Hi Brian- yes, that's right. The Plankton libraries are used for Kangaroo's Mesh Machine as well as Cytoskeleton, so it's redundant, and Turtle is its own thing.

Hi Aidan- thanks...yes I'm trying to find the time to do the supernode thing, but I am really trying to build an integrated wireframe and curve-driven exoskeleton component, which is proving tricky to do...basically, I'd like to make all of the features available in the one component if I can, so it may take a bit. Supernodes are tough, because they can cascade (one supernode can then have to engulf another strut, etc) and there's a real risk for it slowing everything down quite a bit, so I'm trying to develop  a strategy to limit that.

Hi Ewa,

I am also getting this error occasionally, in my case, the older Exoskeleton version (without variable radius) can generate the mesh correctly, is it the same for you? I believe David has isolated the problem, but hasn't had time to fix it yet.

Hi Aidan and Ewa-

Yes...I haven't had the chance to get this working correctly, as I've had a number of other obligations. It's hard to find the time! Ewa, would it be possible for you to post the file that's giving you trouble?

thanks,

Dave

Hi Dave, thank you very much for your interest. Ironically, I somehow cannot encourage him to crash right this way right now :) But as soon as I do, I will be grateful for your help.

Thanks,

Ewa

Hi all, I downloaded the plugin the other day and am having fun with it!!  Great job!! .... I was wondering if someone could explain why I am getting a certain "kink" in this simple file.  The opposing corners don't seem to be getting them.Exoskeleton%20Practice.gh

Hi all,

I tried this plugin giving simple inputs but it seems it doesn't work.. What do I have to do?

Thank you

Hi Simone...Exoskeleton uses a list of lines as input, and it works better with a flat list rather than data structure. So you should explode your curves and use a flattened list of lines. However, it also looks like your polylines don't intersect at start and end points...exoskeleton at this time relies on a network of lines where the start and end points match up.

David, 

I recently started tinkering with Exoskeleton, and it works . . . somewhat. I am getting what seems to be a selective cooperation from it. I have attached the file to this message . . . I even cited some of your "code" from your complex example and I get nada . . . do you know what the issue might be as to why I am getting only some cooperation from Exoskeleton??

vasi.gh

P.S.
I have Weaverbird and Kangaroo

Hi Bradley-

I think the main problem you're having with your def (the one you've attached) is that you some combination of several very small lines and very tight angles. That's why you're getting the error "1. One or more struts is engulfed by its nodes". What's happening is the convex hull being solved on either side of your curves is bigger than the curve itself, so the mesh breaks. Probably the fastest way of working through this is to use Daniel Pikers "Topologizer" (http://www.grasshopper3d.com/profiles/blogs/topologizer-network-cle...) which allows for you to combine and clean line networks according to a preset tolerance. A lot of these conditions are resulting from the voronoi solution you're using, which can make for very small intersection faces between cells.

David, 

THANK YOU for that insight . . . but like all things one step forward is new territory. So! Now that I have it sorted and the lines are "webbing" nicely, my mesh output is creating individual "mesh-modules" when I bake the final mesh output. I attempted to run a MeshUnion, and then attempted to run Cytoskeleton's thicken (bad idea). 

I also baked the final meshes and attempted a MeshBoolean within Rhino . . . that operation failed. Is there a reason that these mesh aren't uniting? They all share the same origin lines . . . is this confusing or is it just me?

vasi.gh

Cheers, 

Hi Bradley,

Try flattening the input line network (right-click, 'Flatten'). That should fix it.

Aidan, 

When I Flatten the lines going into Exoskeleton, it returns an error of "Index was outside the bounds of the array" . . . The odd part is the preview for the mesh is all unified, grouping seems to occur when I bake it . . . Any insights as to what I am overlooking??

So . . . update . . . vasi_2.gh

I made some adjustments to the way I was obtaining my lines; Voronoi was giving me, as David mentioned, some tight angle to strut ratios. With this simpler and similar scenario I get a solid mesh at the end of it all . . . I will attempt to resolve the Voronoi version also . . . Never Give Up. Never Surrender!!!

I had the error "index outside bounds of array" before and I think it was due to having duplicate lines... Use Kangaroos "Remove Duplicate Lines"

BRANCHING%20THICKNESS_2.gh

branches.3dm

I dont seem to be able to get a hull in the joints! Does anyone have any idea why?I have tried playing with the tolerances but I am not able to get any sort of joint fillet!

It looks like a number of things are going on here.

1) your "trunk" comes into the midpoint of a curve...for it to work, each curve end points needs to match another curve's end points...it has to be a network

2) you're using curves instead of lines, at best, Exoskeleton will simplify your curves to lines, but at worst this will break it

3) you're not passing a flat list of values to exoskeleton. it should work with data structure okay, but in this example, you want all of your curves to be in the same data path

4) you have duplicate curves in your network...these won't get solved properly

5) that "t" curve at the top of your trunk is really short, and it is going to have a hard time hulling around it

The good news is, much of this can be quickly fixed using Daniel Piker's Topologizer (http://www.grasshopper3d.com/profiles/blogs/topologizer-network-cle...) You're going to want to have it eliminate short curves for sure, or else you're going to want to figure out some way to change the geometry around that "t".

Hope this helps!

Hey David! That worked beautifully! Thanks a tonne!

Hi just wondering where the plankton dll and planktongh dll should be installed.

Regards,

Gavin

Hello Gavin

select grasshopper menu file/special folders/components folder

like any other plugin. make sure you right click/properties the files and unblock them to load successfully

Hi Alex. That's great, thanks.

Gavin

hi, i am very new in gh also exo. although i installed all the compenents of exoskeleton and unblocked, when i open the file, i get the error, exoskeleton is missing. 

hi
I dont know how to install this plugin help me please..

Hi David, I'm revisiting my exoskeleton definition in order to create one that has square section struts and I need to work out a way of keeping the node depth to a minimum without the struts overlapping. i.e. calculate a node depth for each strut.

I notice your exoskeleton component does this - if you set the node depth too small it holds some node arms away from the node centre point to avoid overlapping.

Can you give me a clue on the strategy for doing this please?

I was going to try and sort the struts of each node in order of angle, then calculate a distance for each strut that would avoid strut overlap but wondered if there is a simpler, smarter way of doing this!

Thanks!

I'm trying to do it with components.

It's the "angular proximity to it's neighbours" that I'm struggling with.

I guess I need to work out the angle between the struts and then just look at any angles that are acute and then work out the required offset?

Exactly. For each strut, check it against each of its neighbors, and test the angle. From this - and the radius of both struts - you can calculate a minimum offset required. Then you set them at the "worst" case value.

I don't know how much of a purist you're being in regards to components, but the Tree Sloth plug-in I wrote has a list comparison component that's really useful when you want to compare items against each other in a given list. You can choose for it to give all unique combinations, or you can set it to create for each object a data branch that matches it against every other one. So:

{0}

A

B

C

will return:

{0;0}

A - B

A - C

{0;1}

B - A

B - C

{0;2}

C - A

C - B

So if you had a branch with all the struts from each node, you could easily test and sort all of the angles for each one against its neighbors. Just an idea!

Thanks! I'll try that... I'm sure I got the Tree Sloth plugin but can't see the list comparisson component in the Tree Menu. The components should all be in Sets >> Tree right?

I'll have to spend a bit fo time on this I think!

Blog Post With File

I'm getting lost in data structures again!

Here you go. I've also added at the end my Catmull-Clark implementation with creases...you'll need Plankton for that to work. If you don't have it, though, so long as you have [UTO]'s MeshEdit tools and Tree Sloth, the rest should be fine...it more or less follows the logic of the Exo plug in, just using components. ComponentExo.gh

Blimey, thank you! That would have taken me ages and will indeed take me ages just to understand it all and be able to re-create it but it is just what I was aiming for.

I always get stuck on managing data and notice you do some clever tricks with components like Propagate Ancester, PShift, Flip Last etc. which i really need to think about hard to understand and visualise what they are doing.

I like the smoothing end result. I'd not considered doing this but I will see if I can get some smoothing. The idea is to CNC the nodes from wood with a type of mortice and tenon joint and use approx 50mm x 50mm timber for the struts. I'd probably need to minimise the smoothing of the nodes where the struts will join but try and keep some smoothing in the centre of the nodes.

Thanks again!

I got there eventually... the sl3dHull seems a bit buggy sometimes; I have to switch off parts of the model to get it to work.

Anyway, in theory I could make this, in practice I need to build a new CNC router first!

The overlapping mesh faces at the corners are just because the struts and nodes will interlock and the interlocking feature is not modeled

https://github.com/meshmash/Plankton/releases

Please releases component PlanktonGh.dll from 0.3.0 to 0.3.4 Thanks you

Please to update the current release because it's actually the  not correct DLL.

thanks very much

Thanks for the head's up, Dafik! The file has been updated to reflect the current release of Plankton.

Hello all!

Im experimenting with weaverbird+cytoskeleton and I was wonder how I can control the angle that cytoskeleton made  

Hi Carlos,

It's better if you make a separate post in the discussion forum above, as it makes the conversation easier to follow. The angle in cytoskeleton comes from the normals and face angles of the mesh. What effect do you want to achieve?

Have you tried cleaning up the network first with Daniel's Topologizer?

Hey, first of all thank you so much for this very useful tool. I have a problem about the resulting mesh. Although I use topologizer and the curve network is totally clean, I still get this bad mesh as a result, no matter how simple the curve network is. Playing with the parameters didn't work so far (tolerence of the topologizer, pipe radius etc,.) Any ideas what might be causing this?

Thank you very much in advance.

Regards.

It's hard to know what's going on without seeing your file. I do know that the convex hull script isn't 100% bulletproof, and so will very occasionally bug out...

Hey guys,

Is there a way to vary the sizes of the nodes?

What i meant is the bottom stick is bigger while the 2 sticks that splits are smaller. 

Regards,

Kelvin Karel

hey guys do you have problems in GH 1.0 in Rhino WIP?

in GH1.0 Exowireframe fails but in GH0.9 RH5 it is ok.

do you have the same issue?

I haven't tested it in GH 1.0 or Rhino WIP...

exoskeleton seems to work great in some cases in Rhino 6, but in others, it makes these extra limbs towards the world origin.any idea why or how it an be fixed? i also attached the file, please help if you can, thank you! 

problema%20exo.gh

hey guys!

i want to exoskeleton a simple bunch of lines, but just get errors.

i played around with the settings, but there is no logic for me.

please help me!

thank you!!!node.gh

Seems that ExoW component does not work as expected in Rhino 6 environment, while it works well in Rhino 5.

Is there a way to fix it?

Are there alternatives to this plugin?

Thank you in advance.

Guys, this plugin is from 4 years ago (and it is stated that it's a work in progress); unless David and/or Daniel decide it's time for an update it might have all sort of issues in untested environments (Rhino 6 and everything that came after the plugin itself was written).
When I tested it, it had some issues with a large number of lines and if parameters weren't carefully tuned it failed to produce consistent meshes.
If some of you has time and skills on their hands, there is the source code available on GitHub (link is in the description). For personal use, time ago I updated a definition by David Stasiuk to make nodes and beams, based on 3D Convex Hull component. You can still find it here:

https://www.grasshopper3d.com/xn/detail/2985220:Comment:1745216

Warning: in Rhino 6 the Starling Convex Hull component doesn't seem to work well, you can use the 3D Convex Hull from the MeshEdit plugin instead (https://www.food4rhino.com/app/meshedit - just substitute the 3D Convex Hull component in the definition and it should work fine).

hi

Please could someone help me with the downloading of Ekoskeleton, is not responding when I clicked the link shared on this platform.

Thanks

@Jodeph Ogah, look here on Dani Abalde post:

https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/exoskeleton-2-cytoskeleton-not-loadi...