creating the structural frame, finding the endpoints, linking these endpoints with curves and afterwards lofting the surfaces between the curves.
The results were quite nice, however, the procedure is very time consuming and inefficient. There is just too much copy-pasting involved.
(see attached file: "Old Attempts.zip" )
Mesh relaxation:
I have later on used Daniel Piker's tutorials on Mesh Relaxation and realized that this might be the way to go.
The link to these online tutorials on wewanttolearn.net is:
https://wewanttolearn.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/mesh-relaxation-kangaroo-tutorial/
His tutorials, however, only deal with mesh boxes which are ideal cubes. He then joins them together in various directions, but it is under 90 degrees angle.
( see attached file: "Daniel Pikers Examples" )
What I would like to achieve:
I want my bridges to go in all directions and angles, not just under 90 degree angle.
Ideally I would like to make a square (polygon) follow a curve (which moves in all axis) at certain number of division points. I would then loft these squares into a mesh and use that shape as a mesh box. I would later use this mesh box and relax it the same way as Daniel Piker used the cubes in his tutorial. The anchor points are only the vertices of the squares which create the lofted mesh box.
( see attached file: "New Attempts" )
As you can see below this procedure works even if the curve is moving in all directions not only along xy axis. There are, however, many problems connected to it.
The problem:
Despite all the effort I cannot seem to come up with a design where I would be able to draw a random curve which would be the guideline for my mesh box and then apply this box to one definition in order to relax the mesh and create the shape that I want. Without this I am again forced into a lot of copy pasting as the final mesh box is made out of several sections.
Also is there any way I could make the final resulting mesh a bit smoother? Increasing the number of mesh faces is probably the only way, right?
Thank you guys so much for any potential help.
All best,
Luka
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both my plotter/cutter and wide format printer. I had been running the plotter from my main work laptop - a Win10 machine via the plotters USB port. As it turns out you can't get Win XP drivers for this USB connection so I needed another solution.
I tried to use the plotters DB25 serial port connection using an old DB9 to DB25 modem cable I had in my collection = no luck the plotter wouldn't talk. A bit more research and it turns out these plotters need a 'null modem' cross over cable to operate. I found a pic of the correct wiring online and made up my own with some cable and connectors from the local electronics hobby shop.
With this hooked up and using Hyperterminal I was able to fire some codes to the plotter directly and get a response back - winning!
At this point I got my original code working with the 'net use' redirect from LPT1 to COM1.
HOWEVER - being that the plotter was now on a COM port there are a few more interesting things you can do with it - one is being able to read the paper size/cut area from the printer.
So what I needed to to was find a way to send and receive data to/from the plotter using the serial port.
A bit of research into .NET's serial port interface and using a bunch of small pieces of test code I have manged to completely re-jig this driver.
Upgrades include:
- Direct Serial Port comms using Null Modem cable (a USB to serial adaptor + null modem should also work)
- Plot area read from the plotter - a rectangle the size of the plot area is placed on a separate layer and coloured red
- Testing to see if selected plotting curves are both closed and inside of the cutting area - with errors shown and exiting if they are not right.
- After plot 'parking' of the plot head at the end of the cut items + an adjustable offset (currently requires manual resetting of origin on the plotter before for next cut)
Great thing is it is now 100% running within Rhino Python - no DOS command line calls = no flashing up of the CMD wind. Also no temp files needed on the HDD and no limit to number of curves that can be plotted - tested with 200 or so with no issues.
Overall very happy with whole project - have learnt a LOT about Python and .NET interfacing AND ended up with a very handy/useful tool.
Cheers
DK
# This code is a WIP # It plots directly to a DGI Plotter# via the serial port
import System.IO.Ports as Portsimport rhinoscriptsyntax as rsimport time
#Some setup valuescom_port = 'COM1' #change to match plotter port baud_rate = 9600 #change to match plotter settingplotter_step = .025 #mmfinsh_offset = 10 #mm
#Delete old cutting area and cut objectsif rs.IsLayer('Cutting Area'): rs.PurgeLayer('Cutting Area')if rs.IsLayer('Cutting Objects'): rs.PurgeLayer('Cut Objects')
#Setup Serial PortMyport = Ports.SerialPort(com_port)Port_Write = Ports.SerialPort.WriteMyport.BaudRate = baud_rateMyport.ReadTimeout=5000 #5 secsMyport.Close()Myport.Open()
#Setup PlotterPort_Write(Myport, 'PU;PA0,0;IN;\n')Port_Write(Myport, 'SP1;\n')Port_Write(Myport, 'PA;\n')time.sleep(2)
#Read the Paper size from PlotterPort_Write(Myport, 'OH;') #HPGL read limits codetime.sleep(2)
return1 = ''papersize = ''count = 0char_in_buffer = 0chars_in_buffer = Ports.SerialPort.BytesToRead.GetValue(Myport)
if chars_in_buffer == 0: print 'Plotter not ready' Myport.Close() exit()
while (count < chars_in_buffer): return1 = Myport.ReadChar() papersize = papersize + chr(return1) count = count + 1
papersize = papersize.split(",")rect1 = (float(papersize[2])*plotter_step)rect2 = (float(papersize[3])*plotter_step)
print 'Cutting area = ' + str(rect1) + 'x' + str(rect2)
#place cutting area curve on its own layer, make it red and lock itplane = rs.WorldXYPlane()cutting_area = rs.AddRectangle( plane, (rect1), (rect2))rs.AddLayer (name='Cutting Area', color=(255,0,0), visible=True, locked=True, parent=None)rs.ObjectLayer(cutting_area, 'Cutting Area')
#get plotting objects
allCurves = rs.GetObjects("Select curves to plot", rs.filter.curve)
#test to see if these are closed curves - exit if not
for curve in allCurves: test_closed = rs.IsCurveClosed(curve) if test_closed == 0: print "One or move of these curves are not closed" Myport.Close() exit()
#test to see if these are inside cutting area - exit if not
for curve in allCurves: test_inside = rs.PlanarClosedCurveContainment(curve, cutting_area)
if test_inside==0 or test_inside==1: print "One or more of these curves are outside of cut area" Myport.Close() exit()
#All ok - convert to points and send data to printer
rs.AddLayer (name='Cut Objects', color=(0,255,0), visible=False, locked=True, parent=None)
for curve in allCurves: Port_Write(Myport, 'PU;PA;SP1;\n') polyline = rs.ConvertCurveToPolyline(curve,angle_tolerance=5.0, tolerance=0.025, delete_input=False, min_edge_length=0, max_edge_length=0) points = rs.CurveEditPoints(polyline) rs.ObjectLayer(polyline, 'Cut Objects')
# PU to the first point x = points[0][0] y = points[0][1] Port_Write(Myport, 'PU' + str(int(x / plotter_step)) + ',' + str(int(y / plotter_step)) + ';\n') # PD to every subsequent point i = 1 while i < len(points): x = points[i][0] y = points[i][1] Port_Write(Myport, 'PD' + str(int(x / plotter_step)) + ',' + str(int(y / plotter_step)) + ';\n') i += 1
Port_Write(Myport,'PU;\n')
#find the far end of the cutbox = rs.BoundingBox(allCurves)far_end = str(box[1])far_end = far_end.split(",")far_end = far_end[0]far_end = float(far_end)/plotter_stepfar_end = (int(far_end))+ finsh_offsetfar_end = str(far_end)print (far_end)
#return plotter home and close portPort_Write(Myport, 'PU;PA' + far_end + ',0;IN;\n')Port_Write(Myport, 'SP1;\n')Port_Write(Myport, 'PA;\n')Myport.Close()time.sleep(10)…
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POSTS
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ike using something like the Z vector, but technically you can use any vector you want. This vector will actually determine the static rotatation of all the planes, so you can control that here if you like. One important thing that I've noticed is that the closer the vector is to the plane of the curve or if its too similar to one of the tangent vectors, the more likely you'll have "flipping"
2) Take the cross product between the tangent and the static vector. This will be your first perpendicular vector, which you can use for the X component of the plane.
3) Take the cross product between the tangent and the result of the previous cross product. Use this result as the Y component of the plane. All three components (X, Y, and Z (which is the tangent vector)) are all perpendicular to each other now.
After you've done that you should have planes that decrease twisting. If your curve is not planar, then there will always be some twisting in the frames, but it will be minimal enough to use them effectively.
There also may be "flipping" within the frames, which means one (or both) of two things. First, you could have planes that have reversed their vectors, so the X vector is properly oriented, but pointing down when it should be pointing up. Second, the X and Y vectors could have potentially swapped, so that Y "should" be X and X "should" be Y. In order to check these things, you'll need to do a few tests. The first one is find out whether the vector (X or Y) of the plane your testing is pointing in the opposite direction of previous vector. The second test is to find out whether the vector (X or Y) of the plane your testing is perpendicular to the previous vector. In both cases, an angle test between the two vectors will be able to tell you what you need to know, but you will likely NEVER get exactly 180 for an opposite test or 90 for a perpendicular test. That means that you have to choose a range with which to determine that a given vector is opposite or perpendicular.
You should start testing the X vector to see if anything is wrong. If you find that the X vector is fine, then just move on because Rhino will only allow you to create right handed planes, and the Z vector (the tangent) will always be the same.
I don't believe that there's a native function within the old dotNET SDK for calculating angles, so use the example at the link below. It basically takes the arcCosine of the Dot Product of the two vectors your testing to return the angle in Radians. I'm not sure if this function is included in RhinoCommon or not....
http://wiki.mcneel.com/developer/sdksamples/anglebetweenvectors…
ed when membrane cones are invited to the party (then mesh (via Starling is the best way) the brep and send data to Kangaroo : the easiest thing to do). But patch doesn't trim the inner Loops and ... well initially I thought to find this in SDK and do the job:
Well... I confess that I can't get the gist of the Brep.Trim (as explained in SDK).
Thus go to plan B: having already the closed breps (the "cones") as cutters ... attempt a Boolean difference
but this does that (this looks to me a bit paranoid, but some reason must exist):
What I want is this:
the code that mess things is (open the script inside definition attached):
BTW: where in SDK is that DeBrep thing?
BTW: Delaunay GH syntax is still cryptic to me (but this is not an issue anymore)
I would greatly appreciate any help on that final step (to greatness).
The full working definition soon (v5: with 90% of components replaced by C# stuff).
best, Peter
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bout angle since the exact same wires can suddenly start working fine later! Just adding new items to Rhino and then using undo to get back to your failing geometry will fix it sometimes?! Flipping the pair of curves' directions, either one or both, fixes it. It's just black box broken. It happens for really boring angles near 90 degrees.
Rotating the entire pair in space has no effect.
Rescaling the lines from their joint point has no effect.
Simply cutting and pasting the lines out of Rhino back in *sometimes* fixes it, so it's angle and something else that makes certain lines "toxic."
Duplicating the pair of failed lines via alt-dragging the Rhino gumball fails to fix it.
Running the "line-like curves" through a Line component to give "lines" doesn't fix it.
Re-creating the lines by extracting endpoints fails to fix it.
Each line, if separated from each other works fine.
Grafting makes each line into its own little cylinder minus a hub.
The error is the boilerplate "Object reference not set to an instance of an object."
Once the pair spontaneously starts working I cannot reproduce the error with that pair again, though sometimes Rhino undo will get me back to failing.
CAN ANYBODY REPRODUCE THIS WITH MY FILE? If so I can submit a bug report.
Exoskeleton is here: http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/exoskeleton
Source code is here but it's for compiling, not something I can just test in a C# component out of the box:
https://github.com/davestasiuk/Exoskeleton2/commit/f63c4aa691a7f26b...
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s is like flattening your data PARTIALLY - chopping an index off the end of the branch paths without obliterating the tree entirely. When working with one "set" of input data, a flatten works to get these lists to match up - but when working with multiple sets, we need to be careful to preserve the original branch indices that keep all four of your original regions separate. As a rule, whenever you're feeding two data trees into any component, they should have the same number of branches. (or one should have branches and the other should be a flat list, in other cases).
The rule of thumb I tend to teach is this:
In 90% of cases...
For lists, all your inputs should either have 1 item or N items. That is to say, if you're feeding 4 items into one input and 9 items into another, something is probably wrong.
For trees, all your inputs should have either 1 branch or M branches. That is to say, if you're feeding a tree w/ branches {0;0} to {0;3} into one input, and a tree w branches {0;0;0} to {0;3;8} into the other input, something is probably wrong.
Grasshopper essentially matches up branches first, then lists second. By "matching" I mean it processes them together. Simple example of the Line component - it will match the first branch of points in the A input to the first branch of points in the B input, creating lines between those points, then match the second branches, the third branches, etc. THEN, it applies the same logic to the level of the list (with a pair of matched branches {0;2}, match all the items in those branches to each other - first item in one branch to the first item in the other branch, etc.)
This is a tricky concept but it seems like you're already well on your way to understanding it from your definition - "PShift" is a critical tool in your path management arsenal. I hope this (overly long) response helps clear things up for you!
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he TOF and TSRF indices. They show, how "distant" is your _PV_SWHsurface from the optimal _PV_SWHsurface surface in terms of tilt and azimuth angles.However, in your case we are not interested in TOF and TSRF indices. We would just like to know what are the _PV_SWHsurface optimal tilt and azimuth angles, regardless of the supplied _PV_SWHsurface.
So the circular surface supplied to the "TOF" component's _PV_SWHsurface input is irrelevant. It can be of any area, and any tilt/azimuth angle.The PV_SWHsurfacesArea output of the "PV SWH system size" component depends on a couple of factors:moduleActiveAreaPercent_ (leave it at 90%).
moduleEfficiency_,
systemSize_.Calculation of systemSize_ depends on your electricity demand, cost of the PV system, type of the object, country, local regulations etc. This is something that an engineer needs to determine.For example, in USA for a residential house in the Sunbelt, depending on finances, a household would try to cover 100% of its annual electricity needs with their PV system. Which means that the systemSize_ you chose needs to cover the annual electricity consumption. You can perform EnergyPlus simulation or use any other way to get the annual electricity consumption.
Ladybug "Photovoltaics Performance" component can calculate the optimal systemSize_ by given the annual electricity consumption.However the component is made to address fixed tilt and azimuth PV systems only.An approximate way to overcome this is to calculate the optimal systemSize_ for fixed tilt and azimuth PV system, and then multiply it with the "difference in %s" panel at the very right of the fixed_vs_tracker_PV2.gh file. Again, this is not what Ladybug "Photovoltaics Performance" component is made to do, but it will probably get you in a ball park.
Inputted 32 degrees for north_ direction is actually 328 degrees.This is due to Ladybug Photovoltaics being based on NREL model which uses clockwise angles convention. This convention is also most commonly used in solar radiation analysis.
Dubai weather data files are uploaded in here.
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rce of power.
A fortified emplacement for heavy guns.
Synonyms
accumulator
And use component:
com·po·nent
/kəmˈpōnənt/
Noun
A part or element of a larger whole, esp. a part of a machine or vehicle.
Adjective
Constituting part of a larger whole; constituent.
Synonyms
noun.
constituent - element - ingredient - part
adjective.
constituent - constitutive
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