Parametric Bubble Diagrams?

Hello all.

I am looking for a way to use grasshopper to influence the layout and program of a project I am currently working on. I have read the book Algorithmic Architecture by Kostas Terzidis in which he references a project where using Maya the student wrote and algorithm that took the required area of the spaces and used a true false system to connect spaces that should be linked according to program. Is there a way to do this or something similar in grasshopper? Basically creating a 3 dimensional bubble diagram that could be used for massing studies and analysis studies when using product such as ecotect?

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Permalink Reply by Pep Tornabell on January 27, 2010 at 2:34am

If you speak about bubbles, you are thinking in Voronoi dyagrams. In that case, there are more than tones of literature about. I'd suggest explore fileds like emergence or divergence (that's a new one, ha). Chaos as social constructor...

In my opinion bubbles are incredibly interesting, but just for its structural principles, its fisical habilities (they bonce on the surface of a liquid several times before disappearing) and its incredible light properties

Sorry for not giving the answer you are looking for, as allways.

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Permalink Reply by Nels Long on January 27, 2010 at 8:47am

Thanks for the reply and yes I am thinking about voronoi diagrams for the actual design... right now however i'm talking about the old-school way of creating floor plans, the bubble diagram you might have had to do in a high school english class when you were organizing a paper. simply thinking in area and and connection to other areas. what needs to be connected to what and how big these pieces are. But, thinking about this parametrically? any takers?

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Permalink Reply by Adel Zakout on January 27, 2010 at 4:07pm

I'd be really interested in somehting like this too .. Probably can do something with importing the number data from excel and drawing circles , midpoints, lines ....

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Permalink Reply by Gui Talarico on March 8, 2012 at 8:20am

I have been working on something similar to this.

The goal is to create a framework that would allow me to generate these "bubble", or adjacency diagrams by using data entered in a programmatic spreadsheet.

The result would resemble this, but perhaps in 3 dimensions as well.

http://www.marksusser.com/images/concept/bubble_diagram_w.jpg

I was able to create the areas (circles), and connect them based on "true/false" data from an adajency matrix >http://www.fourc3.com/idthesis1112/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Adjan...

Circles were than color coded based on the number of connections (importance?)

What I am struggling to do, is find a way to spatially distribute the circles in a way that makes sense and reads well. I guess it has to do with the level and hierarchy of each entry.

This kind of shows what I trying to say: entries land on circles, and move outwards based on its level.

http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/visualizations...;

I found this program, Cytoscape, which appears to be capable of doing something along these lines. Apparently, Cytoscape has a few "packing" or distributional algorithms to get the elements laid out properly. http://www.cytoscape.org/

Any idea of how something like this could be achieved in Grasshopper?

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Permalink Reply by Gui Talarico on March 8, 2012 at 6:29pm

Ok, here is what got:

I decided to arrange them around a circle for now... at least until I can figure out how to deal with the hierarchy.

Next step is to implement a way of establishing or non-binary programmatic relationship (0-3 from none to strong, as opposed to the current 0 or 1)

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Heumann on March 8, 2012 at 8:28am

Marc Syp did a really awesome take on this. I believe he was using a some variation on a spring system in Kangaroo in order to handle the adjacencies. http://vimeo.com/15563685