The Complete Rhino 3DM to 3MF Conversion Guide.
Table of Contents
- General Information
- Converting and Optimizing Rhino 3DM Files to 3MF
- What are Rhino 3DM and 3MF files commonly used for?
- Comparison of Features Supported by Rhino 3DM and 3MF
- Limitations of Rhino 3DM Files to 3MF Conversion Workflow
- What's the best way to get Rhino 3DM files into my 3D applications, and are there alternatives to using 3MF?
General Information
This guide is part of the RapidPipeline 3D Formats Knowledge Database. It shows how to convert Rhino 3DM to 3MF, if you'd like to know more about the formats, please check out the following links:
Converting and Optimizing Rhino 3DM Files to 3MF
There are various ways to convert between Rhino 3DM and 3MF. With RapidPipeline, you can easily convert and and optimize Rhino 3DM files, at scale. It supports 3MF, as well as many other file formats (examples: FBX, glTF, OBJ, PLY, STL, USD, USDZ, VRM), at high quality.
Below you can find a video explaining how to convert your files:

Comparison of Features Supported by Rhino 3DM and 3MF
Feature | Supported by Rhino 3DM | Supported by 3MF |
---|---|---|
Morph Targets | No | No |
Rigid Animations | No | No |
Skinned Animations | No | No |
Animations | No | No |
Free-Form Surfaces | Yes | No |
Geometry Compression | No | Partial0 |
Quad Meshes | Yes | No |
Basic 3D Geometry | Yes | Yes |
PBR Materials | Yes | Partial1 |
Transparent Materials | Yes | Partial2 |
Vertex Colors | Yes | Yes |
Materials | Yes | Yes |
Scene Composition | Yes | Yes |
Hierarchical Scene Graph | Yes | Yes |
Scene Nodes | Yes | Yes |
Standardized Format | Partial3 | Yes |
Embedded Textures | Partial4 | Yes |
Multiple UV Channels | Yes | Partial5 |
Normal Mapping | Yes | No |
Procedural Textures | Partial6 | No |
Texture Compression | No | Partial7 |
Texture Transforms | Yes | Partial8 |
Texturing | Yes | Yes |
Limitations of Rhino 3DM Files to 3MF Conversion Workflow
The following limitations should be taken into account when converting Rhino 3DM files to 3MF format:
Rhino 3DM Feature (not supported by 3MF) | Limitation Details |
---|---|
Free-Form Surfaces | Free-Form Surfaces Support: Rhino 3DM: Full support | 3MF: No support ![]() ![]() Impact: Free-form surfaces allow a CAD user to design surfaces with advanced controls over curvature and continuitiy. While these surfaces are common for CAD models (in the form of so-called boundary representations or "B-reps"), they need to be converted to polygonal triangle or quad data to work with most 3D rendering engines - a process called tessellation. In this example, a surface patch is used to describe a part of a curved surface of a product. Without support for this feature, the free-form surface has to be tessellated into quads or triangles. |
Quad Meshes | Quad Meshes Support: Rhino 3DM: Full support | 3MF: No support ![]() ![]() Impact: Quad meshes are a common way to hand-model and edit 3D models. 3D artists get intuitive control and such meshes are also easy to refine, as well as well-suited for creation of skinned animations. However, real-time rendering pipelines and hardware are usually all based on triangles, so if a 3D model should not be edited any more, it is safe to convert quads to triangles (and engines will do this automatically before sending data to the rendering hardware). In this example, a part of a mesh is modeled with quads. Without support for this feature, quads will have to be triangulated, producing a pure triangle mesh. |
Texture Transforms | Texture Transforms Support: Rhino 3DM: Full support | 3MF: Partial support ![]() ![]() 3MF Notes: Basic texture coordinate transformation Impact: Texture transforms describe transformation operations that are applied to 2D texture images or UV coordinates when using 2D texture data on a 3D surface. They can be used, for example, to make sure that material patterns are using real-world scale when rendered on the 3D surface. In this example, such a pattern is used and scaled with the help of a texture transform. Without support for this feature, the texture pattern shows up at the wrong scale. |
Multiple UV Channels | Multiple UV Channels Support: Rhino 3DM: Full support | 3MF: Partial support ![]() ![]() 3MF Notes: Multiple texture coordinate sets supported Impact: Multiple UV channels allow the optimized and sophisticated use of various 3D modeling features at once. For example, one can use one set of UVs and 2D texture data to model a tiling texture or procedural material, and another UV set to leverage a global lightmap or occlusion map of the 3D model. In this example, a combination of tiled texture (UV channel 1) and baked ambient occlusion map (UV channel 2) is used. Without support for this feature, one needs to either give up the tiling property (e.g., by using a tool like RapidPipline to bake a single texture atlas), or give up the ambient occlusion map, as only one UV channel will be usable. |
Procedural Textures | Procedural Textures Support: Rhino 3DM: Partial support | 3MF: No support ![]() ![]() Rhino 3DM Notes: Basic procedural material support Impact: Procedural texture allow the modeling of surface details through mathematical functions, along with artistic control over various parameters. Typically, they are used for patterns like wood grain or other semi-regular structures. Since they are not using any pixels as source data, procedural textures have, in principle, infinite resolution and are very lightweight to describe. In this example, a procedural texture is used to model the look of a wooden material. Without support for this feature, in this case, the wooden parts won't show any visible details. |
Normal Mapping | Normal Mapping Support: Rhino 3DM: Full support | 3MF: No support ![]() ![]() Impact: Normal maps are used to model shading differences that are arising from small geometric details on a surface, such as fabric structures, visible gaps between bricks forming a wall, or rough rock surfaces. In this example, a normal map is used to model a fabric structure. Without support for this feature, the rendered fabric will look smoother than it actually is in the real world, as the fabric structure won't be visible. |
Transparent Materials | Transparent Materials Support: Rhino 3DM: Full support | 3MF: Partial support ![]() ![]() 3MF Notes: Alpha channel support for transparency Impact: Transparency is commonly used for see-through objects, containing (usually partially) transparent surfaces. In this example, a transparent material is used to model the glass window of the microwave, so that one can see inside. Without support for this feature, the inside of the microwave cannot be seen, as the window will be rendered as an opaque surface. |
PBR Materials | PBR Materials Support: Rhino 3DM: Full support | 3MF: Partial support ![]() ![]() 3MF Notes: Basic PBR material properties Impact: PBR materials enable Physically-Based-Rendering (PBR) for a standardized, photorealistic look of rendered images. PBR uses concepts like metallic-roughness or specular-glossiness properties and a microfacet-based modeling of the surface, using a concept called BRDF (Bi-Directional Reflectance Distribution Function). In this example, PBR materials are used to achieve realistic looking plastic and metal materials. Without support for PBR materials, only basic colors and shading can be used (for example, based on more simple shading models, such as the Blinn/Phong model). |
What's the best way to get Rhino 3DM files into my 3D applications, and are there alternatives to using 3MF?
Doing 3D conversion right, especially at scale, can be tricky, as 3D data is in general a rather complex (yet very powerful!) medium. This also applies to Rhino 3DM and 3MF files - the conversion guide above provides a rough first idea about that. Once you know what you would like to do, tools like RapidPipeline can help you perform the necessary steps, and to even automate the process for thousands or even millions of files.
Especially when introducing pipelines and workflows at scale in an enterprise context, it is usually good to rely on dedicated tools and expertise, making sure you do not introduce any steps into your 3D workflow that are detrimental to the final output's quality, or that take your team too much time (and money).
If you're interested to hire dedicated expertise from the best in the field to help your company reach your goals fast and reliably, please do not hestitate to contact DGG. Being the creators of RapidPipeline, and ambassadors for open 3D standards for more than a decade, we have been building some of the world's most advanced 3D pipelines, having processed many millions of 3D assets.
Therefore, our expertise will help you to reach your goals faster, at scale, and with the least possible friction, since we are focused on maximum interoperability.
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