Rhino 3D Selection & Layer Shortcuts

Selecting all objects (Ctrl+A / Cmd+A) selects every visible, unlocked object across the entire model — standard behavior consistent with most other design and productivity software, and one of the few Rhino shortcuts that's a genuinely fixed keyboard combination rather than a typed alias, reflecting that basic selection actions tend to stay as conventional shortcuts even in an otherwise command-line-driven application. Undo (Ctrl+Z / Cmd+Z) reverts the most recent command or edit, and it's worth understanding that Rhino's undo history operates at the level of whole completed commands rather than individual keystrokes — undoing after a multi-step command (like a complex Boolean operation involving several sub-steps) reverts that entire command as one unit, not just its final confirming action, which is a meaningfully different granularity than undo in a plain text editor where each keystroke is its own undoable step. Layers in Rhino organize 3D geometry into named, independently toggleable and lockable groups, conceptually similar to how layers function in 2D illustration software, though scoped to three-dimensional geometry rather than 2D artwork stacking order. Creating a new layer (through the Layers panel's own New Layer button, without a default global keyboard shortcut) adds a named container that new geometry can be assigned to, and Rhino layers additionally support default colors and materials that objects placed on that layer automatically inherit unless explicitly overridden — a genuinely useful organizational feature for keeping visually related geometry (all the fasteners in a mechanical assembly, for instance) consistently styled without manually setting color on each individual piece. Toggling layer visibility (clicking the lightbulb icon next to a specific layer in the Layers panel) shows or hides every piece of geometry assigned to that layer at once, useful for isolating one part of a complex, multi-component model without deleting or physically moving anything — complementary to the Isolate command covered on the viewport-navigation category page, which achieves a conceptually similar focused view but based on your current selection rather than a layer assignment. Grouping selected objects (Ctrl+G / Cmd+G) bundles them so they move, scale, rotate, and select together as a single combined unit going forward, useful for a multi-part assembly — a set of components that make up one mechanical part, for instance — that should generally be manipulated together during early-stage layout and positioning work, before you're ready to fine-tune individual pieces separately. Toggling the Gumball manipulator (Ctrl+Shift+Q, or a toolbar toggle) shows or hides Rhino's on-object move/rotate/scale widget, which appears directly on selected geometry with draggable handles for each transform axis — a considerably more visual, direct-manipulation-oriented way to transform geometry compared to typing a Move, Rotate, or Scale command and specifying numeric values or reference points at the command line. Gumball still respects active object snaps while dragging, meaning you get the direct-manipulation immediacy of dragging a handle combined with the precision of snapping to exact reference points, rather than having to choose between the two approaches — a genuine bridge between Rhino's command-line precision and a more visual, click-and-drag interaction style closer to what a tool like SketchUp offers as its default and only mode of interaction. A point worth making about how these shortcuts fit together as a genuine workflow rather than a disconnected list: a typical Rhino modeling session tends to start with layer setup (creating and naming layers for the major components of whatever's being modeled), proceed through the bulk of the actual geometry creation using the typed commands covered on the command-aliases category page, and lean on selection, grouping, and Gumball specifically during the later refinement and adjustment phase, once the base geometry exists and the task shifts from creating new shapes to positioning and fine-tuning them relative to each other. Layers created early stay relevant throughout, since toggling their visibility remains one of the fastest ways to declutter a growing model as more geometry accumulates across a longer session. Selection filtering deserves a brief mention alongside Select All: Rhino's status bar and Edit menu both offer ways to select only objects matching specific criteria — by object type (curves only, surfaces only), by layer, or by color — which becomes genuinely necessary once a model grows dense enough that Ctrl+A's blanket "select everything" is too broad to be useful for a specific targeted edit, letting you narrow a selection to exactly the class of geometry you actually need to work with rather than manually clicking through a crowded model by hand.