted from polygons, subdivision surfaces, or NURBS. Using T-Splines, the entire model can be merged together to eliminate tangency concerns, and additional detail can be added locally without changing the surface.