Octopus

Information

Octopus is a plug-in for applying evolutionary principles to parametric design and problem solving. It allows the search for many goals at once, producing a range of optimized trade-off solutions between the extremes of each goal.

Also see octopus.E for custom evolutionary algorithms.

Download the latest version on food4rhino

It is part of a range of tools developed at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and Bollinger+Grohmann Engineers.

search for single goal + diversity of solutions
search for best trade offs between 2 to X goals
improve solutions by similarity-goals
choose preferred solutions during a search
change objectives during a search
solutions' 3d models for visual feedback
recorded history
save all search data within the Grasshopper document
save a solution as a Grasshopper State
export to text or text files

Octopus introduces multiple fitness values to the optimization. The best trade-offs between those objectives are searched, producing a set of possible optimum solutions that ideally reach from one extreme trade-off to the other.

Based on SPEA-2 and HypE from ETH Zürich and David Rutten's Galapagos User Interface. Developed by Robert Vierlinger in cooperation with Christoph Zimmel, karamba3d.com and Bollinger+Grohmann Engineers.

To install:

Copy the .gha and .dll file into the Grasshopper components folder
Right-click the file > Properties > make sure there is no "blocked" text
Restart Rhino and Grasshopper

Some examples are provided here.

New commented examples and a brief manual are provided in the download of octopus on food4rhino.

Location: Vienna
Members: 376
Latest Activity: 17 hours ago

Discussion Forum

First try at octopus, Parametric void

Hi everyone!This is my first post on the forum and I wanted to discuss my first ever octopus definition I worked on.I'm trying to minimize radiation while maximizing daylight to generate a form for a…Continue

Started by Shruti Shiva Apr 24.

Rhino Crash when running Octopus 4 Replies

Hi everybody,I have a gh file with Octopus, that works fine in 2 computers, but in the 3rd one, Rhino Crashes when I double click on Octopus:-gha and dll files are unblocked,- I used the latest…Continue

Tags: crash, octopus

Started by Ilona Darmon. Last reply by anas_hosney Mar 7.

octopus stopping

hi everyonei'm using octopus for multi objective optimization but octopus stops in generation 3 and i have to press start button again, i tried this work for 60 generation now i have this question…Continue

Started by mohsen.m.kashavar Dec 29, 2017.

generate population

hi everyone,I want to use octopus.e for one objective optimization and now have a problem with understanding how generating the first population.in the example that release with octopus.e the first…Continue

Tags: optimization, octopus.e

Started by ehsan anvari Dec 18, 2017.

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Comment Wall

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You need to be a member of Octopus to add comments!

Comment by Alvaro Rodriguez Garcia on May 7, 2018 at 5:26: Hello, I have 2 questions:
1. What is the maximum amount of objectives that octopus can handle and how are they represented ( since it only has 3 axis)
2. Is there an available example of using octopus together with Design explorer?

Thank you so much !

Comment by Robert Vier on February 9, 2016 at 5:09: Hi Aymeric,

sorry for the inconvenience. It seems to be a problem with the HelixViewport. do you see any messages in the Rhino Command Prompt Window when running your setup and octopus?

You could also try to place the latest version of helixtoolkitwpf.dll from the helixtoolkit in the libraries folder..! HelixToolkit.Wpf.dll

And if you would not mind, please post questions like this into the discussion forum next time!

Best

Robert

Comment by Aymeric on February 9, 2016 at 4:26: Hi guys,

I've just installed Octopus 0.3.6. (Unlock the files and copy/paste in the Component folder...)

Unfortunately, I can't see the axes of the viewport neither the view cube when I open the Octopus window. The Solver seems to run but I don't get any visualization of the fitness landscape. I have tried with another computer and everything looks fine. Does anyone of you have already experienced such a case? How could I solve this problem for computer 1?

Here attached image on computer 1 followed by image on computer 2.

Thanks for any idea!

Best regards,

Aymeric

Comment by Andy Chen on August 10, 2015 at 20:21: Hi guys,i just start to use octopus,and i want to know how it works.Where can i find the essay or articals?Thanks a lot!

Comment by Hairault on July 10, 2015 at 3:23: Hi Octopus users,

I've been using Octopus in several problems, trying to test many possibilities, and I end up with many GH files exceeding 200 Mo, which are hard to manipulate.

Is there any mean to compress/reduce gh files size ?

Is there any technique to store the data out of octopus and re-load it if needed ?

For the moment, I am deleting genetical history I don't need, and deleting outer solutions. I also reduced the population size when the big population is diverse enough, of course trying to maintain diversity. But I don't think I will get a good set of solutions in the end.

Thanks for any clue, any help, any direction toward which I should seek !

Gaëtan

Comment by Robert Vier on June 6, 2015 at 5:31: A WIP-version of the looping component used in octopus.E is now available as an explicit loop, with the same functions as Anemone, a bit less well to use but much faster [up to 1000 times due to internal calculation]:

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

Comment by Israa El-Maghraby on April 15, 2015 at 1:16: Hello Robert Vier, hope you are doing great

I have a little serious problem, my optimization collapsed at the11th generation, where it should continue till 15 generation. The octopus saved my last 10 generations "no problem about that" but corrupted my 11th, any way I can start from generation 10 and re continue my optimization process , THANKS IN A MILLION

Comment by Israa El-Maghraby on March 1, 2015 at 12:09: I have another conern my simulation does not go far than ZERO generations .. Despite i made it 3 and population size 4 .. just as a test ... Could you think what might be the problem !

Comment by Israa El-Maghraby on February 28, 2015 at 13:01: I have a question concerning EVALPOOLSIZE ... what does determine its values.. i made population size 4 and max number of generation is 3 ... does the values of these parameters affect it !.. I really don't understand it clearly

Thanks in advance