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: 788
Latest Activity: Jul 24, 2023

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

1- Download the latest service release of Rhinoceros 5 and the latest Grasshopper.

2- Download the latest PanelingTools for Rhino 5.0 and Grasshopper. Make sure to double click on the installer to install.
3- Open Rhino, you should see PanelingTools menu in Rhino. Open Grasshopper, you should see the 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.

Online Class (On-Demand):
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Join the developer for a comprehensive online class (10 hour). Click for details...

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

PT Grid not depending on UV 2 Replies

Hi,I want to create a paneling grid unattached from the surface UV's. The surface is a free shape made with revlove command. I want to have the grid Points evenly distributed across the surface. With…Continue

Tags: Grid, Panelingtools, Grasshopper

Started by Magnus. Last reply by naasaki Mar 19, 2022.

PanelingTools Course (On-Demand) 2 Replies

Dear all,We are pleased to announce that the Introduction to PanelingTools course is now available online and on-demand. For details, please click …Continue

Tags: demand, paneling, rationalization, on, course

Started by Rajaa Issa. Last reply by Donald Baker Oct 25, 2021.

Question: Apply Custom Pattern 8 Replies

Hi Rajaa, hi everyone,I am new to Paneling Tools.I am trying to get my head around how to apply custom shapes using the "Morph 2D" component. Specifically, i try to apply a hexagon pattern and here…Continue

Started by FrankS. Last reply by Hannah Stevens Apr 15, 2021.

PT-GH for the RhinoWIP for the Mac... 16 Replies

Hi all,You probably already know that you can access PanelingTools in the Mac RhinoWIP (all commands auto-complete when you type "pt"). RhinoWIP for Mac also lets you access Grasshopper when you run…Continue

Started by Rajaa Issa. Last reply by Rajaa Issa Sep 30, 2019.

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Comment by Rajaa Issa on February 21, 2013 at 1:33pm: Hi Adam,

I ran quick test for open and closed loft and could not duplicate the bug you are seeing. Can you please send an example my way? You can email it directly to me if you need to keep it confidential.
Here is what I am seeing:

attracted_closed_loft.png

Comment by Adam Castelli on February 21, 2013 at 1:06pm: It seems that if I create a surface from lofting closed curves and then use paneling tools to create a grid and then shift it using one of the attractor components (e.g. mean curvature), then the cellulate component does not work properly. The points seem to get reordered in the process of moving from the regular grid to the moved grid causing the cellulate not to work. Any solution to this?

Comment by Friedrich Pei on January 22, 2013 at 7:32pm: Hi Rajaa,

Just had a try, worked pretty well. exactly what i'm looking for. Thank you.

Comment by Rajaa Issa on January 22, 2013 at 10:29am: Hi Friedrich,

Try ptOrient component. See the following example.

Is that what you are looking for?

Comment by Friedrich Pei on January 21, 2013 at 11:37pm: Hi, Rajaa, thank you for the nice plugin.

been exploring PT-GH recently, just wondering how to morph a surfaces to a grid. you see we can morph curves to a grid. how to morph surface without using morph 3D?

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