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MCP

Grasshopper + MCP

ArtisanGrasshopper puts RhinoArtisan’s parametric engine on the Grasshopper canvas — around 219 components across the Shanks, Gemset, Gems, Readers and Artisan tabs. Your AI assistant can build those graphs for you: McNeel’s Rhino MCP Platform provides the generic Grasshopper tools (search, place, wire, solve), and RhinoArtisan MCP provides the knowledge those tools lack — what each Artisan component does, and the JSON shortcut that makes graphs fast to build.

The two servers are designed to work side by side in the same Rhino: connect both, and your assistant combines them in one conversation.

ServerWhat it contributes
RhinoArtisan MCP (this one)The document workflow — design, editing, analysis, pricing, production — plus gh_reference: the ArtisanGrasshopper component reference
Rhino MCP Platform (McNeel)The canvas — g1_search_components, g1_place_component, g1_place_slider, g1_connect, g1_apply_graph, g1_get_canvas_graph, g1_solve_graph

Setup

  1. RhinoArtisan MCP — ships with RhinoArtisan 7; see Getting Started.
  2. Rhino MCP Platform — install the Rhino MCP Platform plugin from Rhino’s PackageManager (free, by McNeel), then connect it to your assistant following McNeel’s guide. For Claude Desktop, McNeel offers a one-click connector.
  3. Both servers appear in your assistant. That’s all — ArtisanGrasshopper components are part of the Grasshopper library, so McNeel’s tools find them like any native component.

How the assistant works

The loop the two servers enable:

  1. gh_reference (RhinoArtisan MCP) — the assistant reads the Artisan component catalog: tabs and names first; then, filtered, each component’s inputs, outputs and placement Guid.
  2. g1_apply_graph (Rhino MCP) — it places sliders and components and wires them in one call, using the Guids from step 1.
  3. g1_solve_graph — it solves the canvas and reads back any errors or warnings, correcting the graph until it computes.

The JSON shortcut

Most Artisan generator components accept their whole parameter set as a single <Name> JSON text input — the same models the panels use, serialized. gh_reference returns each component’s JSON model with the tool defaults filled in, so instead of placing twenty sliders the assistant can edit a few fields and feed the model as one text panel:

{"Width": 2.5, "Height": 1.8, "FingerSize": 54, ...}

That keeps graphs small, fast to build, and easy to re-parameterize: change a value in the JSON, re-solve, done. The 49 * Parameters reader components do the reverse — they expose a baked element’s model to the canvas.

Try it

With both servers connected and Rhino open:

“Open Grasshopper and build me a parametric eternity ring: an Artisan Eternity component fed by sliders for finger size and gem size. Solve it and show me.”

The assistant loads Grasshopper, looks up the Eternity component with gh_reference, places and wires it with g1_apply_graph, solves, and reads back the canvas status. From there, iteration is conversational: “add a channel”, “make the gems 1.5 mm”, “bake it and tell me the weight in 18k gold” — that last step crossing back to RhinoArtisan MCP for calculate_weight.

Notes and limits

  • Rhino 8 / Grasshopper 1. ArtisanGrasshopper targets Grasshopper 1 today. McNeel’s g2_* tools drive Grasshopper 2 on Rhino 9; Artisan components will be re-validated there when ArtisanGrasshopper supports GH2.
  • Rhino MCP Platform is McNeel’s product. Its tools, installation and behavior are documented and supported by McNeel; RhinoArtisan support covers the Artisan components and RhinoArtisan MCP.
  • Baking and document-side work (weights, pricing, exports, production checks) belong to RhinoArtisan MCP’s tools — the assistant switches servers naturally within the same conversation.