Matrix — The Jewellery-Industry CAD Plug-In Built on Rhino
Matrix — The Jewellery-Industry CAD Plug-In Built on Rhino
Parametric tools for prongs, pavé, and channel work that became a trade default
Matrix is a jewellery-specific plug-in for Rhinoceros 3D CAD software, developed by Gemvision (now owned by Stuller) and used widely across the trade for designing rings, settings, and complex multi-stone layouts. By exposing parametric tools for prong placement, pavé patterning, channel-set runs, head and gallery construction, and gem positioning, it removed much of the geometric grunt work from custom design and put consistent, repeatable digital craft in reach of bench jewellers and small studios. For more than two decades it has been one of the de facto standards in the segment, sitting alongside RhinoGold, JewelCAD, and a handful of others.
What the plug-in does
At base, Matrix runs inside Rhino and inherits Rhino's NURBS modelling engine and editing toolset. On top of that base it adds a builder-style interface tuned to jewellery geometry. A designer can drop in a parametric centre stone, generate a head sized to the stone, build a shank with chosen profile and finger size, and lay out side stones in a curved or straight pavé with the gallery automatically resized. Each step is a parametric history node, which means changes upstream — a different centre stone weight, a different finger size — propagate through the model without manual rebuild.
Specialised tools cover the operations bench jewellers know intimately: bezel walls of specified thickness, prong patterns by count and angle, claw heads, channel walls with stone seats, and pavé arrays that automatically space stones to a target gap. The effect is that an experienced bench jeweller can build a model that prints or casts cleanly, often in less time than a sketch and wax model would have taken.
Where Matrix sits in the workflow
The output of a Matrix session is a Rhino model, which can be exported as an STL or other file for 3D printing in castable wax or resin, or for direct metal printing. The plug-in does not itself perform CAM operations, but it integrates cleanly with the standard wax-printer and metal-printer workflows used in the trade. For studios producing one-off custom rings, the typical pipeline is design in Matrix, render for client approval, print in castable resin, cast, and finish on the bench.
Strengths and limits
The plug-in's strength is the breadth of its jewellery-specific tooling and the depth of its parametric history. The limit, for some users, is the same parametric model — heavy customisation outside the plug-in's templates can be slower than working in plain Rhino. Matrix is a paid commercial product on top of a paid Rhino licence, which puts it out of reach of hobbyists; for production studios, the cost is rounded into overhead.
In the trade today
Matrix is a default tool in many North American and European custom workshops. Larger production houses often combine it with downstream CAM software for tooling and mass manufacture; smaller studios use it directly for client-facing custom design and one-off pieces. The skill of working in Matrix has become a standard line on bench-jeweller and CAD-designer résumés alongside Rhino and traditional wax-modelling experience.