Render a House

Black and white drawing of a parametric timber pavilion

Photorealistic render of the same parametric pavilion

Rhino rendering software

Render your Rhino modelin the browser.

Rhino 8 writes glTF Binary and OBJ natively, and ViewCaptureToFile writes a PNG at any size. Upload one, describe the scene, and a photorealistic image comes back in seconds.

Free to start. No card needed.

PNG, JPG, WebP views
GLB, GLTF, OBJ models
No CUDA or Metal backend

Drag to compare

Your model, not a lookalike.

The engine reads the mesh Rhino wrote and keeps it: surface curvature, openings, structural rhythm, proportions. It fills in only what the NURBS model never held — material weathering, real daylight, planting, and the site the object sits in.

Photorealistic render of the same canopy

Rhino viewRender

Drag the line to see the source underneath the render

The same project, drawn and rendered.

Drag any pair. Each is one project shown twice, as a drawing and as a render, so you can line the geometry up yourself across twenty-five of them rather than one.

Drag the line to see the source underneath the render

Drawings and renders produced with Render a House. Drag any pair to compare.

Change the material, keep the geometry.

Same export, four finishes. On a curved or panelised surface this is the question that decides the project, and it costs a sentence rather than a re-surfaced model.

Timber

Material

What to export from Rhino.

Render a House does not open .3dm files. It reads what Rhino writes out, and all three paths are native to Rhino 8. Meshing happens on export: a NURBS surface becomes a polygon mesh, so check density before you send anything curved.

What you export	How to get it out of Rhino	What it is good for
GLB (GLTF Binary)	File > Export Selected or Save As, then pick glTF (Binary). Native to Rhino 8; earlier versions needed the glTF-BinExporter plug-in.	The most complete path. Materials convert to PBR and textures embed in one binary, so the render starts from your surfacing.
OBJ	File > Export Selected or Save As, then pick Wavefront OBJ. Rhino writes a companion .mtl file and meshes every NURBS surface first.	A plain, widely readable mesh when you want geometry without PBR materials. Check mesh density first on anything curved.
PNG or JPG view	Run ViewCaptureToFile and set the pixel width and height you want. It captures the current view regardless of the viewport's on-screen size. Save as PNG or JPG — those are the raster formats Render a House reads.	The fastest route. One clean, tightly framed viewport capture is enough to start a render.

Export steps come from McNeel's own documentation: the glTF and Wavefront OBJ import/export pages in the Rhino 8 help, and the ViewCaptureToFile command reference.

Everything you can do.

Nine things you can do with one Rhino export, without opening another application.

Render

Photorealistic, from your exported view or model.

Edit and adjust

Change materials, furniture, planting and surroundings without redoing the design.

Enhance and upscale

Raise resolution to 4K and sharpen the file for print or a client presentation.

Video and animate

Turn a still into a clip with a camera move, straight from a render you approved.

3D

Place the camera on the exported model and choose the framing before you render.

Image to 3D object

Generate a 3D model from a single image, for a piece the source file never contained.

360 render

A navigable panorama of the project: the client looks around from inside it.

A direct link for the client to open the project. No account, no software, no file transfer.

Pro model

The maximum-fidelity pass, for the image that goes in the final deliverable.

Everything you need, in one platform.

Rhino models, and Rhino Render or the Raytraced display mode will render what you built once materials and light are set up. This is for the other job: testing eight visual directions in the time one of those passes takes.

3D integration

Where the application exports a mesh, upload it and set the camera in the browser, then render from that view.

Rendering

Photorealism in seconds, not a queued calculation you leave running over lunch.

Video

A camera move across the same project, generated from a finished still. Nothing to animate.

Design

Try materials, light and surroundings until the right version exists, without touching the source file.

Refinement

Fix one part of a render — a facade panel, a tree, a sky — without starting the image again.

Precision

Your geometry is respected: the walls, openings, heights and proportions you drew stay put.

Collaborative

Share a link and take comments on the image itself, so feedback lands on the render.

Mobile and web

Runs in the browser, including on a laptop that would struggle with a local render engine.

4K

Delivery resolution, ready to print or put on a board without a separate upscaling step.

Works with designs from other CAD software too.

Export an image or upload the model. There is no plugin to install and no format to learn, so the same workflow runs from Rhino and from every other package below.

Trademarks identify the software this works with. Render a House is not affiliated with any of them.

SketchUp rendering

GLB (GLTF Binary) and more, from SketchUp.

Revit rendering

GLB (via FBX) and more, from Revit.

Archicad rendering

OBJ (WaveFront) and more, from Archicad.

AutoCAD rendering

PNG or JPEG from a 2D view and more, from AutoCAD.

Vectorworks rendering

OBJ and more, from Vectorworks.

Chief Architect rendering

PNG from a 3D camera view and more, from Chief Architect.

Who this is for.

If you model in Rhino or Grasshopper and present to clients, this replaces the slowest and most expensive part of that loop.

Architects
Computational designers
Product designers
Facade consultants
Fabricators
Competition teams

958,000 renders generated so far.

128,000 architects and designers have an account.

A first render takes about ten seconds.

Available worldwide, in the browser, with nothing to install into Rhino.

Counts are extrapolated from a measured baseline and tick live.

Pricing.

Try it out, go Pro when it starts paying for itself.

Free

Try it out, no credit card required

Freeforever

3 credits per day
Standard model

Start for free

	Pro 240 credits	Studio 1000 credits
Render Pro 2 credits each	120	500
Render Standard 1 credit each	240	1000
Render Standard 2K 1.5 credits each	160	666
Render Pro 4K 4 credits each	60	250
Render Standard 4K 2 credits each	120	500
Video 0.8 credits/sec	300s	1250s

What this cannot do.

Open a .3dm file. Export to GLB, OBJ, or a captured view first — there is no direct Rhino import.
Produce construction documents, BIM data, or anything dimensionally reliable.
Guarantee every detail survives. Thin mullions, small hardware and text on signage are the usual casualties.
Inherit the camera you set. The model carries no usable one, so you frame the shot in the 3D view after uploading.
Fix a coarse mesh. Rhino meshes NURBS on export, and a low-density mesh reaches the render as faceted geometry.

Common questions about Rhino rendering.

Can Render a House open a Rhino .3dm file?

No. Export the model first. Rhino 8 writes glTF Binary (.glb) and Wavefront OBJ from File > Export Selected or Save As, and ViewCaptureToFile captures the current view — save it as PNG or JPG. Any of those three uploads fine.

Does Rhino export glTF natively?

In Rhino 8, yes — glTF (Binary) is in the export format list. Rhino 6 and 7 needed the separate glTF-BinExporter plug-in, which is why older Rhino workflows tend to be OBJ-based.

What happens to my NURBS surfaces on export?

They are meshed. Both GLB and OBJ are polygon formats, so Rhino tessellates every surface on the way out, and the render sees that mesh rather than the NURBS. Raise the mesh density before exporting anything with tight curvature, or the faceting will show.

Do I need a plugin for this?

No. Nothing is installed into Rhino. You export a file the way you already would, then upload it in a browser.

How does this compare to Rhino Render or Raytraced?

Rhino Render and the Raytraced display mode are Cycles-based and ship in the base licence, rendering your model with the materials and lights you set up, on your own hardware. This works from an export and is directed with a written description. Cycles gives more control; this gets to a presentable image sooner and needs no CUDA, OptiX, HIP or Metal backend.

Do I need a graphics card to render a Rhino model?

No. Rendering runs on hosted hardware. The card in your machine affects how Rhino navigates the viewport and how fast Raytraced finishes, not how fast a render comes back here.

Can I use Rhino renders in client work?

Yes. Renders you generate are yours to use commercially. Review them first — an AI render is a concept image and should be checked against the model before it stands in for a design decision.

Export the model. Get the render.

Keep Rhino as the source of truth for the geometry. Let this handle the picture of it.

Working on something bigger? Talk to us.

Render your Rhino model3DM exportNURBS surfaceGrasshopper resultRhino modelin the browser.