Skip to content

MCP

Connect RhinoArtisan to your AI

RhinoArtisan speaks the language every major AI assistant is adopting: the Model Context Protocol. Connect your assistant once, and your whole workflow turns into a conversation:

“Design a solitaire ring with a 1 ct round diamond, give me its price in 18k gold, and export the STL for printing.”

That’s where this connection is heading — design, manufacturing, pricing and reporting through one conversation. Gem tools are live today, and the rest of RhinoArtisan’s modules are joining them release by release; your assistant picks up every new tool automatically. Everything it does lands in your document as a normal Artisan operation you can undo with a regular Undo.

Before you start

You only need two things:

  • RhinoArtisan 7 (on Rhino 8 or 9), installed and licensed. The AI bridge ships with the RhinoArtisan 7 installer — there is nothing extra to install.
  • An AI assistant — see Connect your AI for the full list.

Step 1 — Start Rhino

That’s it, really. RhinoArtisan quietly runs a private server on your computer that assistants can talk to. It starts with Rhino, it is only visible to programs on your own machine — never to the internet — and you can switch it off at any time with the ArtisanMcpStop command (and back on with ArtisanMcpStart).

Step 2 — Connect your assistant

Pick yours in Connect your AI and follow the two-minute setup:

Step 3 — Ask for jewelry

With Rhino open and your assistant connected, try:

“Create a round 1 ct diamond.”

The stone appears in your viewport — right layer, right material, correctly sized for its carat weight. From there, explore what else your assistant can do in Tools.

Troubleshooting

  • The assistant doesn’t see RhinoArtisan — make sure Rhino is running; the Rhino command line should show [ArtisanMCP] MCP server listening on http://127.0.0.1:9280/mcp. If it doesn’t, run ArtisanMcpStart.
  • The server didn’t start — usually a second Rhino instance already owns the connection. Only one Rhino at a time can serve AI assistants; run ArtisanMcpStart in the one you want to use.
  • Claude Desktop shows nothing after restart — check that Node.js is installed, then quit Claude completely (not just the window) and reopen.
  • Tools fail with a license message — AI assistants work through RhinoArtisan itself, so they need your RhinoArtisan license to be active.