RHINO TO ILLUSTRATOR

LINEWORK DRAWINGS

24"x24" final presentation drawing.

RHINO: EXPORT LINE

WORK TO ILLUSTRATOR
1.
select the view you would like to create a linework drawing for. in this
case we selected an aerial axonometric. using the MOVE command, we
located the roof above the project in order to see the interior of the space.
next type MAKE2D on the command line. under select type ALL, or
select with your cursor all the elements to be included for the drawing. on
the pop-up menu you can leave all of the default settings as they are.

1.

RHINO: EXPORT LINE

WORK TO ILLUSTRATOR
1.
next go into the TOP view by double-clicking on the word TOP on the
viewport (top-left) to see the line work that has been generated with the
MAKE2D command. to the right you see your working model.
as you can see at the bottom left of the screen RHINO created a hidden
line drawing of the view we had set up and even created separate layers
for them on the LAYER menu: make2D that you can turn on and off.
select all of this line work, then under FILE pick EXPORT
SELECTED. on the pop-up menu, use a unique name and save the file
type as: Adobe Illustrator (*.ai).
on the second pop-up menu shown at the bottom left here (AI Export
Options) you can leave all of the default settings as they are.

1.

SET UP ARTBOARD SIZE

1.
in Adobe Illustrator, you can open the file we just exported from Rhino.
we had called it Axonometric.AI.
when you export a file, Illustrator sets a 8.5"x11" standard paper size
as your ARTBOARD size automatically. to change this go under
FILE, DOCUMENT SET UP. on the pop-up menu select EDIT
ARTBOARDS.
on the ARTBOARD OPTIONS menu we set our paper size to
24inx24in, but you can set it to whichever size you need your drawing at,
wither for plotting or screen use.

1.

1.

SCALE/STROKE
1.

selection tool

using the SELECTION TOOL, grab all of the line work so we can
scale it up to fit better on the new 24"x24" sheet.
next, under OBJECT, select TRANSFORM and SCALE. on the
pop-up menu you can use the UNIFORM scale at 400%.

2.
notice that all of the lines look very thick and chunky. to change this,
while you are selecting all of the lines, go on the STROKE menu, and
under WEIGHT you can select 1PT for the weight of all of the linework.

2.

2.

LAYERS
1.

selection tool

to be able to work more efficiently we can divide the artwork into two
layers, the SITE and the BUILDING. to do so CREATE A NEW
LAYER in the LAYER menu as shown.
now using the SELECTION TOOL you can select all of the line work
that pertains to the site, like the contours and the terrain edge.
you can see the results on the image below.

create new layer

1.

1.

DASHED LINES/
LINE THICKNESS
1.

selection tool

while in the new layer we created, SITE, and the BUILDING layer still
turned off select all of the topography.
next on the STROKE MENU click on the DASHED LINE box
and play with the spacing of the lines. in this case we used 6PT for the
DASH size to emulate a topography line in an architectural drawing.

2.
next to create a thicker line around the topography model, using the
SELECTION TOOL we grab only the edge of the topography model.
then on the STROKE MENU we can give a weight of 2PT to this edge
as shown.

1.

2.

FILLS
1.
in order to create some FILLS on the concrete walls and floor slabs, we will
first CREATE A NEW LAYER called CONCRETE like we did
on the earlier step. we place this layer underneath the previous two and to
make sure we don't alter the original linework.
pen tool

next using the PEN TOOL and while on the CONCRETE layer we
trace out all of the areas we would like to add a fill color in the drawing
as shown.

create new layer

2.
we will use two type of fill colors. as shown on the right, one will have a
CYMK value of 0,0,0,50% for the ramps, while the walls will have a
value of 0,0,0,75%. this can be edited on the COLOR menu.

fill color
stroke color

1.

2.

PATTERNS/ARRANGE
1.

pen tool

to create a pattern for the ground plane we will once again trace the outline
of the courtyard using the PEN tool. then on the SWATCH menu
click the button for SWATCH LIBRARY and look for the BASIC
GRAPHIC DOTS swatches. there you can select one of the DOT
patterns.
swatch library

note: since we've been working on one layer (CONCRETE) for all of
these fills, we can arrange their position respective of each other by rightclicking on the fill then press ARRANGE. there you can SEND TO
BACK or SEND TO FRONT so it does not conflict with the other grey
fills we have created.

pattern selected
stroke color

1.

BOXES/CIRCLES/ALIGN
1.
to create some labeling for our drawing we will use some basic shapes for
call outs. using the RECTANGLE TOOL, or any of the other tools
to the right, create a shape with a STROKE of 1PT and FILL with a
CYMK of 0,0,0,25.
pen tool
line segment tool
rectangle tool

note that when you create a shape you can ALIGN the STROKE to
three different location, either inside, outside, or in the center. in this
example all rectangles were ALIGNED INSIDE.
next using the PEN or LINE SEGMENT tool create some basic lines
to the area you would like to call out.
last, using the CIRCLE tool create a .01in black dot at the end of the
call out.

fill color
stroke color

1.

TEXT
1.
to create text we use the TEXT tool to finish the labeling for the drawing.
on the TEXT menu you can select FONT, SIZE, ALIGNMENT,
etc. in this example we used HELVETICA, size 14 and ALIGN
CENTER so it stays in the center of the box we created earlier.
text tool

1.

ADDING VECTOR
GRAPHICS
1.

selection tool

to add entourage to a drawing, simply open any vector graphics drawing

(.EPS format as an example) and simply COPY and PASTE to the
main file.
in this example we grabbed a tree outline and placed them on the courtyard
after we SCALED them as explained on the previous step (under
OBJECT, TRANSFORM, and SCALE). you can also MIRROR,
ROTATE, etc to place the tree accordingly.

ADDING VECTOR
GRAPHICS
1.

selection tool

after we added some trees into the courtyard space, we can then repeat the
same exercise with a different vector graphics: two trees next to each other
to create go along the road that leads to the parking above the church.
once again we use the same commands and the SELECTION tool
to position the trees: OBJECT/TRANSFORM with SCALE,
ROTATE and REFLECT as we COPY and PASTE about 8 trees
along the curved road.
note that we page the STROKE for the trees all be 0.25PT so they look
thinner and not as thick from the rest of the drawing since they have more
geometry than the other shapes.
the image at the bottom shows the completed 24"x24" presentation board.