An Introduction to Rhino.Inside.AutoCAD & Civil 3D

This Getting Started guide is a step-by-step, self-paced guide designed to introduce Rhino.Inside.AutoCAD & Civil 3D — one product (often shortened to RiA / RiC3D) — and get you started running Rhino and Grasshopper inside both Autodesk AutoCAD and Civil 3D.

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Introduction

Rhino.Inside.AutoCAD embeds Rhino, Grasshopper, and their add-ons directly inside Autodesk AutoCAD — and, because Civil 3D is built on AutoCAD, inside Civil 3D too. Instead of exporting and importing files between applications, you run Rhino and Grasshopper within the AutoCAD (or Civil 3D) process and exchange geometry live: modelling in Rhino, building a Grasshopper definition, previewing the result in the viewport, and committing (baking) the geometry into your drawing when you're ready.

This guide is modelled on a foundation-level workshop and assumes no prior experience with Rhino.Inside.AutoCAD. It walks you, step by step, from a clean installation through to your first piece of Grasshopper-generated geometry committed to an AutoCAD or Civil 3D drawing. It is deliberately narrow: its goal is to get you set up correctly and to teach the four behaviours that everything else in Rhino.Inside.AutoCAD builds upon:

• The geometry preview — seeing Rhino and Grasshopper geometry drawn in the AutoCAD viewport.
• The live geometry exchange between Rhino / Grasshopper and AutoCAD.
• The bake operation — turning previewed geometry into real AutoCAD entities.
• The database interaction — querying and editing native AutoCAD objects.

What you'll achieve

By the end of this guide you will have:

• Installed and verified Rhino.Inside.AutoCAD inside AutoCAD or Civil 3D.
• Launched Rhino inside AutoCAD and controlled its geometry preview in the viewport.
• Launched Grasshopper inside AutoCAD and previewed a simple definition.
• Completed a basic baking example that commits Grasshopper geometry into the AutoCAD document.

How this guide is organised

Work through the Getting Started pages in order:

1. Prerequisites & Installation — required software and installing the plug-in.
2. Launching & Previews — start Rhino inside AutoCAD and control the geometry preview.
3. Grasshopper — open Grasshopper, preview a definition, and exchange geometry live with AutoCAD.
4. Baking — commit Grasshopper geometry into the drawing as permanent AutoCAD entities.
5. AutoCAD-Native Types — blocks, layers, line types, and layouts.
6. Querying the Document — reference and filter existing AutoCAD objects.
7. Recap — what you covered and where to go next.

Hit a snag along the way? The Troubleshooting section collects fixes for the issues you're most likely to meet.