Python Resources

Here’s a list of links for learning more about Rhino and Python. Please let me know about any valuable resources that you may find and I’ll add them to this list.

There is a wealth of information on Python at

Learning Python
(Online)

• The Python Tutorial
• Python Docs

(Books)

• Python Essential Reference by David Beazley
  This is the book I always turn to first to look up a feature in Python.
• The big list of python books

Learning Rhino

• Training – http://www.rhino3d.com/training.htm
• Tutorials – http://www.rhino3d.com/tutorials.htm

Learning RhinoCommon / .NET
Rhino’s embedded python engine makes heavy use of an SDK named RhinoCommon. This is an SDK that is still under development and unfortunately does not have a whole lot of documentation at this point. The main wiki page for RhinoCommon can be found at http://wiki.mcneel.com/developer/rhinocommon

The version of python that runs inside of Rhino (IronPython) has full access to the .NET Framework (Mono on Mac). This is a huge SDK with many books/web sites written on the subject. You might want to just google “.NET”, “IronPython” or “VB.NET” to find more.

Code Editors
Rhino 5 for Windows includes a built-in script editor that can be launched with the “EditPythonScript” command. The Mac version currently does not include this editor. Fortunately, there are a large number of editors available which support python syntax.

Here’s the big list – http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonEditors

As you can see there are a lot to choose from; some may be great, some not so great. Lately I’ve been playing with

• KomodoEdit
• PyDev