Tweaking Rhino's Interface

Tips and tweaks for enhancing Rhino's interface via registry editing or external scripting.

Changing the world axis icon colors

Note This is the small 3-axis indicator in the lower left corner of your viewport, normally dark grey.

For Rhino 3.0

First close all instances of Rhino, then run Regedit.

Edit the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\McNeel\Rhinoceros\3.0\Scheme:Default\Options\AppearanceSettings

The last three keys are the icon colours. Enter an RGB value for each (for example 0,255,0 for green or 255,255,0 for yellow).

For Rhino 4.0 and 5

These settings are now mostly accessible directly from the Rhino interface. The icon colors are adjustable individually for each display mode. There is no global setting.

In Options > Appearance > Advanced Settings, for each display mode (Wireframe, Shaded, etc.), expand the tree and go to the Grid section. Under World Axes Settings, you will find three choices:

Use application settings will use the standard gray
You can set them to be the same as the normal CPlane X,Y,Z axis colors
Or specify another custom color scheme

You will need to do this for all display modes you want to customize.

If you want to change the default application settings dark gray, follow the same procedure for editing the registry as above for Rhino 3.0 – Just edit the key Software\McNeel\Rhinoceros\4.0\Scheme:Default\Options\AppearanceSettings

Reallocating the second and third mouse buttons

This change will swap the middle mouse button with the right mouse button, for those who are used to having the middle button manipulate the view.

Important In Rhino 5, this is no longer necessary. This functionality is included in Options > Mouse.

Close all instances of Rhino before making these changes.

Edit the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\McNeel\Rhinoceros\3.0(or 4.0)\Scheme:Default\Options\MouseSettings

In this registry key you will find the following eight entries:

middle_mouse_dblclk_remap 3
middle_mouse_down_remap 3
middle_mouse_move_remap 3
middle_mouse_up_remap 3
right_mouse_dblclk_remap 2
right_mouse_down_remap 2
right_mouse_move_remap 2
right_mouse_up_remap 2

Simply edit each one of these entries, replacing the 3's for 2's and the 2's for 3's.
The result should be:

middle_mouse_dblclk_remap 2
middle_mouse_down_remap 2
middle_mouse_move_remap 2
middle_mouse_up_remap 2
right_mouse_dblclk_remap 3
right_mouse_down_remap 3
right_mouse_move_remap 3
right_mouse_up_remap 3

And you’re done!