Daxs

⚠️ Early Development Version: Daxs is currently in a very early stage and features, behavior, and APIs may change significantly.

Daxs is a Rhino plugin/package/app that brings gamepad support to Rhino.

Daxs makes navigating and interacting with Rhino feel as fluid and natural as moving inside a 3D game engine. It is designed to give Rhino a stable gamepad interface and customizable mappings, without intefering with Rhinos functionality.

Gamepads supported

Daxs is built on top of SDL 3 (via a SDL3-CS wrapper) and supports hundreds of gamepad models and variants out of the box — automatically using SDL’s unified input layer. Supported Gamepads:

• Xbox 360 / Xbox One / Xbox Series
• PlayStation 4 / PlayStation 5
• Nintendo Switch Pro
• Steam Controller
• Logitech / Razer / PowerA / 8BitDo / Hori / PDP
• Rock Candy, GameSir, Nacon, Scuf, MSI, etc.
• Generic HID gamepads
• Bluetooth & wired models
• Vendor-specific variants and clones

SDL automatically normalizes controller layouts → Daxs does the rest to communicate with Rhino.

Why

Navigating precicely complex models can sometimes be frustrating, especially within enclosed interior geometries such as architectural models. With gamepad support, navigation through geometry becomes significantly smoother and more natural (for us gamers). Most people already have spare controllers lying around. Simply plug in an old one and start using it.

Key Features

• Free-flight navigation through the Rhino scene.
• Walk mode - Movement constrained to a ground plane or a navigation mesh.
• Plug and Play! Connect a gamepad over bluetooth - thats it! It will be automatically recognised.
• No movement, no loose on performance. Daxs runs a high-frequency input runtime that processes controller input independently of Rhino's UI thread.
• Fully Customizable Button Mapping, including Rhino macros

Installation

• packaged .yak installer for Rhino for now. Check the latest release
• Food For Rhino: Comming soon...
• Package Manager: Comming soon...

Documentation

WORK IN PROGRESS

Commands

Daxs: Fly

Switch to Fly Mode. Free-flight navigation through the Rhino viewport.

Daxs: Walk

Switch to Walk Mode. Movement constrained to a ground plane or a Mesh. (Set Navigation mesh before).

Daxs: Set Collision

Set Navigation Mesh for Walk Mode

Daxs: Clear navigation mesh

Removes the navigation mesh from memory.

License

MIT License. See MIT license for details.

Third-Party Dependencies

SDL3

Github page
Copyright © Sam Lantinga
Licensed under the zlib License

SDL3-CS Wrapper

Github page
Copyright © Eduard Gushchin
Licensed under the zlib License

RhinoCommon SDK

https://developer.rhino3d.com/
© Robert McNeel & Associates