PanelingTools GH Add-On

Information

Parametric tools to create and manipulate rectangular grids, attractors and support creative morphing of parametric patterns.

This is a BETA version and works only with the latest Rhino 5.0 BETA on Windows 32 & 64 Bit.

Location: Seattle, USA
Members: 298
Latest Activity: yesterday

Downloads and Installation (Last update: October 15, 2012):
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Each time you update, please do the following:

1- Download the latest Rhinoceros 5 Beta

2- Download the latest PanelingTools for Rhino 5.0 Plugin and PT-GH Add On.
3- Open Rhino and run Grasshopper, you should see the PanelingTools menu in Rhino and PanelingTools tab in Grasshopper.

Where to start:
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The PanelingTools for Grasshopper Primer (PDF) has many tutorials and detailed description of all components with examples. You can use as a start point to learn about the plugin.

Download The Primer Examples and Tutorials. This includes all components example and tutorials as Grasshopper definitions.

Overview:
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First step is to create a rectangular grid using one of the tools in "Grid" tab. Some of these components take a list of points, which you can generate using GH standard components, or divide a curve using one of the tools under "Curve" tab of PanelingTools.

Once a grid is created, you can shuffle it using one of the attraction methods under "Grid Attractors" tab. One output is the shuffled grid, another output is the normalized weights based on the attraction method that can be used for variable offset or variable paneling for example.

"Grid Utility" tab helps you do things like extracting points from the grid, replace points, extract center grid, expand grids, create surface from grid, etc.

"Panel Utility" tab has components to pull panel edges to a surface using pull, iso curves or shortest path.

"Panel2D" tab has many ways to panel the rectangular grid and populate 2D components.

"Panel3D" contain components to populate 3D patterns between 2 bounding grids.

If you used PanelingTools plugin for Rhino, then the Parameters tab is for you. You can use PanelingTools for Rhino to create your grid, then input into GH as a tree structure using "Select" component. The "Bake" components is to bake a grid in a format that can be used by PanelingTools plugin for Rhino. If you only work with GH, then you can safely ignore this tab.

Note: All input/output of PanelingTools Add-on to GH use standard geometry and you can use standard GH components to manipulate them. Grids for example are nothing but simple tree structures (no nesting). You can think of it as a list of rows or paths that contain certain number of leafs or elements.
It is important to try to avoid FLATTENING a grid. If you have to flatten a grid, there is a utility to recompose it if you knew the number of rows, but seriously, stay away from flattening!

Feedback:
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Please feel free to post bugs, questions and suggestions to improve the tools. Please use the discussion of this group to post question when possible.

Discussion Forum

New PanelingTools Release of May 8, 2013

Hi All,A new release of PanelingTools for Rhino 5 and Grasshopper is now available forDownload...New…Continue

Tags: Release, PanelingTools

Started by Rajaa Issa May 8.

If you have trouble installing or loading PanelingTools...

Hi,We are working on fixing the Rhino rhi installer bugs, and we need your help.If you are having any problem installing or loading the latest release of PanelingTools, please email the following to…Continue

Tags: Install, PanelingTools

Started by Rajaa Issa Apr 30.

install problem 2 Replies

i couldnt run the file 'PanelingTools_2013_04_25_00.rhi'. when i excute it, it appears a window and ask me with which programm i wanna run it!then i was confused and i have chosen rhino as the…Continue

Started by Frank. Last reply by RubenV Apr 30.

102 Space Frame tutorial with PT-GH 10 Replies

The tutorial shows step by step how to define the space frame system using PanelingTools for Grasshopper. I attached the data sheet and the GH definition.Let me know if you have any…Continue

Tags: tutorial, add-on, PanelingTools

Started by Rajaa Issa. Last reply by Sarah Yeun Apr 26.

View All

News

New PanelingTools Release of May 8, 2013

If you have trouble installing or loading PanelingTools...

Release PanelingTools for Rhino 5 and Grasshopper...

On the web the first manual about PanelingTools for Grasshopper!!!

Paneling Tools Installed on 32 bit, but not 64 bit Rhino 5

Comment Wall

Comment

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Comment by Kevin Hinz on January 8, 2013 at 8:38pm: Perfect! The Win 32 file path makes sense.I appreciate your help.

_k

Comment by Rajaa Issa on January 8, 2013 at 9:56am: Hi Kevin,

PanelingTools installs both 32 and 64 bit. I also can see that the 32bit is not loading for the released product. We'll fix that.
For now, you'll need to go to PluginManager inside a new session of Rhino 32bit, and load the plugin from:
C:\Users\[USER]\AppData\Roaming\McNeel\Rhinoceros\5.0\Plug-ins\PanelingTools {6CAED836-BC06-4EBC-B1FD-E10886A0DC94}\2012.8.29.114\Win32

Let me know if this works now.

Comment by Kevin Hinz on January 4, 2013 at 6:40pm: Hi Rajaa,

It seems that I did not achieve a clean uninstall of Rhino 5 Beta and Rhino 5 Evaluation before attempting PT access. Also, I tried a re-start before replying here.

Although removing everything via my Programs and Features, there were still remnants of shortcuts and folders on the desktop and in the All Programs menu. I inadvertently used one of these shortcuts, thinking they were new.

At least one of these shortcuts pointed to the Rhino 5 Education in the Program Files (x86) folder; PanelingTools does not work here but does function in Rhino 5.0 (64-bit).

The PT toolbars will load into Rhino 5.0 (x86) but not function; perhaps it requires a 32bit PT install.
Everything shows up as expected in the Educational Rhino 5.0 (64-bit).

Thank you for the help.

_kevin

Comment by Rajaa Issa on January 4, 2013 at 8:15am: Hi Kevin,
Did you install PT?
If you did, then the plugin should be loaded when you open a new session and you'll see the drop down menu.
Are you at least able to access the PT commands if you type their name in the command line?

Comment by Kevin Hinz on January 3, 2013 at 9:50pm: Hi Rajaa,

I've successfully loaded the PT Toolbars given the instructions below.

Do you have a recommendation for installing the PT Tools drop-down menu in a R5 Educational?

The PanelingTools drop-down was successfully working in the R5 Evaluation and R5 Beta.

Thanks in advance for the tip.

_kevin

Comment by NYCCTfab (Brian Ringley) on November 27, 2012 at 7:23pm: I just added Paneling Tools to AEC-APPS http://aec-apps.com/app/app/paneling-tools

Comment by Rajaa Issa on November 27, 2012 at 8:58am

You should not have to do that. It must be a bug in the installer.

Can you please do the following:

Open Windows Explorer
Paste "%appdata%\McNeel\Rhinoceros\5.0\logs" in the address bar
Press Enter
Send the newest several "PanelingTools*.log" files to brian@mcneel.com and copy me rajaa@mcneel.com - We'll figure out why the installer is failing on your computer.

Comment by James Lam on November 27, 2012 at 7:50am: Thanks, Rajaa,

I got it solved, I rename to zip file, unzip, and see the win32 folder, then copy to appdata folder, then works

Thanks again

Comment by Rajaa Issa on November 26, 2012 at 2:46pm: James,
This is strange. Can you email me directly to see if we can sort this out?

Comment by James Lam on November 17, 2012 at 9:51pm: seems the PT-GH installers only have win64 folder, I can't find any win32 path? in my appData ... path. if so, is any plan support 32 bits