Rhino Live Link
Model in Rhino, render in GemGpu — live. The GemGpu Link plugin streams your active Rhino document straight into the studio and keeps it updated as you work. No export/import round trips, no waiting.
Install
Get GemGpu Link free from Food4Rhino:
- Rhino 8 for Windows — one installer covering both .NET Framework 4.8 and .NET 7 runtime modes.
- Rhino 8 for macOS — .NET 7 runtime.
Run the installer and restart Rhino.
Connect
- In Rhino, run
GemGpuLink. The command line confirms it's serving:
GemGpu Link: live on ws://127.0.0.1:8877/link
GemGpu Link: in the studio choose File → Connect Rhino Live Link.
GemGpu Link: run GemGpuLink again to stop.
- In GemGpu: File ▸ Connect Rhino Live Link.
- Your geometry appears normalized and classified like any import, wearing the default studio look.
From then on the link is live by default: every change pushes automatically (debounced full snapshots, so the studio always has your latest state). Model on — the lit, graded studio view follows your Rhino edits.
GemGpuLink is a toggle — run it again to stop serving from the Rhino side. (The studio side disconnects via File ▸ Disconnect Live Link.)
What comes across
- Meshes and render meshes — Breps and extrusions use their shaded render meshes (work in a shaded viewport so they exist).
- Blocks done right — block instances become material-ready parts by definition, nested blocks and mirrored placements included. A pavé ring's 300 stones arrive as one stone part; one click makes them all diamonds.
- Jewelry-aware classification — objects named gem, diamond, ruby, and the like classify as stones automatically; everything else arrives as metal — the same rules as file imports. Misread something? Right-click the part and set its kind.
- Names and structure — your Rhino object names inform the hierarchy.
Materials that stick
Studio material assignments key on the Rhino object — your gem and metal tuning survives every push, rename, and reorder. Dial the look once; keep modeling.
Rhino materials themselves don't transfer, and that's the point: GemGpu applies its own physically-accurate gems and metals while the geometry stays live.
Private by design
The link binds to 127.0.0.1 only (port 8877) and is send-only: geometry travels exclusively to a browser on your own machine, and nothing on the socket can modify your Rhino document. Nothing to configure, nothing exposed to the network.
While linked
A linked model behaves like any scene — materials, environments, camera views, animation, and rendering all work. Combining a live-linked base with additional file imports waits until the linked model is file-backed; finish modeling first, then append props. File ▸ Disconnect Live Link ends the stream and keeps the last geometry in the scene so you can keep rendering.