Rhino & Grasshopper

Send a Rhino or Grasshopper viewport into an AI render

One toolbar button inside Rhino. It exports the active viewport in whatever display mode is showing — shaded, rendered or wireframe — and opens VotexArch on the tab you picked. Grasshopper is covered by the same button, since a definition draws into the same viewport.

Rhino 6, 7, or 8

What the button does

Exports the active Rhino viewport to a PNG you choose the location for, then opens VotexArch on your chosen tab.

Why it works this way

The lightest of the set. Rhino runs the script directly inside itself, and RhinoCommon renders the active view straight to an image file — a genuine render export rather than a screen capture. It uses only Rhino’s own scripting API and the Python standard library, so there is nothing to pip install and nothing tied to one Rhino version’s Python engine.

Getting it installed

01
Unzip the download
Keep send_to_votexarch.py somewhere stable — the toolbar button points at wherever you put it.
02
Add a toolbar button
In Rhino, create a button whose command runs the script. The README in the download has the exact command string to paste.
03
Click it with a viewport active
Pick the VotexArch tab to open, choose where to save the PNG, and your browser lands on that tab. Grasshopper users: build the scene, then use the same button.

Before you start

Newly released. This was built against Rhino’s documented scripting API rather than tested inside a live Rhino install, so treat your first run as the real test — if something misbehaves, send us the error and we will correct it.