Griddle 3.0 Update

Griddle

Download Recent Update

Latest Version: 3.00.4 (Description)
Released On: lördag, juli 12, 2025

Download Instructions

Griddle v3 requires Rhinoceros 3D 8.0 to be installed first.

Quick Start for Griddle 3.0 and Rhino

Griddle 3.0 is a suite of tools for surface- and volume-meshing within the Rhino CAD system. Griddle 3.0 is installed as a Rhino plugin and is only available for the Windows versions of Rhino 8 or newer.

The Griddle 3.0 installer automatically removes all previous versions of Griddle installed on the machine, including those for Rhino 5 and later.

Rhino is required to be installed before Griddle installation.

First Time Use After Installation

  1. If Griddle 1.0 was previously installed and you are migrating directly to Griddle 3.0, additional steps may be needed to remove parts of the older Griddle from Rhino[1]. Please refer to First Time Use After Installation section in the Griddle 2.0 User Manual.
  2. If Griddle has never been installed on the user machine, or if you are migrating from Griddle 2.0, nothing else needs to be done after Griddle 3.0 installation – it can be readily used. Griddle 3.0 automatically integrates with Rhino 8; the Griddle toolbar should be visible floating within the Rhino workspace:
Figure 1: The Griddle 3.0 toolbar.

If the toolbar is not visible after the installation, follow the steps below:

  1. Navigate to the top menu in Rhino and click on ToolsOptions Toolbars (or run the _Toolbar command).
  2. Click on the drop-down menu and select Griddle. Click the check box to activate the toolbar. This is shown below in Figure 2.

Note: the toolbar may be floating outside of the Rhino workspace.

Figure 2: Activating the Griddle 3.0 Toolbar in Rhino 8.

[1] Griddle 1.0 used Rhino integration tools and required a multi-step installation process (separate installation of plugins for each command, toolbars, and scripts). Griddle 3.0 operates differently – it installs all components at once. During the installation, Griddle 3.0 attempts to remove all older versions from the system, but some parts may remain and should be removed manually.

Documentation and Tutorials

The Griddle manual and Tutorials can be downloaded from: http://docs.itascasoftware.com/.

Griddle 3.0 Update

Software Update Revisions

Revision Date Description
4 juli 12, 2025

RELEASE Version

Note: If Griddle toolbar is not visible after the installation, navigate to Rhino's top menu: Tools > Options > Toolbars, select Griddle from the dropdown list on the top-right and enable the toolbar.

New features:

  • GHeal: New functionality in ShowErrors option to show duplicate faces.
  • GHeal: New and deeply updated tools in AutomaticHeal option: RemoveDuplicates, FixClashingFaces, RemoveNonmanifolds, FillHoles.
  • BR Added VTK output.
  • New Tutorial Example 8.

Improvements:

  • Fully updated Griddle User Manual and Griddle Tutorials.
  • WEB license checks are now faster (full checks happen only in the beginning and after longer inactivity periods).
  • Updated most of progress reporting and command cancelling, so it is consistent between all Griddle tools.
  • GInt/GSurf: Improved speed of processed faces regrouping and attributes reassignment.
  • GInt: Improvements to handle some complex pathological/bad meshes.
  • GVol: Changed group naming for visualization to be consistent with the output formats.
  • GHeal: Updated the logic behind ClashingFaces checks in ShowErrors option.
  • GExtract: Optimized and significantly improved speed when using Multiple option.

Bug Fixes:

  • GInt: Fixed an exception occasionally happening when no intersections are found.
  • GInt: Fixed issue with discrepancies between the displayed intersection type in the command options and actually used one.
  • GVol: Fixed group and slot names assignments in 3DEC output.
  • GExtrude: Fixed bug when the outermost boundary was not properly detected and extrusion wouldn't happen.
  • GExtend: Fixed a bug causing crash when vertices on mesh boundary could not be found due to poor geometry and/or insufficient tolerance.
3 apr. 10, 2025

New features:

  • New Griddle toolbar.
  • BR: New option to specify zone and face group Slots (applies to FLAC3D and 3DEC only).
  • GCollapse: New function to collapse one or more surface meshes on another mesh within a specified distance. This allows for resolving (nearly) overlapping meshes and constructing simpler volumes between them.
  • GCollapse: New option to automatically intersect and trim collapsed meshes to provide fully conformal intersections with the base mesh. Intersection tolerance is calculated automatically.
  • GExtrude: Added new option to extrude meshes with internal boundaries.
  • GInt: New option IntersectionType to specify which type of intersection will be done: between distinct meshes, within meshes only, or both (Full / the default option).
  • GVol: New option to assign face groups only to the named surface meshes present in a Rhino model (applies to FLAC3D only).
  • GVol: New option to specify zone and face group Slots (applies to FLAC3D and 3DEC only).

Improvements:

  • BR: Joint sets for 3DEC output are now grouped with group name indicating between which blocks the set is created (instead of joint ID).
  • GExtract: Significant speed improvement when extracting faces within distance (WithinDistance option).
  • GVol: Improved the issues layers behavior and the default locking of the layers.
  • GVol: Removed "IF_/EF_" prefixes from group names coming from named surface meshes (applies to FLAC3D only). Face groups corresponding to the unnamed surface meshes will still contain the mentioned prefixes.
  • GVol: Added surface output (as collections of nodes/vertices) for Abaqus.

Bug Fixes:

  • Updated all embedded html help documentation. Upon pressing F1, the help topics are now opened in the default browser.
  • GExtrude: Fixed issue with extruding faces attached to non-conformal naked edges (not actual boundaries).
2 nov. 5, 2024

New features:

  • GExtract: New option WithinDistance to extract mesh faces within some distance from an object (can be a point, point cloud, curve/polycurve, surface/polysurface, mesh).
  • GExtract: New option ByArea to extract mesh faces that have area within user specified limits. Multiple meshes can be selected at once.
  • GExtract: New option ByAspectRatio to extract mesh faces that have sides aspect ratio larger than user specified value. Multiple meshes can be selected at once.
  • GExtend: New option TrimExtension in ExtendToMesh to automatically intersect and trim mesh extension. This provides fully conformal intersection between the extended and target meshes after the extension.

Improvements:

  • GInt: New option ShowWarnings to show or suppress any warnings (e.g., about Ngons).
  • GExtract: New option ShowWarnings to show or suppress any warnings (e.g., about Ngons).
  • GExtract: New option to manage creation or modification of layers with extracted mesh faces.
  • GExtract: Most of the functions are multithreaded based on the number of extracted meshes (except for Single, All).
  • GExtend: Removed ShowExtOutline option as not necessary.
  • GVol: Removed IniErrorCheck and added new option ShowWarnings for better handling of various warnings and errors.

Bug Fixes:

  • BlockRanger: Fixed bug that deselected unsupported solids (they are supposed to stay selected to indicate that they were not meshed).
  • BlockRanger: Fixed CSV output.
  • GExtract: Fixed bug when extracting mesh faces at 0 brake angle ( = exploding mesh into faces).
1 maj 28, 2024

ALPHA Version

New features:

  • GInt: Implemented a new two-pass intersector. This allows intersecting only the faces which fall within the specified tolerance of each other without affecting other faces (e.g., non-intersecting quadrilateral faces are not triangulated).
  • GInt: Ability to highlight/visualize intersecting faces in real time and update the visualization depending on the tolerance.
  • GInt: Ability to highlight/visualize intersected faces.
  • GSurf: Multithreaded remesher. The engine is more robust and allows remeshing many bad meshes that would fail in Griddle 2.0.
  • GSurf: New option, Output -> DistinctNoInpBnds to remesh while ignoring the skeleton edges (see F1 help). This makes remeshing similar to Griddle 1.0.
  • GVol: Ability to include hard nodes and hard edges into the volume mesh (set MeshSettings -> InclHardNodesEdges=Yes).
  • GVol: Ability to assign custom element size around the hard nodes in the volume mesh.
  • GVol: Element groups are assigned based on the subdomain volume (from largest to smallest). This provides consistency with group assignment.
  • GVol: Ability to visualize volume mesh and place each group/subdomain in separate layers.
  • GVol: Ability to visualize poor quality elements and place/sort them in separate layers.
  • GVol: All FE outputs (except for Abaqus, for now) allow for surface output via collections of surface nodes.
  • GVol: New VTK output.
  • GHeal: Ability to show and fix (triangulate) Ngons.
  • GExtend: Ability to extend one mesh to another along local tangential, custom, or normal directions.

Improvements:

  • All commands: automatic detection of Ngons.
  • GVol: Reorganized layers for clear indication of errors, issues, and output (poor elements, visualization).
  • GHeal: Reorganized layers to output number of issues for each issue type.
  • Updated License logic / dialog corresponding to ItascaSoftware v9.

Bug Fixes:

Griddle Software Downloads

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