How a definition is built

There are more than 240 components, but only a handful of patterns. Once you can tell which family a component belongs to, its ports explain themselves — and the reference becomes a lookup rather than a reading list.

The four families

Almost every component is one of these:

Family	How to recognise it	What it does
Parameter	Named Something - … Parameters or … Params	Bundles a set of related settings into one value.
Builder	Named after the thing itself — Classic, Halo, Bezel, Bail	Takes parameter bundles and produces geometry.
Reader	In the Readers tab, or named … Reader	Unpacks a bundle or a JSON section back into individual values.
Value list	A dropdown with no inputs	Offers the valid values for a text or numeric input.

The rest are supporting cast: assets, exporters, manufacturing sprues and utilities, all in the Artisan tab.

Parameters go in bundles

A ring has too many settings to be one row of inputs, so they are grouped. Classic does not take twenty numbers — it takes a Top Profile bundle, a Mid Profile bundle, an External Profile bundle, an Advanced bundle and a Gems bundle, each built by its own parameter component.

This matters for how they behave: a parameter component only passes on the inputs you actually connect. Set carat on Classic - Gems Parameters and leave the rest alone, and the bundle carries carat and nothing else — every other setting keeps the builder’s own default. You never have to fill in a component to use one part of it.

The same applies to builders. Every input on Classic is optional; drop it on the canvas with nothing wired in and it still produces a ring.

Builders produce more than geometry

A builder’s first outputs are the obvious ones — BReps for the metal, Gems and Meshes for the stones, kept separate so you can render, price or export them apart. Three more are worth knowing:

• Magnet points. Points at the top and bottom centre of the bounding box, and at the top of the finger-size circle. They are the anchors you snap another part to, so a head lands on a shank without measuring.
• Taxonomy. The complete parameter set of what was built, as a dictionary. This is what the Readers tab consumes, and what a configurator stores to rebuild the piece later.
• Semantic. A plain-language description of the piece — the sentence a product page or a quote shows to a customer.

Builders also take a Computation Mode, RENDER or MANUFACTURING. The same definition produces presentation geometry or production geometry depending on which you pass; the Computation Mode value list (Artisan › Value List) gives you the two valid strings.

Readers run the chain backwards

Readers exist because the interesting inputs often arrive as data rather than as slider values — from a configurator, an order, or another part of the definition. They come in two levels.

Section readers (Readers › Global) take a whole JSON job and split it up. Global Reader pulls out the job-level flags — which formats to generate, the computation mode, the manufacturer. Shank Reader pulls out style, material and diameter, and hands back the Classic or Cathedral settings as a dictionary of their own.

Group readers (Readers › Shanks, Readers › Gemsets) take one of those dictionaries and expand it into individual values. Classic Adv Reader turns the Classic dictionary into opening type, cut length, cut bumping and the rest — each on its own output, ready to wire into a parameter component.

Chained together the two levels give you the automation path end to end:

JSON job
  → Global Reader        (what to generate, which mode)
  → Shank Reader         (style, material, diameter, sub-dictionaries)
  → Classic Adv Reader   (individual values)
  → Classic - … Params   (bundled back up)
  → Classic              (geometry + taxonomy + semantic)
  → Exporters            (3DM · STL · GLB · technical chart · SKU)

Every builder also accepts a JSON input directly, so you can skip the middle of that chain when you do not need to alter anything on the way through.

Named assets, not redrawn profiles

Profile components in Artisan › Assets — Ring Profile by Name, Bezel Profile by Name, Halo Profile by Name and the others — fetch a profile from RhinoArtisan’s asset library by name instead of making you rebuild the curve. They read the library that the RhinoArtisan plug-in installs, so the profiles available on the canvas are the same ones available in RhinoArtisan itself.

Ring sizes are diameters

Every shank component takes a ring diameter in millimetres, never a local size. The nineteen ring size value lists (Shanks › Ring Sizes) do the conversion: pick USA, Europe, Japan or any of the others, choose a size in that system, and the list outputs the diameter to wire in. Swapping the list swaps the sizing system without touching anything downstream.

Where a definition ends

The Artisan › Exporters group turns a result into deliverables: 3DM, STL and GLB, each as a file on disk or as a base64 string when the output is going straight into another application. Alongside them sit the non-geometry exports — technical charts, the semantic description, the taxonomy, SKU generation and comparison, and UI files.

For casting, Artisan › Manufacturing builds the sprue tree — single sprues, inner branches, and full inner and external trees.

Next

Component reference — every component in every tab, with its exact inputs, outputs, types and defaults.