First Steps

Your first session with Balarhinos.

Once you've installed Balarhinos, it's time to bring your first architectural model to life with semantics.

1. Opening the Panel

The primary way to interact with Balarhinos is through the UI panel.

  • Type BalarhinosCommand in the Rhino command line.
  • The panel will open, typically docked on the right side.
  • You'll see several tabs: Semantics, Services, and Settings.

2. Tagging your First Object

Semantics are the "brain" of Balarhinos. Let's tag some geometry:

  1. Draw a simple box in Rhino representing a building.
  2. Select the box.
  3. In the Balarhinos panel, go to the Semantics tab.
  4. From the Category dropdown, select building.
  5. Notice how the panel updates with building-specific parameters like "Floors" or "Function".

3. Running Sunlight Analysis

Now that you have a tagged building, let's see how it affects the site:

  1. Go to the Services tab and select Sun Study.
  2. Click the Enable toggle.
  3. You should see a heatmap appear on your building surfaces.
  4. Try moving the building or changing its height. The sunlight heatmap will update in real-time.

4. Location Sync

Balarhinos works best when it knows exactly where your project is:

  1. Go to the Settings tab.
  2. Under Location, you can manually enter coordinates or click Sync from Rhino if you've already set a geo-location in your Rhino document.
  3. This location is used for all solar and environmental simulations.

5. Next Steps