[JDHill]

Hello all,

The version 1.6.0.0 Maxwell for Rhino 4 plugin is now available. (*please see below for an important note) It is for the most part a compatibility update to support Maxwell 1.6 Displacement. However, it does contain some important changes:


1. Removes the need for Maxwell_helper.rhp plugin

• Previous versions have actually installed two plugins, the main .Net plugin (MaxwellPlugin.dll), and a helper MFC plugin (Maxwell_helper.rhp). Maxwell_helper.rhp was the actual 'rendering' plugin, with MaxwellPlugin.dll providing most of the functionality. Rhino SR2 has allowed the elimination of Maxwell_helper.rhp, since .Net plugins may now be written as bona-fide rendering plugins.
  
  Since Maxwell_helper.rhp was an actual plugin, it's removal may cause a 'could not find plugin with ID xxx' box from Rhino when you start the updated plugin. This should be expected, since Maxwell_helper.rhp is no longer needed or installed. The removal of this helper plugin should eliminate some problems in certain scenarios, since there is now only ever one plugin to load.

2. Removes the need for custom-implemented drag-drop Materials

• Rhino SR2 provides a built-in drag-drop function for the .Net plugin, and so removes the need for one of the DLLs that was previously installed. As far as I've tested, there is no longer any problem with drag-drop Materials when using the TestSetAALevel command.

3. New Object Properties window

• Not Earth-shaking, but there is now a Material preview in the Maxwell Object Properties page. Clicking the preview opens/closes the Material Manager.

4. Plugin Options: Use Fast Meshing

• This is a new user-setting which will cause the plugin to use a different meshing function. This function only exports the UVs visible in the viewport (it exports the same UVs multiple times when objects need multiple projectors - so it should not generate any 'not enough projectors' errors). It also prints very little information to the command-line, and does not attempt to repair problems when they are encountered. Because of this, it should generally mesh faster than the standard method, although exact results will vary.

That is about it. This plugin finds itself at the intersection of three main crossroads:

1. Rhino SR2
2. Maxwell 1.6
3. new functionality added during the development of the new SolidWorks plugin

Expect the next version to have some significant upgrades and brand new functionality made possible by Rhino SR2 and the new features introduced in the SolidWorks plugin. Please see the announcements/and plugin help for the new SolidWorks plugin to get a preview of some of what will be possible in the next version. I am eager to know how you think these features would best be included in the Rhino plugin, since it has a different basic workflow from SolidWorks.

Cheers,

JD


*Note
It has come to my attention that the installer is apparently having difficulty satisfying the prerequisite of finding MAXWELL_ROOT on some installations. The installer has always required this, but it seems the Maxwell 1.6 installer may be setting MAXWELL_ROOT only at the User-level. So, if you get an error during install indicating that Maxwell Render could not be found, please edit your machine's Environment variables, adding a System Environment variable of MAXWELL_ROOT, which points to your Maxwell Render directory.

The System Environment variables are located in the lower box, as seen here:



Environment variables may be accessed on XP by:

- go to the Start menu
- right-click 'My Computer'
- click 'Properties'
- go to the 'Advanced' tab
- click 'Environment variables'

They may be accessed on Vista by:

- go to the Start menu
- right-click 'Computer'
- click 'Properties'
- in the dialog, click the 'Advanced System Settings' link
- click 'Environment variables'

I will upload an updated installer after the weekend which will check both User and System variables.

[NoahPhense]

Thanks JD. So if I understand this correctly, we don't need to do anything
else special after the install. As long as our SysEnv setting is correct?

Maxwell_helper.rhp <-- I don't have this file. Probably because I uninstalled
the previous version, before installing 1.6 ..?

- john

[JDHill]

Hi John,

If your install went ok, it means you already had MAXWELL_ROOT in your system variables, so you don't need to worry about it. Even if you didn't uninstall, the 1.6 installer would have removed Maxwell_helper.rhp, I only mentioned it here because the 1.5.1 installation FAQ used to mention it as something that might need to be loaded manually. But it's gone forever now.

Cheers,

JD

[NoahPhense]

Excellent. Thanks JD.

- john

** I also notice a tremendous speed increase in the Studio.

[garbage75]

Hy John,

does the new plugin will work with the SR2 Rhino version only or could work with the prevoius version??

[JDHill]

It only works with SR2, which you can download here: http://download.mcneel.com/download_rel.asp?rel=308

JD