Rhino Integration

Make sure you have the things listed below before starting:

• Rhino 6.0 or 7.0 or 8.0
• If using Rhino 8 please make sure to have the latest version of Rhino 8 installed (current available: 8.4.24044.15001 | 13 February 2024)
• The new Rhino plug-in, which can be accessed through the Package-manager of Rhino or via Food4Rhino
• Alternatively, the plug-in can be downloaded from the attachment section below
• One Click LCA account and license with Business features to be able to import data
• One Click LCA account and license with Expert features to be able to get results back into Rhino

How do you set up the Rhino integration?

How do I install the plugin?

The installation of the plugin requires the user to run the installer and follow steps of the installation.

Please restart Rhino after plugin installation

Rhino 8 One Click LCA plugin installation process based on Package Manager can be viewed in the video below:

In case the plugin action button is not visible a user can add it manually by following the steps below or refer to Rhino 8 plugin installation video:

• On the top panel, go to ‘Window’
• Select ‘Toolbars’
• In ‘Libraries’ field select ‘OneClickLCA_Rhino’ 
• In ‘Toolbars’ field look for ‘One Click LCA’, select a checkbox and click ‘Close’ 
• The plugin button shown be visible in the to left corner of the window here

How to use the Rhino Integration?

Once installed, the plugin’s action button can be found at the top of the page, as shown below. In the case of an error occurring right away, try to run Rhino as administrator. 

By clicking on it, the plugin’s window will pop-up, undocked, on the right hand-side of the screen.

The plugin consists of four main tabs:

• Settings
• Layers
• Materials
• Results

The section below is always present, regardless of which tab is active:

1. LCA in Cloud: Transfers the model directly to One Click LCA’s cloud platform.
2. Help: Redirects you to the customer support centre.
3. Refresh: Refreshes the model and shows any changes.
4. Login: Shows the user account used to log in to One Click LCA. Further guidance on logging in to your Rhino plugin can be found here: How To Login To Your Import Plugin
5. Carbon Heroes Benchmark: Shows your Carbon Heroes Benchmark Score as well as your Carbon Intensity (in kgCO2e/m²)

Settings

At this tab you can choose the locality of the data which you want to use (i.e., European Data, North American Data, Swiss, French, etc.). You can also log in, manually force update the database and choose the unit system.

1. Map to: Choose the local database from which you want to get data for.
2. Update Database: Manually force a database update (i.e., whenever new resources are added in the software and are not automatically available in the plugin).
3. Unit Types: Choose the Unit System (Metric or Imperial).
4. Login: Login using your One Click LCA credentials.

Layers

At this tab you can choose which building elements will be included in the LCA and decide whether you would like all the elements under the specified layer to be grouped (i.e., having multiple floor slabs grouped under one material or assign different materials to each slab). Additionally, you can set the building area based on the surface area of a particular layer.

1. Layer: An overview of the layers drawn and used in the model.
2. Include: You can choose whether to include the specified layer in your LCA analysis or not.
3. Group: You can choose whether to group all the items under this element into one or have them shown and mapped separately (i.e., when you have multiple different elements in the same layer and you want to map different materials in each element).
4. Count: An overview of how many elements are included in this layer.
5. Quantity: An overview of the total quantity in this layer.
6. Set Building Area: By clicking on a layer and then on the “Set Building Area” button it sets it as the projects building area which will then be used for the Carbon Heroes Benchmarking result.

Materials

At this tab you can match the building elements to materials from One Click LCA’s Database.

1. Data Source: Choose the database from which you would like to get data from (i.e., IBU, EPD Norge etc.). Leave empty to show all options.
2. Country: Choose the project’s country in order to get country specific materials (if available). Leave empty to show all available options.
3. Type: Choose the type of data you are looking for, i.e., Generic/Average, manufacturer specific, plant specific etc. Leave empty to show all options.
4. Material: Choose the material subtype, i.e., Ready-Mix concrete for external walls and floors, aluminium etc.
5. Assembly: Check this box to get only material constructions as the available options. Leave empty to show all options.
6. Material: Click on the dropdown to see the results available for mapping based on the filtering. Once OCL resource is assigned and the project is saved, the mapped material information will be remembered by the plugin.
7. Quantity: The quantity of the specific layer.
8. Units: Choose any of the available units for the specific material.
9. Thickness: Specify the thickness – wherever applicable.
10. (+): Allows you to map multiple materials to the same geometry (i.e., concrete, reinforcement, insulation etc).
11. (x): Removes the mapping.

Note: Depending on how the geometry was drawn (surface or volume), the default unit will be chosen accordingly (i.e., m² if surface area).

Results

Once you have mapped your building elements with the corresponding materials, you will be able to see your results at this tab.

1. Total Result: Your total A1-A3 carbon impacts.
2. Carbon Intensity: The carbon intensity of your project based on the specified Gross Area.
3. Refresh Results: Refreshes the results to reflect any changes made to the model or the mappings.
4. Gross Area: The gross floor area of your project. Can be specified either manually or through the “Layers” tab.
5. Embodied Carbon Benchmark: Choose which benchmark to be used to compare your design against.
6. Result [kgCO2e]: The total amount of CO2e based on the material mappings for this particular layer.
7. Result [%]: The relative % distribution to the total of each building element.

Modelling Guidance

As previously mentioned, each building element inherits its name from the layers tab. Furthermore, when uploading the model to the cloud (by clicking “LCA in Cloud”), One Click LCA will assign a class to each material used based on the name of the layer. As a result, to avoid additional workload when importing the model to One Click LCA, you can use the naming convention of the software for each material class:

Foundation	8. Beam	15. Finish
2. Wall	9. Stairs	16. Covering
3. External Wall	10. Other	17. Systems
4. Internal Wall	11. Door	18. Buildingtech
5. Column	12. Window	19. Furniture
6. Slab	13. Horizontal Finish	20. Site
7. Roof	14. Vertical Finish

If you wish to model more complex masses as one, such as a wall with insulation and not each element separately, you are still able to do so by designing each element under the same layer. Then, under the layers tab, choose the corresponding layer, ungroup them and then hit on refresh. Back in the Materials tab you should be able to see a list of all the elements under the specific layer, as shown below:

Clicking on a layer (or an individual element), will highlight it in Rhino’s viewport so that you know which element is the one you are working on.

To add more materials to the same element, click on the (+) sign as many times as the materials you wish to map, as shown below:

Troubleshooting

Guidance on common Rhino errors can be found in our Help Centre article: Rhino & Grasshopper Troubleshooting Guidance for One Click LCA Plug-in

How to uninstall the Rhino plugin

Navigate to: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\McNeel\Rhinoceros\7.0\Plug-ins

Delete the One Click LCA folders

Attachments

Plugins for Rhino 6, Rhino 7 and Rhino 8 can be downloaded here.