Productivity
File Search
Twenty years of work. Thousands of .3dm files named after clients, orders and
dates. The design you need exists — you can picture it perfectly — but its name
is M-2019-0347_rev2.3dm and it could be in any of a dozen folders.
File Search ends that hunt. One window, two ways to find a file:
- By name — instant, as you type, across every indexed folder at once. No more crawling through Explorer.
- Smart — the headline act. Flip the ✦ Smart toggle and describe the piece: what it is, what it’s made of, what’s set in it, even what it costs. RhinoArtisan understands the description and finds the designs that match.
“rose gold halo rings with a diamond over 1 carat”
“pendientes de zafiro en oro blanco por menos de 2.000”
Both of those are real queries. The second one is in Spanish — Smart search speaks your language, whatever it is.
Opening the window
Click File Search in the File tab of the ribbon, or run
ArtisanFileSearch. The window opens instantly with your most recently
modified files already on screen, newest first — often the file you want is in
that first row before you type anything.
Every result is a card: a preview thumbnail, the file name, its folder and its date. Click a card to open the file. In name mode, pressing Enter opens the top result; Esc closes the window.
Search by name
Just type. Results update as you type, and you can throw several words at it in
any order — sello oval finds Anillo_oval_sello_2023.3dm just fine. Every
word has to appear somewhere in the file name; exact matches rank first, then
names that start with your text, then names that merely contain it.
This mode runs entirely against an in-memory index, so it is instantaneous even on an archive with tens of thousands of files.
Smart search
This is the feature. Toggle ✦ Smart, describe what you’re looking for, and press Enter.
Smart search reads your description the way a colleague would. It understands:
| You can ask by… | For example |
|---|---|
| Type of piece | ring, pendant, earring, necklace, bracelet |
| Metal | yellow / white / rose gold (with karat, if you say it), platinum, silver, palladium |
| Setting & elements | halo, bezel, pavé, solitaire, cathedral, eternity, cluster, basket, three stones, toi et moi… |
| Gem | diamond, ruby, emerald, sapphire, aquamarine, morganite, moissanite, pearl… |
| Gem cut | round, princess, cushion, pear, oval, marquise, baguette, heart… |
| Carat | ”over 1 carat”, “at least 0.5 ct” |
| Price | ”under 2,000”, “between 1,500 and 3,000” — using the prices from your own breakdowns and boutique data |
| Anything else | free words like “vintage” or “minimalist” match against the design’s description, file name and SKU |
Mix them freely: “white gold eternity ring, baguette diamonds, under 3,000”
is one query. The status bar shows how the query was understood — e.g.
RING · GOLD_WHITE · ETERNITY · <=3000 — so you always know what was actually
searched, and each result card shows why it matched: type, metal, main stone
and price, right under the file name.
Where the answers come from
Smart search doesn’t guess. When a design is indexed, RhinoArtisan reads the actual document — the same data behind your technical documentation and pricing: piece type, metals, setting elements, every gem with its cut and carat, ring size, cost, boutique retail price and SKU. Your query is matched against that extracted design data, not against file names or folder guesses. That is why “sapphire over 1 carat” finds the piece whose file name says nothing about sapphires.
The two indexes
Search is fast because it never scans your folders while you wait. It works from two indexes, both scoped by Options → File Search — that page decides which folders are covered, whether subfolders are included and which extensions are kept.
The names index powers search by name. It is built in the background in seconds, refreshes incrementally (only new, changed or deleted files are touched), and the window offers to update it whenever it looks out of date.
The semantic index powers Smart search. Building it is a deeper job:
RhinoArtisan opens each .3dm and extracts the design data described above.
Run ArtisanFileSearchIndex and choose Semantic to build it — do this once
on your archive, ideally before a break, since a large library takes a while
(press Esc to stop at any point; progress is kept). It is incremental too:
re-running it only touches new and modified files. And from then on it
maintains itself — every time you save a design, its index entry is
refreshed automatically. The first build is the only bulk job you’ll ever
run.
Commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
ArtisanFileSearch | Opens the Search window. Also on the ribbon: File → File Search. |
ArtisanFileSearchIndex | Rebuilds an index — asks which: Names (fast, background) or Semantic (deep, opens each file). |
ArtisanFileSearchReindex | Refreshes the names index in the background, with progress in Rhino’s status bar. Also on the ribbon under File Search → Update index. |
ArtisanFileSearchIndexReset | Deletes both indexes (troubleshooting). Rebuild by running ArtisanFileSearchIndex again. |
Your data
The search itself happens on your machine: both indexes live in your user folder, and the matching and ranking run locally over them. The only thing sent to the AI provider is the text of a Smart query, so it can be translated into filters — your files, previews, prices and client data never leave your computer. More in Privacy and data.
Notes
- Price queries use the design’s boutique sale price when there is one, then the regular price, then the internal cost from the breakdown. Designs with no price at all are left out of price-filtered results — a design that can’t answer the question shouldn’t pretend to.
- Ties are broken by modification date, so among equally good matches the piece you worked on most recently comes first.
- Thumbnails are cached after the first look, so the window gets faster the more you use it.