y case. Here's the thing. There is this subject at my university where we are assigned a famous building and we need to recreate it in Rhino. We're given bonus points if we manage to code some interesting part of it in Grasshopper. So far so good, I'm doing pretty well with Rhino and by far I am happy with the results I've achieved with modelling the given building. Harbin Opera House by MAD is the building I'm trying to model. There is one particular surface:I've built this surface in Rhino and now I'm trying to map pyramids on it. Not only have the pyramids to be different in height, but their height has to be dependent on the curvature of the surface. I'm getting some results but it seems to be exactly the opposite of what I need. I want to have higher/spikier pyramids where my curvature analysis shows red/blue and lower/slopier pyramids where the analysis shows green colour.At the moment I'm not really sure how the code I have works, but it seems that the height of the pyramids is dependent on a distance from a point in space to the projection of the cap-point of a pyramid.Here're my Rhino and Grasshopper files:surface1.3dm
surface1.ghI'd be grateful if someone of you guys could handle my problem. I've got one more issue with this surface, but once I get a solution to the first 1 will let know what the second one is.Thanks in advance and keep well!…
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Things have been working swimmingly in many areas of the plugin, but one particular problem has been tough to solve. I have two components that are trying to read/write to the same memory at the same time, causing Rhino exceptions and crashes.
The conflicts appear to be happening between two components -- one is a "Layer Events Listener" that reports essentially what type of layer event just happened. The other is a "Set Layer Visibility" component that toggles the visibility of a list of layers.
The code:
public class LayerTools_LayerEventsListener : GH_Component { /// <summary> /// Initializes a new instance of the LayerTools_LayerListener class. /// </summary> public LayerTools_LayerEventsListener() : base("Layer Events Listener", "Layer Listener", "Get granular information about the layer events happening in the Rhino document.", "Squirrel", "Layer Tools") { }
/// <summary> /// Registers all the input parameters for this component. /// </summary> protected override void RegisterInputParams(GH_Component.GH_InputParamManager pManager) { pManager.AddBooleanParameter("Active", "A", "Set to true to listen to layer events in the Rhino document.", GH_ParamAccess.item, false); pManager.AddTextParameter("Exclusions", "E", "Provide a list of exclusions to stop reading specific events (Added, Deleted, Moved, Renamed, Locked, Visibility, Color, Active).", GH_ParamAccess.list); pManager[1].Optional = true; }
/// <summary> /// Registers all the output parameters for this component. /// </summary> protected override void RegisterOutputParams(GH_Component.GH_OutputParamManager pManager) { pManager.AddBooleanParameter("Initialized", "I", "Whether the listener changed from passive to active.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddTextParameter("Document Name", "doc", "Name of the Rhino document that is changing.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddTextParameter("Layer Path", "path", "Path of the modifed layer.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddIntegerParameter("Layer Index", "ID", "Index of the modified layer.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddIntegerParameter("Sort Index", "SID", "Sort index of the modified layer.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddTextParameter("Event Type", "T", "Type of the modification.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddBooleanParameter("Added", "A", "If the layer has been added.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddBooleanParameter("Deleted", "D", "If the layer has been deleted.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddBooleanParameter("Moved", "M", "If the layer has been moved.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddBooleanParameter("Renamed", "R", "If the layer has been renamed.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddBooleanParameter("Locked", "L", "If the layer locked setting has changed.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddBooleanParameter("Visibility", "V", "If the layer's visibility has changed.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddBooleanParameter("Color", "C", "If the layer's color has changed.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddBooleanParameter("Active", "Act", "If the active layer has changed.", GH_ParamAccess.item); }
/// <summary> /// This is the method that actually does the work. /// </summary> /// <param name="DA">The DA object is used to retrieve from inputs and store in outputs.</param> protected override void SolveInstance(IGH_DataAccess DA) { bool active = false; List<string> exclusions = new List<string>();
DA.GetData(0, ref active); DA.GetDataList(1, exclusions);
RhinoDoc thisDoc = null;
bool initialize = false;
string dName = null; string activePath = null; int layerIndex = -1; int sortIndex = -1; string eventType = null; bool added = false; bool deleted = false; bool moved = false; bool renamed = false; bool locked = false; bool visibility = false; bool color = false; bool current = false;
if (active) { thisDoc = RhinoDoc.ActiveDoc;
initialize = (!previouslyActive) ? true : false;
RhinoDoc.LayerTableEvent -= RhinoDoc_LayerTableEvent; RhinoDoc.LayerTableEvent += RhinoDoc_LayerTableEvent; previouslyActive = true;
} else {
RhinoDoc.LayerTableEvent -= RhinoDoc_LayerTableEvent; previouslyActive = false; }
if (ev != null) { dName = ev.Document.Name; layerIndex = ev.LayerIndex; eventType = ev.EventType.ToString();
if (!exclusions.Contains("Active")) { if (ev.EventType.ToString() == "Current") { // active layer has just been changed current = true; }
}
if (!exclusions.Contains("Moved")) { if (ev.EventType.ToString() == "Sorted") { // active layer has just been changed moved = true; }
}
if (!exclusions.Contains("Added")) { if (ev.EventType.ToString() == "Added") { // layer has just been added activePath = ev.NewState.FullPath; added = true; }
}
if (!exclusions.Contains("Active")) { if (ev.EventType.ToString() == "Deleted") { // layer has just been added
deleted = true; } }
if (ev.EventType.ToString() == "Modified") { // layer has been modified activePath = ev.NewState.FullPath;
//skip sortindex eventType = ev.EventType.ToString();
if (ev.OldState != null && ev.NewState != null) { if (!exclusions.Contains("Locked")) { if (ev.OldState.IsLocked != ev.NewState.IsLocked) locked = true;
} if (!exclusions.Contains("Visibility")) { if (ev.OldState.IsVisible != ev.NewState.IsVisible) visibility = true; }
if (!exclusions.Contains("Moved")) { if (ev.OldState.ParentLayerId != ev.NewState.ParentLayerId) moved = true; }
//if (ev.OldState.SortIndex != ev.NewState.SortIndex) moved = true; if (!exclusions.Contains("Renamed")) { if (ev.OldState.Name != ev.NewState.Name) renamed = true; }
if (!exclusions.Contains("Color")) { if (ev.OldState.Color != ev.NewState.Color) color = true; } }
} }
DA.SetData(0, initialize); DA.SetData(1, dName); DA.SetData(2, activePath); DA.SetData(3, layerIndex); DA.SetData(4, sortIndex); DA.SetData(5, eventType); DA.SetData(6, added); DA.SetData(7, deleted); DA.SetData(8, moved); DA.SetData(9, renamed); DA.SetData(10, locked); DA.SetData(11, visibility); DA.SetData(12, color); DA.SetData(13, current);
}
static bool previouslyActive = false; Rhino.DocObjects.Tables.LayerTableEventArgs ev = null;
void RhinoDoc_LayerTableEvent(object sender, Rhino.DocObjects.Tables.LayerTableEventArgs e) { ev = e;this.ExpireSolution(true); }
And for the layer visibility component:
public LayerTools_SetActiveLayer() : base("Set Active Layer", "SetActiveLayer", "Set the active layer in the Rhino document.", "Squirrel", "Layer Tools") { }
/// <summary> /// Registers all the input parameters for this component. /// </summary> protected override void RegisterInputParams(GH_Component.GH_InputParamManager pManager) { pManager.AddBooleanParameter("Active", "A", "Set to true to change the active layer in Rhino.", GH_ParamAccess.item, false); pManager.AddTextParameter("Path", "P", "Full path of the layer to be activated.", GH_ParamAccess.item); }
/// <summary> /// Registers all the output parameters for this component. /// </summary> protected override void RegisterOutputParams(GH_Component.GH_OutputParamManager pManager) { pManager.AddIntegerParameter("Layer ID", "ID", "Index of layer that has been activated.", GH_ParamAccess.item); pManager.AddBooleanParameter("Status", "St", "True when the layer has been activated.", GH_ParamAccess.item); }
/// <summary> /// This is the method that actually does the work. /// </summary> /// <param name="DA">The DA object is used to retrieve from inputs and store in outputs.</param> protected override void SolveInstance(IGH_DataAccess DA) { bool active = false; string path = "";
if (!DA.GetData(0, ref active)) return; if (!DA.GetData(1, ref path)) return;
int layer_index = -1; bool status = false;
if (path != null) {
Rhino.RhinoDoc doc = Rhino.RhinoDoc.ActiveDoc; Rhino.DocObjects.Tables.LayerTable layertable = doc.Layers;
layer_index = layertable.FindByFullPath(path, true);
if (layer_index > 0) { // if exists RhinoDoc.ActiveDoc.Layers.SetCurrentLayerIndex(layer_index, true); status = true; } }
DA.SetData(0, layer_index); DA.SetData(1, status); }
Now originally I was getting exceptions when changing multiple layers' visibility properties, which would cause the Event Listener to fire and try to read the Visibility property before the memory has been released by the Set Layer Visibility component. That led me to add an "Exceptions" input, that would allow me to disable the reading of Visibility events at the source in the Layer Events listener. That helped me manage about 95% of the crashes I was getting, but I still get strange crashes in other event properties, even when that property shouldn't be affected. For instance, I am getting a crash here on the Name property in the event from the delegate function, even though I am only changing Visibility at any one time:
I have a few ideas but they all seem pretty hacky. One is to try to set a flag that is readable by any component in the plugin -- so that the event listener can see if a "set" component is currently running and abort before causing an exception. The other is creating a delay in the event listener, somthing like 200ms, to allow any set components to finish what they are doing before reading the event. Neither seems super ideal.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Marc
…
te some implications and questions so I will go one by one:
"Now I would like to use a single VRay material as a template for creating multiple identical materials"I hope this will work, but as VRay does not expose any SDK, I would not guarantee any specific result.
"Now I need to add them to the document material table"This is done with a reference to a document instance, such as the one you get with the code doc.Materials (both in C# and Vb.Net).
"I'm not going to learn C# to modify his script"That's a pity, it would be nice to pass on this troublemaker to somebody else! :)Btw, C# and Vb.Net are very very similar. This script could be written in Vb.Net too.
"Reference to a non-shared member requires an object reference. (line 96)"This only means that you need to access the Materials property on an instance, not on the type (class) name. Change that line using what is written at point 2.
"Do I understand that the material has to be assigned to a particular object in order to enter the Material Table?"No it does not. But if you call the _Purge command it will be removed if it does not have an object that references it.
"Can I assign it to a Layer instead?"You do not need to. But this would be achieved with doc.Layers[whichLayer].RenderMaterialIndex = materialIndex; in C# or doc.Layers(whichLayer).RenderMaterialIndex = materialIndex in Vb.Net.
"Any ideas? A better way to do this?"If you found a way to bypass the VRay SDK not being there, this should work.
"Giulio's component has a type hint defined as a Material"It does not any longer. The hint was there in earlier versions of Grasshopper, but now the hint has disappeared. This is not so bad, and it is also the only way you would be able to use either a Material instance already or a string for a material name.
"How was that done?"Probably it was done in an older version of Grasshopper. But which version are you using?
"I can't figure out how to cast the input as a Rhino.DocObjects.Material, so you can see that I have cast it as a compatible type in the first 2 lines... is there a cleaner way?"That sounds like a good way actually. Be sure your component responds properly when something wrong is inputted, though.Dim mTemp As Rhino.DocObjects.Material = CType(M, Rhino.DocObjects.Material)in one line might also work. See msdn for more conversion operators and functions.
I hope this helps,
- Giulio_______________giulio@mcneel.com…
ther math and logic. i can usually conceptualise what i want to do and cobble some semi working thing together but don't know which components to use and how to patch it. so i'm super happy to have someone who knows what he's doing to find this interesting.
and i'm glad you mention the fanned frets again, there is one input parameter that's still missing for the multiscale frets to be fully parametric, it's the angle of the nut or which fret should be straight. it depends a bit on personal preferences and playing posture what is more comfortable. so being able to adjust this easily would be cool. again i have no idea how the maths for that work or if you can just rotate each fret the same amount around it's middle point. The input either as fret number (for the straight fret) or as a simple slider from bridge to nut should do as input setting.
Here are the two extremes and the middle ground:
i've been thinkin today while analysing your patches and cleaning up my mess what exactly the monster should do.
Here are the input parameters needed, i think it's the complete list
scale length low E string
scale length high e string
fret angle/straight fret
string width at nut
string width at bridge
number of frets
fretboard overhang at nut (distance from string to fretboard bounds)
fretboard overhang at last fret
string gauges
string tensions
fretboard radius at nut (for compound radius fretboard radius at bridge is calculated with the stewmac formula)
fretwire crown width
fretwire crown height
action height at nut (distance between bottom of string and fretwire crown top)
action height at last fret
pickup 1 neck position
pickup 2 middle position
pickup 3 bridge position
nut width
the pickup positions should be used to draw circles for the magnet poles on each string so they are perfectly aligned and can be used for the pickup flatwork construction. ideally they would need a rotation control aligning the center line of the pickup so it's somewher between the last fret angle and bridge angle. personally i do this visually depending on the design i'm looking for, some people have huge theories on pickup positioning but personally i don't believe in it.
that should result in everything needed to quickly generate all the necessary construction curves or geometry for nut/fingerboard/frets/pickups. this is the core of what makes a guitar work, the more precise this dynamic system is the better the guitar plays and sounds.
i posted another thread trying to understand how i could use datasets form spreadsheets,databse, csv to organize the input parameters. What would make sense for the strings for example is hook into a spreadsheet with the different string sets, i attached one for the d'Addario NYXL string line which basically covers all combos that make sense.
The string tension is an interesting one, and implmenting it would sure be overkill albeit super interesting to try. it should be possible to extrapolate from the scale length of each string what the tension for a given string gauge of that string would be so that you could say 'i want a fully balanced set' or 'heavy top light bottom) and it would calculate which SKU from d'addario would best match the required tension. All the strings listed in the spreadsheet are available as single strings to buy.
i'm trying to reorganize everything which helps me understand it. i just discovered the 'hidden wires' feature which is great since once i understood what a certain block does or have finished one of my own, i can get the wires out of the way to carry on undistracted. a bit risky to hide so many wires but it makes it so much easier not to get completely lost :-)
btw, the 'fanned fret' term is trademarked, some guy tried to patent it in the 80's which is a bit silly since it has been done for centuries. there is a level of sophistication above this as well, check out http://www.truetemperament.com/ and that really is something else. it really is astounding how superior the tuning is on those wigglefrets, the problem is that it's rather awkward for string bending and also you can't easily recrown or level the frets when they are used. …
e matching with a dedicated component which creates combinations of items. You can find the [Cross Reference] component in the Sets.List panel.
When Grasshopper iterates over lists of items, it will match the first item in list A with the first item in list B. Then the second item in list A with the second item in list B and so on and so forth. Sometimes however you want all items in list A to combine with all items in list B, the [Cross Reference] component allows you to do this.
Here we have two input lists {A,B,C} and {X,Y,Z}. Normally Grasshopper would iterate over these lists and only consider the combinations {A,X}, {B,Y} and {C,Z}. There are however six more combinations that are not typically considered, to wit: {A,Y}, {A,Z}, {B,X}, {B,Z}, {C,X} and {C,Y}. As you can see the output of the [Cross Reference] component is such that all nine permutations are indeed present.
We can denote the behaviour of data cross referencing using a table. The rows represent the first list of items, the columns the second. If we create all possible permutations, the table will have a dot in every single cell, as every cell represents a unique combination of two source list indices:
Sometimes however you don't want all possible permutations. Sometimes you wish to exclude certain areas because they would result in meaningless or invalid computations. A common exclusion principle is to ignore all cells that are on the diagonal of the table. The image above shows a 'holistic' matching, whereas the 'diagonal' option (available from the [Cross Reference] component menu) has gaps for {0,0}, {1,1}, {2,2} and {3,3}:
If we apply this to our {A,B,C}, {X,Y,Z} example, we should expect to not see the combinations for {A,X}, {B,Y} and {C,Z}:
The rule that is applied to 'diagonal' matching is: "Skip all permutations where all items have the same list index". 'Coincident' matching is the same as 'diagonal' matching in the case of two input lists which is why I won't show an example of it here (since we are only dealing with 2-list examples), but the rule is subtly different: "Skip all permutations where any two items have the same list index".
The four remaining matching algorithms are all variations on the same theme. 'Lower triangle' matching applies the rule: "Skip all permutations where the index of an item is less than the index of the item in the next list", resulting in an empty triangle but with items on the diagonal.
'Lower triangle (strict)' matching goes one step further and also eliminates the items on the diagonal:
'Upper Triangle' and 'Upper Triangle (strict)' are mirror images of the previous two algorithms, resulting in empty triangles on the other side of the diagonal line:
…
up structural systems in the parametric environment of Grasshopper. Participants will be guided through the basics of analysing and interpreting structural models, to optimisation processes and how to integrate Karamba3d into C# scripts.
This workshop is aimed towards beginner to intermediate users of Karamba however advanced users are also encouraged to apply. It is open to both professional and academic users.
Course Fee:
Professional EUR 750 (+VAT)
Educational EUR 375 (+VAT)
Course Outline
Introduction & Presentation of project examples
Optimization of cross sections of line based and surface based elements
Geometric Optimization
Topological Optimization
Structural Performance Informed Form Finding
Understanding analysis algorithms embedded in Karamba and visualising results
Complex Workflow processes in Rhino3d, Grasshopper3d and Karamba3d
Places are limited to a maximum of 10 participants with limited educational places. A minimum of 4 places are required for the workshop to take place.
The workshop will be cancelled should this quota not be filled by May 31st.
The workshop will be taught in English. Basic Rhino and Grasshopper knowledge is recommended. No knowledge of Karamba is needed.
Participants should bring their own laptops with either Rhino5/Rhino6 and Grasshopper3d installed. A 90 day trial version of Rhino can be downloaded from Rhino3d.
Karamba ½ year licenses for non-commercial use will be provided to all participants.
…
up structural systems in the parametric environment of Grasshopper. Participants will be guided through the basics of analysing and interpreting structural models, to optimisation processes and how to integrate Karamba3d into C# scripts.
This workshop is aimed towards beginner to intermediate users of Karamba however advanced users are also encouraged to apply. It is open to both professional and academic users.
Course Fee:
Professional EUR 750 (+VAT)
Student EUR 375 (+VAT)
Course Outline
Introduction & Presentation of project examples
Optimization of cross sections of line based and surface based elements
Geometric Optimization
Topological Optimization
Structural Performance Informed Form Finding
Understanding analysis algorithms embedded in Karamba and visualising results
Complex Workflow processes in Rhino3d, Grasshopper3d and Karamba3d
Places are limited to a maximum of 10 participants with limited educational places. A minimum of 4 places are required for the workshop to take place.
The workshop will be cancelled should this quota not be filled by October 15th.
The workshop will be taught in English. Basic Rhino and Grasshopper knowledge is recommended. No knowledge of Karamba is needed.
Participants should bring their own laptops with either Rhino5/Rhino6 and Grasshopper3d installed. A 90 day trial version of Rhino can be downloaded from Rhino3d.
Karamba ½ year licenses for non-commercial use will be provided to all participants.
…
ive 'correct' normal.
Non-normalized cross products is effectively weighting face normals by area, and is fast and simple, so we put that one as the default.
In some cases normalizing the cross-products improves the result, but not always.
Another option is to weight by angles, though this is computationally slightly more expensive, so might not be ideal for real-time updates on large meshes.
As an example, here is a mesh with a 90° corner, and uneven meshing on the 2 sides.
The arrows show:
0- Area weighted (non-normalized cross products)
1- Angle weighted
2- Normalized cross-products
Here the angle-weighted normal is the one at 45°, which is intuitively the 'best' one in this case.
These 3 seem to be the most commonly used, but there are many other possible definitions of normals - such as inverse-area weighted, mean curvature, etc...
I think really what would be best would be to put a few of these into Plankton, and include an optional argument in GetNormal for selecting which one you need for a particular application.
Pull requests welcome if you feel inspired to add this!
http://meshlabstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/on-computation-of-vertex-normals.html
http://steve.hollasch.net/cgindex/geometry/surfnorm.html…
us allows Grasshopper authors to stream geometry to the web in real time. It works like a chatroom for parametric geometry, and allows for on-the-fly 3D model mashups in the web browser. Multiple [Grasshopper] authors can stream geometry into a shared 3D environment on the web – a Platypus Session – and multiple viewers can join that session on 3dplatyp.us to interact with the 3D model. Platypus can be used to present parametric 3D models to a remote audience, to quickly collaborate with other Grasshopper users, or both!
You can down load the Grasshopper plugin at food4rhino, and visit 3dplatyp.us to view your geometry on the web. This first round of Alpha testing will run for two weeks, until April 24 2014, after which the Grasshopper components will not solve.
We are very interested in hearing feedback from the community while the project is still in the prototyping stages of development. Please use the comments on this discussion to ask questions, suggest ideas, report bugs, etc. We are planning on rolling out another public alpha release or two this Spring, depending on how this first one goes, in advance of our Technology Symposium and Hackathon in New York.
Check out our getting started video below, and enjoy!
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