Kangaroo

Information

THIS FORUM IS NO LONGER ACTIVE. PLEASE POST ANY NEW QUESTIONS OR DISCUSSION ON:

https://discourse.mcneel.com/c/grasshopper/kangaroo

The discussions here are preserved for reference, but new questions posted here are likely to go unanswered.

Kangaroo is a Live Physics engine for interactive simulation, optimization and form-finding directly within Grasshopper.

Website: http://kangaroo3d.com
Members: 3011
Latest Activity: yesterday

You can read an introduction to the ideas behind Kangaroo here:

http://spacesymmetrystructure.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/kangaroo/

Kangaroo2 is now available for testing (see full announcement here). Please bear in mind this is still a work-in-progress, and features are still subject to change.

Kangaroo2 is now included with Rhino6, you do not need to install it separately.

You can download it for Rhino5 from here:

http://www.food4rhino.com/project/kangaroo

This thread contains some troubleshooting tips if you have problems getting it installed and working:

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/kangaroo/forum/topics/kangaroo-2

The main source of example files for the latest version is here:

https://github.com/Dan-Piker/Kangaroo-examples

Some further example files for version 2.0 can be found here:

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/kangaroo/page/kangaroo2-additional-examples

with more to follow - if there is some particular feature you would like more examples of information on please ask there.

The Kangaroo2 solver library is now separate from the Grasshopper components, and can also be referenced and used in scripts, either in the GH VB/C#/Python components, or in RhinoScript/PythonScript in Rhino. Questions about these can also be posted on:

http://discourse.mcneel.com/c/scripting

Kangaroo2 is a complete rewrite, and the main solver/goal/force components are not cross-compatible with the previous version. However, you can keep both versions installed together allowing older definitions to be opened, and for now this is recommended, as there are also several utility and mesh processing functions relevant to both versions.

While v2 introduces many new features and improvements, not all the features from the old version currently have equivalents in the new version, but the plan is to add them all over time.

The links below are for the old version. More documentation and videos for the new version to appear soon.

example files(for version 0.099):

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/kangaroo/page/example-files

manual(for version 0.099):

http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddpv

getting started video:

http://vimeo.com/20308963

demo videos:

http://vimeo.com/album/199263

Some more tutorial videos from EXLAB:

http://vimeo.com/exlab/videos

Discussion Forum

Building a computer around Kangaroo Physics/Grasshopper 3 Replies

Hello,I am looking to investing into a computer for modeling with grasshopper and more specifically, Kangaroo. I was wondering if anyone had any resources or spec sheets that they could share with me. Also in a more general sense, are there elements…Continue

Tags: processor, grasshopper, computer, kangaroo

Started by August Lehrecke. Last reply by Maximilian Hohenzollern yesterday.

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News and Updates

Force polygons of equilibrium structures

I have recently been exploring some reciprocal force diagrams using Kangaroo. From the 1869 paper by James Clerk Maxwell On reciprocal figures, frames and diagrams of forces : …to construct the Polygon of Forces, by drawing in succession lines parallel and proportional to the different forces, each line beginning at the extremity of the last. If the forces acting at the […]

Minimal surface puzzle

The top row shows three different minimal surfaces from the same boundary curves. The bottom row shows the same 3 surfaces rotated and in a different order. Which number corresponds to which letter?

Orthogonal Clustering

I’ve always aimed to make Kangaroo a specifically architectural physics engine. While it shares many characteristics with similar engines used for other purposes, such as games and animation, it has some features that are uniquely suited to designing buildings. Form-finding and physics-based-modelling often result in curved shapes, with an elegant and natural appearance which is something […]

Variation from Uniformity

All of these triangles are identical and equilateral: In architectural geometry over the last few decades, a common topic of research has been how to build and clad doubly curved surfaces in an efficient way. While computer aided manufacturing has made it possible to make buildings where every panel has slightly different dimensions, there are […]

MeshMash!

As regular readers of this blog will know, I’m passionate about the use of relaxation and force-based methods for optimizing geometry in a very interactive way. There is a great variety of form-finding that can be done by assigning physical forces as interactions between sets of particles. However, in my investigations so […]

More…

Comment Wall

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Comment by muhammad fachrurrazi on June 27, 2013 at 5:01am: hello guys, i have problem with Plaw component. i dont know why its not working again but nothing error report. thanks for your help

Comment by Andrei Raducanu on June 5, 2013 at 9:33am: do you reckon a anti-funicular shape is still the way to go if you have an assembly system like the Boxel Pavilion, where the "bricks" aren't aligned to the surface but stay vertical (therefore the compression force isn't perpendicular to the modules' faces, but comes at an angle)? hopefully somebody with structural knowledge can enlighten me...

Comment by Andrei Raducanu on June 5, 2013 at 7:56am: hey, all!

do you guys know of a method that can be used when you want to convert a brep into a mesh with fairly uniform faces (in size and shape), which is what i guess is needed when doing anti-funcular simulations... Thanks a lot!

Comment by Dmitry on May 16, 2013 at 4:00am: help001.gh

help%20002.3dm

Comment by Dmitry on May 16, 2013 at 3:53am: Hello Daniel !
sorry for may ask same question again , but I cannot found solution how to fix it .
the target is to make limit border of shape for circle paking .
I add some button to script , which I load from your blog , for make possibly use different diametr of circle . now it can paking , and each circle stop when reach border of surface by it's center.
but I would like to make circle stop when reach border of surface by it's outline .
is it possible to do something in this script , for it work as I need ?

Comment by Daniel Piker on March 28, 2013 at 2:42pm: Hi Ben, this is great to see. I'm glad it was useful for you, and thanks for sharing

Comment by Ben Howes on March 25, 2013 at 1:45pm: The ACM Group at Thornton Tomasetti used Kangaroo as a platform for facade form finding on a project with 360 Architecture. Check out our blog for a detailed description of the project, and have a look at a partial form finding run in the video below.

Comment by Robert Harvey on February 23, 2013 at 10:59am: That's it, thank you!

Comment by Daniel Piker on February 22, 2013 at 10:27am: Robert - do you definitely have both the kangaroo gha and the dll in your components directory, and both unblocked ?

Comment by Robert Harvey on February 22, 2013 at 10:10am: Hi everyone,

Does anyone know why I'm getting the following error message when I open Grasshopper?

Object: KangarooA (level 1)

{

Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.

TargetInvocationException

}

Object: KangarooA (level 2)

{

Could not load file or assembly 'KangarooLib, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

FileNotFoundException

Im using Rhino 5 on Windows 7 64.

Thanks.