by Dale Lear (Last updated:  Thursday, July 7, 2021)

Prerequisites

openNURBS is intended for skilled C++ developers. Please read What is openNURBS? if you have not already. It is also presumed that you have an application that wishes to access 3DM files outside of Rhinoceros.

openNURBS public SDK

To download the public C++ SDK and example 3DM files, visit https://www.rhino3d.com/opennurbs.

Supported C++ Compilers

The openNURBS C++ toolkit has been successfully used with the following compilers:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2019: to build openNURBS and the examples with Visual Studio 2019, use the solution opennurbs_public.sln.

To use C++ opennurbs in your Visual Studio project:

1. Open opennurbs_public.sln in Visual Studio, select the platform and configuration, and rebuild all.
2. In your project’s stdafx.h, put the following lines. This will include all the header files you need to call C++ opennurbs and automatically link in the correct libraries:

• Apple Xcode 9.2 (9C40b): To build openNURBS and the examples with Xcode 9.2 (or later), use the workspace opennurbs_public.xcworkspace.
• Other C++ compilers The compiler must support the C++11 standard. A makefile is provided as a starting point. The openNURBS C++ source code is clean and simple. If you are using a C++ compiler that supports the C++11 standard and run into some toolkit code that causes problems, please let us know. We’ll attempt to change the code to accommodate the compiler.

Read and Write

Use ONX_Model::Read() and ONX_Model::Write() to add support for reading and writing 3DM files to your application. See example_read.cpp and example_write.cpp for more details.

1. Compile the openNURBS Toolkit library. To compile the example programs you must link with the openNURBS Toolkit library.
2. Study example_read\example_read.cpp. All the openNURBS geometry classes are derived from the ON_Geometry class. If you need generic attribute information, there is probably an ON_Geometry member function that will answer your query. See the Dump() function in example_read.cpp for code that demonstrates how to use the Cast() function to get at the actual class definitions.
3. Study example_write\example_write.cpp. If you want to write points, meshes, NURBS curves, NURBS surfaces, or trimmed NURBS surfaces, you should be able to cut and paste most of what you need from the functions in example_write.cpp. If you want to write trimmed surfaces or b-reps, then please study example_brep.cpp.
4. Study example_brep\example_brep.cpp. If you want to write solid models or more general b-reps, then first work through example_write.cpp and then work through example_brep.cpp.
5. The comments in the openNURBS Toolkit header files are the primary source of documentation. I suggest that you use a development environment that has high quality tags capabilities and a good class browser.
6. In the code you write include only opennurbs.h. The opennurbs.h header file includes the necessary openNURBS toolkit header files in the appropriate order.
7. Other items to note:
   1. Strings The ON_wString class has wchar_t elements. When using Microsoft Visual Studio on Windows, sizeof(wchar_t)=2 and ON_wString content is UTF-16 encoded. When using Apple XCode on Mac OS, sizeof(wchar_t)=4 and ON_wString content is UTF-32 encoded.
   2. All memory allocations and frees are done through onmalloc(), onfree(), and onrealloc(). The source that ships with openNURBS has onmalloc() call malloc() and onfree() call free().     1. If you want to use Open GL to render openNURBS geometry, you may want to include opennurbs_gl.h after opennurbs.h and add opennurbs_gl.cpp to your openNURBS library. See example_gl.cpp for details.     1. The openNURBS Toolkit works correctly on both big and little endian CPUs.

3DM File Versions

1. Version 1 3DM files. The openNURBS toolkit will read version 1 files. Rhino 1.0 and other applications using the old Rhino I/O toolkit create version 1 files.
2. Version 2 3DM files. The openNURBS toolkit will read and write version 2 files. Rhino 2.0 and applications using an openNURBS toolkit released on or after December 2000 create version 2 files. (Rhino 1.0 and the old Rhino I/O toolkit will not read version 2 files.)
3. Version 3 3DM files. The openNURBS toolkit will read and write version 3 files. Rhino 3.0 and applications using an openNURBS toolkit released on or after October 2002 create version 3 files. (Rhino’s 1.0 and 2.0 will not read version 3 files.)
4. Version 4 3DM files. The openNURBS toolkit will read and write version 4 files. Rhino 4.0 and applications using an openNURBS toolkit released on or after September 2006 create version 4 files. (Rhino’s 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 will not read version 4 files.)
5. Version 5 3DM files. The openNURBS toolkit will read and write version 5 files. Rhino 5 and applications using an openNURBS toolkit released on or after September 2009 create version 5 files. (Rhino’s 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0 will not read version 5 files.)
6. Version 6 3DM files. The openNURBS toolkit will read and write version 6 files. Rhino 6 and applications using an openNURBS toolkit released on or after January 2018 create version 6 files. (Rhino’s 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 5 will not read version 6 files.)
7. Version 7 3DM files. The openNURBS toolkit will read and write version 7 files. Rhino 7 and applications using an openNURBS toolkit released on or after November 2020 create version 7 files. (Rhino’s 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5 and 6 will not read version 7 files.)

Sample 3DM files are availble from https://www.rhino3d.com/opennurbs

Examples

This is an overview of the examples included with the openNURBS toolkit:

• example_read\example_read.cpp: Create a program by compiling example_read.cpp and statically linking with the openNURBS library. The code in example_read.cpp illustrates how to read an openNURBS .3dm file.
• example_write\example_write.cpp: Create a program by compiling example_write.cpp and linking with the openNURBS library. The code in example_write.cpp illustrates how to write layers, units system and tolerances, viewports, spotlights, points, meshes, NURBs curves, NURBs surfaces, trimmed NURBs surfaces, texture and bump map information, render material name, and material definitions to an openNURBS .3dm file. The bitmap example_write\example_texture.bmp is referenced by a rendering material texture in one of the 3DM files created by example_write.
• example_test\example_test.cpp: Create a program by compiling example_test.cpp and linking with the openNURBS library. The example_test program can be used to validate your opennurbs installation.
• example_brep\example_brep.cpp: Create a program by compiling example_brep.cpp and linking with the openNURBS library. The code in example_write.cpp illustrates how to write a solid model.
• example_userdata\example_userdata.cpp: Create a program by compiling example_userdata.cpp and linking with the openNURBS library. The code in example_userdata demonstrates how to create and manage arbitrary user defined information in .3dm files.
• The Open GL example: This code is a crude sketch of a starting point for using OpenGL to display opennurbs geometry. Start with simple mesh objects and work up. We do not provide support for using OpenGL.

Answers to frequently asked questions:

ON_Mesh

Vertex ordering in ON_Mesh faces

All faces in a ON_Mesh are stored with vertices listed in counter-clockwise order. In particular, for quads the vertices are ordered as:

The quads may be non-planar.

The definition of void ON_GL( const ON_Mesh& ) in opennurbs_gl.cpp demonstrates how to go through an ON_Mesh and render all the quads as two triangles.

ON_Brep

Orientation of ON_Brep faces

The UV orientation of surfaces in a Brep is arbitrary. If the BOOL ON_BrepFace::m_bRev member is FALSE, then the face’s orientation agrees with the surface’s natural $$Du \times Dv$$ orientation. When the member is TRUE, the face’s orientation is opposite the surface’s natural $$Du \times Dv$$ orientation.

If your application cannot handle ON_BrepFaces that have a TRUE m_bRev flag, then call ON_Brep::FlipReversedSurfaces(). See the comments in ON_Brep::FlipReversedSurfaces() and ON_Brep::SwapFaceParameters() for details.

Trimming loop order and nesting

The ON_BrepLoop::m_type member records the type of boundary (inner, outer, etc.). A ON_BrepFace has exactly one outer loop and it is the first loop referenced in the ON_BrepFace::m_li[] array. The inner loops all define “holes” in the ON_BrepFace. All the inner holes lie inside of the outer loop. A ON_BrepFace is always path connected. In particular, inner loops are not “nested.”

Surfaces in Rhino are read as ON_Breps

Internally, Rhino stores all surfaces as some type of b-rep and the openNURBS toolkit reads these objects as b-reps. To see if an entire

ON_Brep is really just a surface, use:

BOOL ON_Brep::IsSurface()

If ON_Brep::IsSurface() returns TRUE, then the b-rep geometry is the same as the surface ON_Brep::m_S[0].

To see of a particular face in a b-rep is really just a surface, use:

BOOL ON_Brep::FaceIsSurface( face_index )

If ON_Brep::FaceIsSurface( face_index ) returns TRUE, then the face’s geometry is the same as the surface ON_Brep::m_S[face.m_si].

Related Topics

• What is openNURBS?
• What is Rhino3dmIO?

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