le and grasshopper timer to simplify simulation control. Double click the main Kangaroo component to open this remote. There are buttons for Stop(reset), Play, Pause, and Step (moves the simulation forward one iteration).
Line-line force - allows interaction between line segments - they are treated as rigid cylinders. As with springs, there are settings for offset and rest distance, so this can be used to simulate colliding rods, and also for keeping cylinders tangent to one another (can be used for reciprocal structures).
Gear simulator - collision between curves in a plane, can be used for various mechanical simulations - cams, gears, rack and pinions etc.
Developablize force - adjusts vertices of a mesh locally, to make angles around each interior vertex sum to 2*Pi, so the mesh can be unfolded to a flat sheet without stretching.
Volume dependent pressure force - allows you to set a rest volume for a mesh instead of just a fixed pressure. When combined with Laplacian smoothing for area minimization, this can be used to optimize for CMC (constant-mean-curvature) surfaces. It will also work on open meshes.
Translation lock - maintains a fixed relationship between a pair of points. This can be used to enforce periodic boundary conditions for TPMS.
Equalize angles force - given a set of angles (defined by 3 points each), this tries to adjust them all to become equal.
Mirror symmetry force - can be used to minimize curvature variation, and optimize for higher order curve continuity. It can also be used for simulating torsional resistance in curved rods.
True minimal surface relaxation - Laplacian smoothing force now includes an option for cotangent weighting, which optimizes for zero mean curvature, unlike spring based methods, or uniform weighted Laplacian smoothing which only roughly approximate this.
Fast sphere collide - allows much faster collision detection between large numbers of spheres. By placing these spheres at the vertices, this can also be used for collision between meshes.
Force-density element - an experimental one, more on this later
Projected-force - adjusts its strength so the component of the force in a given direction stays constant.
New mesh tools:
WarpWeft - sorts the edges of a quad mesh into warp and weft directions. This can be used to assign them different stiffness in fabric form-finding.
Checkerboard - sort the faces of a mesh into 2 lists so that 2 faces of the same colour are never adjacent.
MeshDirection - sorts the vertices of a quad mesh to give it a sort of u-v directionality
Refine Strips - subdivision in one direction only - can be used to generate developable strips
Stripper - separates out the strips of quads from a larger mesh
Unroller - unfolds a quad strip to flat without stretching
MeshMap - maps points from one mesh to another (can be used together with circle-packing to generate conformal mappings)
Reciprocal structure - generates starting geometry for a reciprocal structure from any input mesh (using the Plankton mesh library *Note* If you already have the Plankton components installed, you will need to update to version 0.3.0, which is available from here)
ReMesher - adjusts the connectivity of a mesh by flipping, splitting and collapsing edges to make all edge lengths closer to a target value
Diagonalize - creates a new face for every edge of the original mesh. Can be used on quad meshes to easily convert to a diagrid.
Refine - simple non-smoothing subdivision, splitting quads into 4 quads, and triangles into 4 triangles
QuadDivide - subdivide quads by any number squared, not just powers of 4
Corners - finds the corner vertices of a quad mesh
ByParent - simple quad subdivision, keeping the output grouped by parent face.
User objects:
The download comes with an increased collection of user objects to simplify setting up common simulation types - Including a simple to use origami simulator, a reciprocal structure generator, and a tool to generate compact circle packings from a CP mesh.
General:
Geometry input now accepts polylines and straight curves.
Hinges can now be fold completely flat in both directions.
Various other minor bug fixes and speed improvements (including much faster removeDuplicatePoints/Lines components)
*****
I've not yet updated all the documentation and example files to reflect this new version, but over time I will keep posting here with new demos and explanation of all these new features. I'll try and add a few new examples each week. Vote in the comments below if there is a feature mentioned above that you're particularly keen to hear more about soon.
No doubt there are still some bugs to be discovered. If something isn't working the way you expect or want it to, please post in this forum (ideally with a description or sketch of what you think should be happening, and a clear description of what happens instead and any error messages).
There are also some more new features that weren't quite ready to make it into this release, but are on the way shortly...
Kangaroo remains completely free, for personal, academic, and commercial use. I'm always interested to hear about projects done using it, and suggestions for improvements or additions.
Daniel
…
guages I'd recommend all use the RhinoCommon SDK and thus all have access to the same functionality.
How long would it take me to understand and write my own code?
If you already know how to program, it probably won't take too long. If you're past the hurdle of what it means to declare and assign variables, how conditionals and loops work and what scope is, you've already rounded the hardest corner.
Is it even worth it?
That really depends. "Learn programming" is clearly not blanket good advice. Most people out there do not have to learn programming to be happy with their lives and successful in their careers. For some people it can make a small difference, and for a few people it can make a huge difference. If you feel you're in the 'some' category then this is indeed a question you have to answer. Note that the investment for learning programming is a continuous process. Unless you keep up your skills and learn about new stuff that becomes available, you'll lose the ability to write successful code over time.
Where do I start?
Step 1 is to answer the previous question. It is unlikely that anyone besides yourself can answer it, but you can start by making a list of things you do manually now that may be programmable. Then make a list of the things you are unable to do now but which you might be able to do with programming. If while looking at these lists your reaction is: "meh", the answer is probably no.
Step 2 is to pick a language. This is again a very personal thing; there's no wrong answer, because there's no right answer.
Step 3 is to start learning this language. My experience is that the best way to learn a programming language is to try and solve a real problem that you understand very well. If the problem statement is nebulous or poorly understood, you'll be learning two things and that's a recipe for unnecessary frustration.
Here are my thoughts on language:
Python: I don't use Python myself, I can sort of read it while moving my lips. I don't particularly like Python though. The indentation sensitiveness stresses me out, and I find the lack of type-safety disturbing. However it is a good language for mathematical/scientific programs. There are lots of additional code libraries you can easily import that will ease the development of mathematically intense algorithms.
C#: I like C# very much, but it does suffer from geekerosis. A lot of the keywords used in the language are not self-explanatory (abstract, sealed, virtual). For me this is no longer a problem as I've memorised what they all mean. C# is designed to be an efficient language to write, rather than an easy one to learn.
The great thing about C# though is that there's a huge amount of material out there for learning it. It is one of the most popular, mature and modern languages you can hope to pick.
VB: I learned VBScript as my first language, and then moved on to VB5, VB6 and VB.NET. It is somewhat more friendly than C#, and functionally it is almost identical. The switch from VB to C# is reasonably low-threshold and there are excellent tools for translating VB code to C# and vice versa.
Since you already know some Python, it probably makes the most sense to continue on that path. If you want to switch, C# is more like Python than VB, so C# would be my next suggestion.
As for where to get information... you have 4 major options when developing code for Rhino.
If it's a question about the language itself, StackOverflow is a great resource. It can be a pretty hostile place for beginner questions, but I find that mostly the questions I'm asking have been asked already and the answers on SO tend to be good. In fact usually when I google my questions, the first few hits are always SO posts.
If it's a question about the Rhino SDK or Grasshopper, you can ask it either on the GH forums (where we are now), or on Discourse. We're not as quick on the draw as SO, but we do know about Rhino.
If you're looking for a basic explanation of what a keyword or a type is for, perhaps with an example, MSDN is the best first choice. In fact if you google the name a of a .NET type, the first hit is almost always an MSDN page.…
Added by David Rutten at 2:03pm on December 3, 2014
umbrella of Urban Heat Island (UHI) and I am going to try to separate them out in order to give you a sense of the current capabilities in LB+HB.
1) UHI as defined as a recorded elevated air temperature in an urban area:
If you have access to epw files for both an urban area and a rural area, you can use Ladybug to visualize and deeply explore the differences between the two weather files. Ladybug is primarily a tool for weather file visualization and analysis and it can be very helpful for understanding the consequences of UHI on strategies for buildings or on comfort. This said, if you do not have both rural and urban recorded weather data or you want to generate your own weather files based on criteria about urban areas (as it sounds like you want to do), this definition might not be so helpful.
2) UHI defined by air elevated air temperature but viewed as a computer model-able phenomenon resulting primarily from urban canyon geometry, building materials, and (to a lesser degree) anthropogenic heat:
This definition seems to fit more with they type of thing that you are looking for but it is unfortunately very difficult and computationally intensive such that we do not currently have anything within Ladybug to do this right now. I can say that the state-of-the art for this type of modeling is an application called Town Energy Budget (TEB) and this is what all of the advanced UHI researches that I know use (http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/surfex/spip.php?article7). Unfortunately for those trying to use it in professional practice, it can take a while to get comfortable with it and it currently runs exclusively on Linux (this does mean that it is open source, though, and that you can really get deep into the assumptions of the model). A couple years ago, a peer of mine translated almost all of TEB into Matlab language making it possible to run it on Windows if you have Matlab. He wrapped everything together into a tool called the Urban Weather Generator (UWG), which can take an epw file of a rural area and warp it to an urban area based on inputs that you give of building height, materials, vegetation, anthropogenic heat, etc. I would recommend looking into this for your project, although, bear in mind that is it not open source like the original TEB tool and that you may need to get a (very expensive) copy of MATLAB (http://urbanmicroclimate.scripts.mit.edu/uwg.php).
3) UHI as defined by a thermal satellite image of an urban area depicting an elevated average radiant environment that reaches a maximum a the city center and changes by land use:
This is the definition of UHI that I am most familiar with and was the basis of much of my past research. I feel that it is also a definition of UHI that is a bit more in line with where a lot of contemporary UHI research is headed, which is away from the notion of UHI as a macro-scale meteorological phenomena that is averaged as an air temperature over a huge area towards one that accepts that different land uses have different microclimates and (importantly) different radiant environments. While the air temperature difference between urban and rural areas usually does not change more than 1-4 C, the radiant environment can be very different (on the order of 10-15 C differences). The best way to understand UHI in this context is with Thermal satellite images, for which there is ha huge database of publicly available data on NASA's glovis website (http://glovis.usgs.gov/) or their ECHO website (http://reverb.echo.nasa.gov/reverb/#utf8=%E2%9C%93&spatial_map=satellite&spatial_type=rectangle). I tend to use thermal data from LANDSAT 5-8 and ASTER satellites in my research. Unfortunately, there is a lot f bad data with a lot of cloud cover mixed in with the really good stuff and it can take some time to find good images. Also, there aren't too many programs that read the GeoTiff file format that you download the data as. I know that ArcGIS will read it, a program called ENVI will read it (I think that the open source QGIS can also red it). I have plans to write a set of components to bring this type of data into Rhino and GH (I may get to it a few months down the line).
4) UHI as a computer model-able notion of "Urban Microclimate" with consideration of local differences and the local radiant environment:
This is where a lot of my research has lead and, thankfully, is an area that Honeybee can help you out a lot with. EnergyPlus simulations can output information on outside building surface temperatures and these can be very helpful in helping get a sense of the radiant environment around individual buildings. Right now, I am focusing just on using this data to fully model the indoor environments of buildings as you see in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNylb42FPIc&list=UUc6HWbF4UtdKdjbZ2tvwiCQ
I have plans to move this methodology to the outdoors once I complete this initial application to the indoors. For now, you can use the "Surface result reader" and the "color surfaces based on EP result" components to get a sense of variation in the outside temperature of your buildings.
I hope that this helped,
-Chris
…
l coarse mesh
Subdividing this mesh into strips of thin quads
Relaxing/Planarizing this mesh
Splitting and Unrolling
In this post I deal with the first 2 of these stages.
You can download the example definition here:
developable_strips_tutorial.gh
Drawing the initial mesh
To begin with we need a simple quad mesh. This can be modelled manually in Rhino, and only needs to use enough quads to give the topology and very rough form. No need to worry too much about the exact geometry or dimensions at this point, as we will refine and alter it as we go.
One very important thing that we do need to bear in mind though is that all internal vertices must have even valence (I covered this a bit in the earlier post here).
So for example, this is bad:
(because the highlighted vertex is surrounded by 5 faces)
While this is good (and can still be relaxed to the same shape):
(the top and bottom vertices have valence 8, and the vertices between the arms have valence 4)
With a little practice it should be possible to convert any mesh into one that meets this condition.
The reasons why we need this condition should become more clear in the later steps.
First subdivision
This is where we choose how many strips we want our final model to have, by applying a few rounds of subdivision using the Refine component (you could also use Weaverbird here):
Sorting the face directions
While quad meshes do not carry the same information about u/v directions as a NURBS surface, the individual faces do have a sort of direction given by their vertex ordering. However, these face directions are usually not consistently arranged, especially after subdivision.
The Kangaroo MeshDirection component attempts* to orient all the faces in a mesh so that they match with their neighbours.
For example, before sorting, if we draw a line from the midpoint of the first edge of each face to the midpt of its opposite edge, we might get something like this:
Whereas after sorting, we should get something like this:
*note that I say it attempts to orient the faces consistently. In some cases no valid solution exists, for instance if 3 or 5 faces meet around a vertex, hence the requirement mentioned at the start for even valence vertices.
Directional Subdivision
Now that we have consistent face directions across the mesh, we can apply further subdivision, but this time in one direction only. So we go from roughly square quads to thin rectangles. The idea is that as we apply higher levels of this directional subdivision, the final relaxed result goes towards something semi-discrete. A NURBS surface is fully continuous, and a mesh is fully discrete (made up of separate facets), while this strip model will be smooth in one direction and faceted in the other.
Go to part 2 for the next step of the process
…
y from the Rhino model and having the absorption coefficients of the materials that are entered into Pachyderm, why is it not possible to generate a reverberation time diagram, without the need to start any analysis?
MAPPING METHOD: When for example the mapping of the Strenght Index (G) is generated through the "create map" option, succesively I can´t generate any other energy criterion map, but I have to redo the simulation.
Is it a limitation of the software or am I wrong something?
MAPPING METHOD: I kindly wanted to ask what is the difference between minimum and detailed convergence and why the number of reflections order it takes into account for the simulation is not specified. The mapping method take care only of the Raytracing Method or the Image Source too?
MAPPING METHOD: Why is the mapping value that can be exported to Rhino not generated for all the calculation raster points, but maximal only for 100 values?
MAPPING METHOD: This method hasn't been implemented in Grasshopper yet, has it?
RAYTRACING METHOD (Pach:RT): I did a raytracing through the components of GH, using only the Pach_RT, and I had these curious results in terms of time:
RaysCount: 15.000, IS_Order:1 = 5min
RaysCount: 15.000, IS_Order:2 = 12min
RaysCount: 15.000, IS_Order:3 = 3min
RaysCount: 15.000, IS_Order:4 = 8min
RaysCount: 15.000, IS_Order:5 = 3min
Why a raytracing with only 2 order, is more and more extensive than the 3/4 and 5 order?
ANALYSIS RESULT: Would there be a way to export all the results of a simulation, as is done via Odeon, to a .txt list?
I apologize in advance for asking so many questions, I hope you can find the time to answer,
Yours sincerely from Müller-BBM…
rameters, which forces the user to connect all three curve input parameters (even if only 2 are required) to avoid the message 'Input parameter ... failed to collect data'. How can I set up the curve inputs so that null values are valid? I'm currently registering these as curve parameters as below, and suspect the answer lies in using a different method for parameter registration.
protected override void RegisterInputParams(GH_Component.GH_InputParamManagerpManager)
{
pManager.Register_SurfaceParam(
"Reference Surface", "S", "Surface on which laths are to be generated", GH_ParamAccess.item);
pManager.Register_CurveParam(
"Surface curves 1", "Curves 1", "Set of curves across surface in first direction", GH_ParamAccess.list);
pManager.Register_CurveParam(
"Surface curves 2", "Curves 2", "Set of curves across surface in second direction", GH_ParamAccess.list);
pManager.Register_CurveParam(
"Surface Curves 3", "Curves 3", "Set of curves across surface in third direction", GH_ParamAccess.list);
pManager.Register_DoubleParam(
"Lath Offsets 1", "LO1", "Offset from surface to centreline of first layer", 0.0, GH_ParamAccess.item);
pManager.Register_DoubleParam(
"Lath Offsets 2", "LO2", "Offset from surface to centreline of second layer", 0.0, GH_ParamAccess.item);
pManager.Register_DoubleParam(
"Lath Offsets 3", "LO3", "Offset from surface to centreline of third layer", 0.0, GH_ParamAccess.item);
pManager.Register_IntegerParam(
"Seed Value (0, 1, 2)", "Seed", "Seed value for weave offsets (0 for no weave, 1 or 2 for weave)",0, GH_ParamAccess.item);
}
Thanks!
Alex
…
Added by Alex Baalham at 9:48am on October 1, 2012
rk and I will just clarify some of the details. I will also note that I do not know what the shadings output of the decomposeByType component is supposed to do as Mostapha put it there a long time ago and I was not sure what his intentions were. Going down a list of clarification points:
1) You are right that you should either connect up the shade breps to the EPContext component or just plug the HBObjwShades into the RunSimulation component (never do both). However, connecting the breps to the EPContext component is greatly undesirable for two reasons: It will make the simulation run much longer and the energyPlus calculation will not account for the surface temperatures of the blinds (it will assume they are the same temperature as the outdoor air, which is very wrong in a lot of cases). When you connect up the HBObjwShades to run the simulation, EnergyPlus will understand the blinds as abstract objects defined only by a numeric parameterization and not as actual geometry. This enables the calculation to run fast and is also enough of a description that E+ can calculate the temperature of the blinds, thereby accounting for the heat that can be re-radiated from the blinds to the indoors when they get hot in the sun. This more desirable way of running the blinds was how I imagined the component being run most of the time and I mostly included the shadeBreps so that you have a visual of what you are simulating.
2) When you use the more desirable HBObjWShades to approximate your blinds, you should use the blindsSchedule input in order to tell E+ when the shades are pulled (this is instead of the transShcedule on the EPContext component).
3) The zoneData inputs on the EPWindowShade component are meant to help in an entirely different workflow, which evaluates shade benefit based on energy simulation results. I apologize if it seems confusing to have two major uses of the component in one but we have so many Honeybee components right now and I did not want to make 2 separate ones when they seemed so similar. See this example file to see how to do energy shade benefit (https://app.box.com/s/oi64zoj5u1slz494grzhgmdkx7yie9jo).
Ok. I think that clears up everything that I know. Now to the part that I do not. As I said, Mostapha put in the shadings input there a long time ago and I do not know what his intentions were. Abraham, as you know, I am about to do a major revision of the EPWindowShade component to make it compatible with OpenStudio, include drapes/generic shades in addition to blinds, and I also should figure out how to do electrochromic glazing. I can easily include all of the visualized shades as output from the decomposeByType component when I do this. However, I do not want to interfere with other intentions Mostapha had when he put the input in. If he could confirm that this was in-line with his vision for the shadings output, I will implement it soon.
-Chris
…
n due at the end of march. i am hoping to see if i can do this as a sort of "HIVE MIND" experiment with one or two or more posters to the forum. i have uploaded two files to http://www.formpig.com/nine_bar-FAR and I have the following goals:
1. To "kinematically iterate" various formal building envelopes based upon a 50' x 100' lot that "conform" to the nine bar linkage geometry.
2. This lot would have "setbacks" consisting of two 5' side setbacks, a 10' rear yard setback and a 25' front yard setback. max height on the structure is 32' and the allowable overhangs into the setbacks are 2'. I would like to find a way to use the "nine bar geometry" to construct a series of iterations for "floors", "walls" and "ceilings", which would then be tied to a volumetric (cubic volume), or a total square footage (perhaps based upon two horizontal section cuts) which was based upon a given number that I will provide per local building code.
3. Laid on top of this we would also have "mcmansion ordinance" requirements based upon the pdf enclosed. i expect to have this "tent restriction" data in digital form to upload to ftp shortly.
It would be up to you individually or collectively to determine how best to position this "in the real world" based upon the lot, setbacks, zoning requirements etc. For instance, perhaps the nine bar configuration has its vertices coplanar with the 50' x 100' x 32' envelope restrictions and then the chosen volume is "trimmed' by the setback requirements. Or perhaps the nine-bar configuration is generated completely within the setbacks, or perhaps it is generated 2' outside of the setbacks so as to take advantage of the 2' overhang allowance on the setbacks, etc.
*
Given an opportunity to develop the work in a second phase we would have an opportunity to tie this into various efficiencies such as Bill of Materials (wall floor and ceiling square foot calculations), envelope to volume calculations, solar panel efficiencies (solar orientation and envelope geometry) etc, etc (love to get suggestions for this).
*
I've become /really/ convinced that this would be a /really/ interesting entry based upon my just finishing up Kas Oosterhuis' Towards a New Kind of Building: A Designer's Guide for Non-Standard Architecture". In an ideal world I was hoping that it would be possible to hash this out discussion-wise and then literally passing it around on the list after someone eventually made the first move by tossing out a rough ghx script. My expectation would be to finalize it rapidly in the next two weeks. Something of a contemporary version of a design charette.
However, I realize this may not be workable so if you have experience in this arena and particularly if you think this is a brief that is straighforward enough to be almost literally implemented in Grasshopper, please contact me for any wage and/or contract fee requirements.
I'm getting a bit of a late jump on this but my hope is that with the right participant(s) that I can thrash it together quick enough for the first round.
info@formpig.com…
case for sure (started by Giorgio a couple of days before). Ive got involved because I exploit ways to "relax" shapes on nurbs (say patterns created by Lunchbox or "manually) without using any kind of mesh (more explanations soon).
Here's 5 test cases (SDK appears that doesn't have some "thicken surface" thing ... thus the algo that finds the "whole" shapes is rather naive) VS 2 Kangaroo "methods" and the why bother (he he) option as well.
If the goal is to "fit" these shapes within the nurbs ... does it work so far? No I'm afraid (appears that "springs" used are not the proper ones - or [Kangaroo1 option] the lines that pull should been originated from valance 2 points only)
Tricky points:
1. Internalize appears having a variety of serious issues (see Input inside definition) - Load Rhino file first (but even so ...).
2. Pull to surface is deactivated - this is not the issue here (and it's very slow).
3. Since Starling/WB alter the "curves - points" related order
the issue here (Pull points to curves) is to correspond apples to apples:
and that's what Anemone does:
From chaos :
to order:
this means that prior activating Kangaroo you should double click to the Anemone start component in order to "sort" properly the curves.
But .. fact is that results are pathetic:
more soon
best, Peter…
bsp;
-Vehicle elements (3D objects and a component for custom vehicles; models from Google Warehouse)
-Traffic Velocity Graphs, drawn on every trajectory curve (allow custom graphs drawn)
-Traffic regulation elements (such as Traffic Lights and Stop Signals) and traffic density
-Particle Systems on trajectory curves, just to manage the traffic regulations and avoid collisions based on security distances
-Traffic Vehicle Animation Modes (Dots, Bounding Boxes or complex Meshes with attributes for final rendering (Giulio Piacentino´s Render Animation)
-Vehicle Lights and Vehicle Sights, to make visual studies
Team:
-Sergio del Castillo Tello (Doctor No, lead programmer)
-Everyone that wants to be involved, support.. these tools
The development of Roadrunner is planned to take part within a Research Group Program at ETSAM (University of Architecture in Madrid); This forum group is created just to test the interest of the community, while we keep on developing (it is still being tested), probably we will share the whole thing in the future. Cheers!
Traffic Cluster Scheme
Traffic Elements
Traffic Urban Systems
Vehicle Elements
Roadrunner - overview
Roadrunner 0 Basics
Roadrunner 1 Modes
Roadrunner 2 Elements
Roadrunner 3 Urban Systems…