ABOUT ME / METALARTDESIGN
Alexander
SchreilechnerMetal. Art. Design.
I am a master metalworker and artist. I founded MetalArtDesign in Salzburg in 2007.
My work combines craftsmanship with digital design – from sculpture and public art to jewellery and objects.
Visit my website
CRAFTSMANSHIP & DIGITAL TOOLS
From an idea
to a physical object.
For me, traditional forging and CAD go hand in hand. When reconstructing historic wrought-iron work, digital drawings help reproduce forms accurately.
I also use digital models and 3D printing in jewellery and object design: prototypes make designs tangible before they are prepared for production.
METALARTDESIGN / RHINOLASER
Why I developed RhinoLaser.
The challenge behind the design
Early on, I explored the development and unfolding of freeform surfaces and experimented extensively with Rhino. For me, this was always also about the journey from a digital design to a physical object. Notched and tab-and-slot joints, identifying the sheet-metal parts and documenting them repeatedly proved challenging. By the assembly stage, the answers had to be clear: which part goes where, and which edges fit together?
A continuous workflow
I originally developed RhinoLaser for my own work. Across countless projects, I had to repeat the same intermediate steps – tasks that took considerable time and demanded my full attention every time. This led me to bring that experience together in a tool that supports the entire workflow.
RhinoLaser brings model preparation, joint design, part labelling, and the checking and export of cutting data together in a clear workflow. The plugin handles many repetitive steps and helps produce clean flat patterns more quickly and systematically. Clear part and mating-part numbers make laser-cut components easy to identify and match, simplifying subsequent assembly.
Sharing 20 years of experience
What began as a tool for my own needs has grown into a connected workflow from design through to output. Today, I want to make RhinoLaser accessible to fellow professionals, university students and school students as well.
This plugin draws on 20 years of experience in my design and craft practice. I want to share that knowledge through a tool that breaks down the journey from a CAD model to a physical object into simple, understandable steps – leaving more room for what really matters: bringing your own ideas to life.
Go to the RhinoLaser tutorials