Chameleon

CHAMELEON

Chameleon is a plugin for both Grasshopper and Revit with a focus on interoperability, simulation, and efficient practice workflows. Chameleon’s main advantage is its ability to facilitate easy transfer of geometric data between Grasshopper and Autodesk Revit, but also includes other valuable tools to make life easier, both in Grasshopper and Revit.

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  • fernando molas garcia

    I will try other types of families adaptive

  • fernando molas garcia

    as shipping to revit this geometry using chameleon?

    adaptive component that work?

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/azovmr86n0ct4fe/waffles.gh


  • CongChien

    Voronoi To Revit

  • first1

    HI CongChien, So beautiful!

  • CongChien

    Thank first1, with the help of your

  • Nate Holland

    Day 1 with Chameleon. Converting density logic in grasshopper into a unitized curtain wall system.

  • Nate Holland

    Question... When a exporting a complex curtain panel from Revit, ie one with multiple glass panels, mullions and louvers, it comes into Rhino as a single Brep or a series of meshed triangles, has anyone found a good way to gain control of it in Grasshopper besides rebuilding the geometry from its extents?

  • first1

    Hi, Nate Holland.

    I think so:as long as put the parameters of interfer to Revit Edit Params. Don't have to rebuild the geometry in  grasshopper.

  • Hiroshi Jacobs

    You can try using the Merge Faces command to simplify the geometry

  • Nate Holland

    I tried the Merge Faces as you suggest, the problem is I am exporting 775 curtain panels, each has 6 extrusions as sub panels, each extrusion has 6 sides, each side has two triangles. All of a sudden I am looking at trying to process well over 50,000 triangles into a merge face command. On the bright side, Chameleon handles the massive amount of data like a champ.  I'm curious in a future release will there be any possibly of being able to transfer and edit extrusion profiles? This could prove very powerful with masses and master planning.

  • Nate Holland

    Another question, I see that you can transfer walls to grasshopper with the GH Geom Transfer button, I can get my curtain wall into grasshopper, the wall geo and the grid lines both show up in grasshopper as expected, but I can't figure out what type of Revit parameters can be edited on a curtain wall. I would really like to set up custom grid spacing and offsets on a floor by floor basis.

  • Hiroshi Jacobs

    I have to figure out how to send unmeshed geometry through the pipe and when that happens it should clean things up a bit.  You might try the Geometry Gym plugin that Jon is developing.  I think he is able to transfer nurbs.

    As far as custom grid patterns, try the new Curtain Grid Generator command on the Revit side.  It will let you create multiple curtain grid systems on a curtain wall.  I'm working on extending that functionality too.

  • Nate Holland

    Possible bug and a future request - The rEditParams component has the opportunity to accept multiple parameters per update, but when I get into revit, the GH Edit Parameters button only allows me to update a parameter with the P0 input. (see image below) Is something not linking properly or is there something I should be doing differently? Also, in a future release would it be possible for a component similar to the rGetGeom to bring into GH the existing numeric parameters from Revit?

  • Allan Areano

    Hello! i was wondering if it is possibly to install Chameleon on revit Revit 2013? 

  • Hiroshi Jacobs

    Nate, you're right that is a bug.  Will get it fixed as soon as possible.  When I get a chance I'll also see if I can get the existing number parameters to come through.

     

    Allan - Yes you can install chameleon for Revit 2013.  Instructions are here: http://www.revitcity.com/forums.php?action=viewthread&thread_id...

     

     

  • fernando molas garcia

  • Hiroshi Jacobs

    New Chameleon release today to fix the bug when trying to edit multiple parameters in a Revit family.

    http://www.hilojacobs.com/?page_id=464

  • Jeramy Woosung Yoon

    Hi Hiroshi~

  • maya88

    VERSION 0.3.1.7 – Released 06/19/2012 , cool! 

  • bbgn

    Hi Hiroshi, I have been testing out the chameleon plugins. They're great and I can see lots of potential.

     

    I have been having trouble getting the "Number" parameters to show up (i.e. the prompts in the menu) when you Place Adaptive Component on the Revit side. Is there a trick to this on the Revit end as you define your adaptive component?

  • Hiroshi Jacobs

    Thanks bbgn.  The adaptive component needs an "number" parameter defined in it, and it may need to be an instance parameter as well.  Make sure you have that set in Revit before using the command.

  • bbgn

    Thanks Hiroshi. I did figure it out. However, it looks like it only works for the Curtain Wall Panel templates. I tried using general adaptive component on Revit 2012 and the parameters did not appear.

     

    I have the most recent release of your plug in (downloaded two days ago)

  • Armando Montejano

    Hello every one,

    Just want to thank Hiroshi for good piece of software, here is my workflow to create "complex" Walls in Revit using chameleon the adaptive component.

    Basic form for 4 walls to be created in Revit, there are 4 curves surfaces, and are divided with LunchBox Grid Tool.

    Exported as adaptive components linked with the flowing families made of adaptive reference splines

    this one for the first 3 walls

    This one for the end one.

    In Revit as adaptive Generic Models.

    In Revit as walls by face

  • first1

    Great ! Armando.

  • Nate Holland

    Hiroshi,

    I've come across a few requests for the plug in. I've mostly been using Chameleon to update curtain wall panels in Revit.

    I built a fairly complex unitized curtain panel that I've been driving with grasshopper. When I try to pass 900 panels to grasshopper along with all of their geometry the process gets painstakingly slow. I've worked around this by swapping the panels to a glazed unit (a simple box) when I pass them to GH and then reverting to my custom curtain panel when I pass the data back from grasshopper. Is there anyway that you can pass just the GUID and a centerpoint/conerpoint from Revit to reduce the geometry grasshopper has to deal with?

    Also, I'm currently passing 6-8 parameters back to Revit each time I update the panels. I have troubles remembering which order I put the parameters in sometimes which will often break the Revit curtain panel after a lengthy update. Is there any chance you could add a method for assigning which parameters are affected from the GH end?

    Thanks,

    Nate

  • Hiroshi Jacobs

    Thanks Nate. I will try to accommodate when things slow down. Glad to know you have some workarounds though. The first request should be fairly easy.  The second I'm not sure I totally understand but it sounds like you want Grasshopper to know what parameters exist in the Revit family?  I think that can be done but it's a bit harder to do in a seamless, no-fuss way - i.e. without adding more steps to the process.

    Hiroshi

  • Nate Holland

    That's a good point that the second request might cause additional work in some instances. Is it possible that on the Revit end it could remember which parameters were assigned to the GH parameters(at least during an open work session)?

  • Daniel Bosia

    Hiroshi,

    Can I ask you the trick here. Which interop library did you use within Revit to create this connection? Is there any documentation anywhere on this?

    Thanks,

    D.

  • Hiroshi Jacobs

    Hi Daniel,  It's using something called named pipes to transfer the data.  I posted some related code to the thread here: http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/gh-revit/forum/topics/welcome-to...  Other than that it uses the API's of Revit and Grasshopper.

  • Daniel Bosia

    Thanks for the quick response. What is the dll library called? I did some work with Autodesk Robot. And that has a good Interop library.

     

  • Nate Holland

    Hiroshi,

    I have another request that's come along. By the way the plug in is working great! Is it possible to swap out curtain wall types using a similar method. Obviously it won't be driven by a number parameter like the current setup, but I think there would be a way grasshopper could pass a type indicator (likely a string) that could then be referenced to the element ID. Thanks again.

  • Hiroshi Jacobs

    Dear Chameleon community,  I am trying to gather up some examples of how Chameleon is being used on real-world projects.  If you are using it on a real project and wouldn't mind sharing some images and a description with me, could you please get in touch with me?  thanks!

  • Erick Katzenstein

    Hiroshi, here's a post we just put up: http://lmnts.lmnarchitects.com/featured/adaptive-components/

    We can't say too much about the project yet, but will be posting more in the coming months.  Thanks.

  • Nate Holland

    Hiroshi,

    After watching the Vasari video you were a part of I decided to try moving geometry from grasshopper to Vasari with Chameleon. I can get geometry into the environment just fine, but I can't run any analysis on it because its an adaptive component not a mass. When I try to place the adaptive components into a mass family, Chameleon tells me that feature can only run in a project window. I found that I can manually place the adaptive component family in the mass family and then run the analysis. So I'm wondering if you could look into that for a future release.

    Thank you,

    Nate

  • Manuel Huerta

    Hello Hiroshi, I installed chameleon both in Revit and GH, but for some reason the Add-ins tab in Revit isn't showing... do you know how can I fix this?

    Thanks in advance.

  • Armando Montejano

    Hello Hiroshi,

    Regards to the real projects using using Chameleon as interface between GH - Revit, I'm working on it, in an older post I put some images of a villa (part of a entire spa-hotel in Bacalar, Mexico). As soon as I get something decent to send you count with that.

    The other question is regarding to Nate Holland Petition, which I address totally. The capacity to import GH points (adaptive component) in to Mass Family (or any other family) ambient. That wold be an big step to manage GH information in to Revit.

    Cheers

    P.S. Nate, Could you orient me which is the manual way to put the adaptive family built with Chameleon in to a mass family.

    Thanks

  • Nate Holland

    Armando,

    I should clarify my last post. I manually placed the adaptive component into the mass family, by clicking the points. I have yet to find a way to get geometry generated by chameleon into a mass family that will allow me to run Vasari analysis.

    Also, Hiroshi,

    I tried to transfer a Vasari lofted mass into GH, but found that even on relatively simple lofts with double curved faces, the meshing took too long to transfer effectively. Is there a way to control how many faces the geometry has when its passed from Vasari to GH?

  • Billie Allen

    Nate,

    Hiroshi actually performed the analysis on a mass family in a .rvt file (project) while in vasari.  You just need to load your mass family into an .rvt file, and run the analysis.  Hope this helps.

    -Bill

  • Armando Montejano

    Nate,

    Thanks for the clarifying, by my side I'll be searching for a solution.

    Cheers

  • sun zheng

    I cannot install Chameleon on Revit 2012 or 2013. When Revit starts, it says:Failed to initialize the add in Chameleon becase the assembly "Realease\ChameleonRVT.dll" does not exist. I checked the path"C documents and settings\""""""\Roaming\Autodesk\Revit\Addins\2012\Release\ChameleonRVT.dll", it does exist.

    Anyone knows why?

  • Marc Teer

    Hiroshi-

    I'm not having any luck going round trip from acquiring an adaptive component, and then pushing changes to that ac's instance parameters back into revit. When I push new instance parameter values into Revit it throws an error and doesn't change the parameter values.  Your documentation says that this only works for Curtain Panels, so I'm assuming this error is consistent with your plugin's current limitations.  Is that a good assumption?  

    Thanks-

    Marc

  • Nate Holland

    Marc,

    I've had that issue a few times, usually it happens for one of 2 reasons.  1. You've deleted one of the components in Revit and Chameleon doesn't know how to find the ID. 2. You didn't pass the correct number of points/number params from Grasshopper. Use the Param Viewer to check all of your inputs into the Revit Edit Params component to make sure the count and tree structure is consistent.

  • kwanphil cho

    Sorry guys if this question has been answered. I am fairly new to Chameleon. I am trying to import customized revit family into Grasshopper. Can anyone guide me a bit? Thanks

  • patric guenther

    the gh place adaptive component is not working in my revit 2013 version. is there already a solution?

  • SudhirBommu

    Hi, 

    I am facing some problem with gbxml import component, i am on gh build 0.9.0014. "Input string was not in correct format". 

    Is it a version problem ?

    Thanks, 

    Sudhir

  • Alexander

    I just tried this plugin,everything works fine,but at the end,when the processing bar is disappear,the revit window is locked,and I can't do anything with it.Is there anyone know what's the problem?(I use Revit 2013,Rhino5,Grasshopper 09.0056,win7)Thanks!!

  • daniel nielsen

    Hi Hiroshi

    I really would like to have the "Geometry transfer" with Mass families in Vasari. Have you any plans about make add-in for Vasari agian, or are you only focusing on Revit now?

    Thanks!

  • Timo

    Hi, i am having problems with vasari beta3 and chameleon. i have put  the Folder

    "Release"

    and

    Chameleon.addin

    into the 

    C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Autodesk\Vasari\Addins\2014

    folder, the chameleon add in bar appears, but when ever i click anything on that bar, Varsari crashes

    am i doning something wrong?

  • owe

    Hi, I have just installed Chamaleon but I only get the interopelability set of commands, not the simulation one and the Utilities ones.

  • owe

    Also, I run the installer for Revit and I don´t get the Chamaleon components under the Add-ins tab in Revit.