t. So here we go!
1. Honeybee is brown and not yellow [stupid!]...
As you probably remember Honeybee logo was initially yellow because of my ignorance about Honeybees. With the help of our Honeybee expert, Michalina, now the color is corrected. I promised her to update everyone about this. Below are photos of her working on the honeybee logo and the results of her study.
If you think I'm exaggerating by calling her a honeybee expert you better watch this video:
Thank you Michalina for the great work! :). I corrected the colors. No yellow anymore. The only yellow arrows represent sun rays and not the honeybee!
2. Yellow or brown, W[here]TH Honeybee is?
I know. It has been a long time after I posted the initial video and it is not fun at all to wait for a long time. Here is the good news. If you are following the Facebook page you probably now that the Daylighting components are almost ready.
Couple of friends from Grasshopper community and RADIANCE community has been helping me with testing/debugging the components. I still think/hope to release the daylighting components at some point in January before Ladybug gets one year old.
There have been multiple changes. I finally feel that the current version of Honeybee is simple enough for non-expert users to start running initial studies and flexible enough for advanced users to run advanced studies. I will post a video soon and walk you through different components.
I think I still need more time to modify the energy simulation components so they are not going to be part of the next release. Unfortunately, there are so many ways to set up and run a wrong energy simulation and I really don’t want to add one new GIGO app to the world of simulation. We already have enough of that. Moreover I’m still not quite happy with the workflow. Please bear with me for few more months and then we can all celebrate!
I recently tested the idea of connecting Grasshopper to OpenStudio by using OpenStudio API successfully. If nothing else, I really want to release the EnergyPlus components so I can concentrate on Grasshopper > OpenStudio development which I personally think is the best approach.
3. What about wind analysis?
I have been asked multiple times that if Ladybug will have a component for wind study. The short answer is YES! I have been working with EFRI-PULSE project during the last year to develop a free and open source web-based CFD simulation platform for outdoor analysis.
We had a very good progress so far and our rockstar Stefan recently presented the results of the work at the American Physical Society’s 66th annual DFD meeting and the results looks pretty convincing in comparison to measured data. Here is an image from the presentation. All the credits go to Stefan Gracik and EFRI-PULSE project.
The project will go live at some point next year and after that I will release the Butterfly which will let you prepare the model for the CFD simulation and send it to EFRI-PULSE project. I haven’t tried to run the simulations locally yet but I’m considering that as a further development. Here is how the component and the logo looks like right now.
4. Teaching resources
It has been almost 11 months from the first public release of Ladybug. I know that I didn't do a good job in providing enough tutorials/teaching materials and I know that I won’t be able to put something comprehensive together soon.
Fortunately, ladybug has been flying in multiple schools during the last year. Several design, engineering and consultant firms are using it and it has been thought in several workshops. As I checked with multiple of you, almost everyone told me that they will be happy to share their teaching materials; hence I started the teaching resources page. Please share your materials on the page. They can be in any format and any language. Thanks in advance!
I hope you enjoyed/are enjoying/will enjoy the longest night of the year. Happy Yalda!
Cheers,
-Mostapha
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ar closed curve that is supposed to go to create a flat surface together with the other closed curves present in the same plane.
I don't know how can create this surface!!…
I live on my computer and I even sleep with it, so learning all this is probably within my reach but I'm a complete beginner as of now.
I'm downloading the 32 bit version of rhino 5 since the 64 bit doesn't seem to work with your downloads Jon.
I haven't grasped everything you have made yet Jon I can't even begin to understand what your IFC stuff is actually capable of, but just to be clear I'm not interested in solely being able to tell that something is colliding as there are already software that can do that beautifully. What I want to do is bypass that step altogether by never having collision-checking back and forth go on, even collisions which aren't physical collisions, but rather just violations by code. The simplest way to do this would be to simply make the geometry of the beams 2 feet wider than they are in real life, so that way you could put a light right next to the 'over-sized' beam and it would still be within the rules. But that would be extremely primitive and I'm sure there's a way to do it mathematically.
Just to clarify, I'm the fire sprinkler designer in the architectural circus. The sprinkler designer (me) doesn't really get the luxury of telling the other trades that they're colliding with my stuff and they should move. Rather, I get their drawings, find out I'm colliding with them, and move around them. So it would be of great use to me to have this be automatic - that is, to automatically space my sprinklers the neccesary distance away from all obstructions. There are different spacing rules for different obstructions - walls, beams, open web steel, unit heaters, hvac ducts depending on how wide the ducts are, lights, fans, high rack storage, basically anything that would obstruct the water spray from a sprinkler needs to be taken into account and spaced away from.
It's therefore a very attractive idea to be able to just draw a rectangle (representing the walls of a simple room) for instance, have the sprinklers automatically spaced as far apart as possible within the rectangle according to the rulebooks (to minimize the amount of sprinklers needed which minimizes the material cost of the job).
Then add obstructions inside the rectangle, such as a beam, and have the sprinklers relocate themselves or add new sprinklers to accommodate for the new obstruction.. Keep adding obstructions until you have the realistic 3d model of the room, with the sprinklers spaced accordingly, and you have an up-to-code sprinkler system.
There is one example where sprinklers actually need to be spaced really close to, rather than away from, an object.. and that is the ceiling (sprinklers must be within 12 in of ceiling typically).
If the HVAC guy decides to reroute his ducts right through my sprinklers, then I could draw 3D HVAC ducts (I usually get 2D drawings coming in) going right through the room and the sprinklers would relocate and auto-space away from the ducts, without actually having to tell the HVAC guy he is colliding with me because all that will do is require me to do a redesign anyway.
And presto, the HVAC guy loves me because I didn't complain to him at all and seemingly did all this work by moving around him when all I really did was use the computer to do it, the job gets done much faster and I don't have to worry that I'm going to lose my job in court because I made a silly human error when I was patching my system manually because some HVAC guy made me redesign 12 times in different places.
From what I have been reading from you guys, doing this is possible although (I realize) ambitious. The end result would be vastly increased productivity, less error making, cheaper design cost, etc. Using programs like Rhino, architects are getting more and more funny-shaped buildings and making it difficult for guys like me to make sprinkler systems within the rules, and I see it as an inevitability that computers will be making almost all of the typical design decisions in the future when it comes to life safety systems, I'm just trying to see if it's possible to start implementing this extra aid today.
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a type hierarchy with two interfaces and three classes:
IVehicle
IAutomobile
Bicycle
VolvoCar
AudiCar
IVehicle is an interface which lays down some ground-rules for all sort of vehicles. For example their maximum speed, maximum number of occupants and fuel type (diesel, horse, foot-power).
Bicycle is a class which implement IVehicle and nothing else.
IAutomobile is another interface, which derives from IVehicle but adds some more rules. For example it also demands that any class implementing IAutomobile has a property telling you whether the steering wheel is on the left or the right and how many kilometers per litre of fuel it manages.
VolvoCar and AudiCar are classes that both implement IAutomobile (they are, after all, both a type of automobile). Since IAutomobile inherits from IVehicle, they need to also implement that interface. VolvoCar might look like this:
class VolvoCar : IAutomobile
{
public int MaxSpeed { get { return 160; } } //IVehicle implementation
public int MaxPeople { get { return 5; } } //IVehicle implementation
public string Fuel { get { return "diesel"; } } //IVehicle implementation
public double Consumption { get return "18.4"; } } //IAutomobile implementation
public bool WheelOnLeft { get { return true; } } //IAutomobile implementation
public string TypeCode { get { return "V70"; } } //A property only volvos have.
}
Now let's imagine that you are given an instance of VolvoCar. This can happen as one of four types:
System.Object (everything derives from System.Object, so this is always possible)
IVehicle (VolvoCar implements this interface because IAutomobile derives from it)
IAutomobile (VolvoCar specifically implements this interface)
VolvoCar (the type itself)
These are just four different ways of looking at VolvoCar, and each way allows you to see less or more detail. If you have a VolvoCar instance stored inside a variable of type IVehicle, then you do not have access to the steering wheel property, because that is not part of IVehicle. If you want to access WheelOnLeft or Consumption you can cast your instance to type IAutomobile:
Dim vehicle As IVehicle = GetVehicleFromSomewhere()
Dim car As IAutomobile = DirectCast(vehicle, IAutomobile)
The car and vehicle variables now both point to the same volvo in memory, but car allows you to access more information. You could even cast it to a VolvoCar, in order to get access not just to WheelOnLeft and Consumption, but also to TypeCode:
Dim vehicle As IVehicle = GetVehicleFromSomewhere()
Dim volvo As VolvoCar = DirectCast(vehicle, VolvoCar)
Note though that casting sort of violates the type-safetyness of a program. The GetVehicleFromSomewhere() function returns a variable of type IVehicle. So it is allowed to return VolvoCar, AudiCar or Bicycle without breaking that promise. But if it returns Bicycle then our attempt to cast it to an IAutomobile or VolvoCar will fail.
So, conclusion:
Casting allows you to look at an instance using a more detailed (or less detailed if you want) type. Pre-requisite is that the instance actually is of that type.
In VB.NET, you can use the DirectCast and TryCast methods for this. TryCast is to be preferred, but it only works on classes, not structs.
In C# you can use the (type)variable notation or the as keyword.
You can use the TypeOf (VB.NET) and is (C#) keywords to first see whether a cast will work or not.
--
David Rutten
david@mcneel.com
Tirol, Austria…
Added by David Rutten at 2:58am on October 9, 2013
I wanted to use it for a client, really I can't since they will freak out about a weird version of Rhino being needed.
http://discourse.mcneel.com/t/scripting-blendsrf/24635
http://mcneel.myjetbrains.com/youtrack/issue/RH-29978
What you call trivial is the core of your business, the core of your product, meaning Grasshopper user ability to access serious commands or not. This is, after all, one of the most important commands in the entire Rhino universe. Without it, I have to just completely abandon NURBS and edit meshes since I can't join surfaces smoothly so I have to stop using fragments at all and only meshes afford local detail well compared to single NURBS surfaces. Only polysurfaces can mix in little high UV count blends to deal with tight local detail.
I guess I'll switch to the WIP now. Test that, and just tell clients, hey, that's life. It's not exactly easy to find the WIP download, being a hidden "Serengeti" topic on the main Rhino forum, but I can offer the membership link.
http://discourse.mcneel.com/t/how-do-i-actually-download-serengeti/23846
http://www.rhino3d.com/download/rhino/wip
I had to manually install IronPython 2.7.5 too, to fix a broken Python system:
http://ironpython.codeplex.com/releases/view/169382
Now, where on Earth do I find the Rhinocommon manual for Rhino 6 WIP?
I guess it's within the main Rhino EditPythonScript editor, though that can't be searched like a normal manual:
CreateBlendSurface(face0: BrepFace, edge0: BrepEdge, domain0: Interval, rev0: bool, continuity0: BlendContinuity, face1: BrepFace, edge1: BrepEdge, domain1: Interval, rev1: bool, continuity1: BlendContinuity) -> Array[Brep]
Makes a surface blend between two surface edges.
face0: First face to blend from. edge0: First edge to blend from. domain0: The domain of edge0 to use. rev0: If false, edge0 will be used in its natural direction. If true, edge0 will be used in the reversed direction.
continuity0: Continuity for the blend at the start. face1: Second face to blend from. edge1: Second edge to blend from. domain1: The domain of edge1 to use. rev1: If false, edge1 will be used in its natural direction. If true, edge1 will be used in the reversed direction.
continuity1: Continuity for the blend at the start. Returns: Array of Breps if successful.
Now I have normal, productive homework, of figuring out how to specify edges from a Python script.
I'll just sell this extra special capability of Rhino 5 WIP from Grasshopper as a cutting edge advanced new feature other lowly consultants can't match, assuming I can get it to work first.
The initial strategy is to Grasshopper create discrete surfaces, blow holes in a parent surface, scale down and move the little surfaces away, and just blend everything together into a polysurface. Then a client won't freak out so badly when I show them how to use meshes instead, since at least there's an alternative straight from NURBS, that maybe isn't as creatively open ended, but will get them out of a bind if their own client freaks out about meshes converted to NURBS via ZBrush ZRemesher run through T-Splines to get a smooth NURBS polysurface surface that looks like odd patchwork.
Alas, the above Rhinocommon blurb is incomplete, lacking info about what values for continuity are defined as, such as position, tangency, or curvature. I guess I'll just use try numbers.
…
e following tutorial: http://digitaltoolbox.info/grasshopper-intermediate/offset-scale/
I think the beginning is correct because I have the same things. However, at the last step I can't correctly generate the tabs for assemble this shape. I try to put "flatten" everywhere but it doesn't work ... If someone just give me a little help please ? Or check if everything is okay? Or if there is an another tutorial ? Or if the question has already been asked in this forum ? I take! I'm really sorry if my problem is not very interesting but I'm new ... Yours, Anna, windows 7 on bootcamp Rhino 5 Grasshopper O.8.0063
Files :
Shape.3dm
Shape.gh
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lly it should not make much of a difference - random number generation is not affected, mutation also is not. crossover is a bit more tricky, I use Simulated Binary Crossover (SBX-20) which was introduced already in 1194:
Deb K., Agrawal R. B.: Simulated Binary Crossover for Continuous Search Space, inIITK/ME/SMD-94027, Convenor, Technical Reports, Indian Institue of Technology, Kanpur, India,November 1994
Abst ract. The success of binary-coded gene t ic algorithms (GA s) inproblems having discrete sear ch sp ace largely depends on the codingused to represent the prob lem variables and on the crossover ope ratorthat propagates buildin g blocks from pare nt strings to childrenst rings . In solving optimization problems having continuous searchspace, binary-co ded GAs discr et ize the search space by using a codingof the problem var iables in binary st rings. However , t he coding of realvaluedvari ables in finit e-length st rings causes a number of difficulties:inability to achieve arbit rary pr ecision in the obtained solution , fixedmapping of problem var iab les, inh eren t Hamming cliff problem associatedwit h binary coding, and processing of Holland 's schemata incont inuous search space. Although a number of real-coded GAs aredevelop ed to solve optimization problems having a cont inuous searchspace, the search powers of these crossover operators are not adequate .In t his paper , t he search power of a crossover operator is defined int erms of the probability of creating an arbitrary child solut ion froma given pair of parent solutions . Motivated by t he success of binarycodedGAs in discret e search space problems , we develop a real-codedcrossover (which we call the simulated binar y crossover , or SBX) operatorwhose search power is similar to that of the single-point crossoverused in binary-coded GAs . Simulation results on a number of realvaluedt est problems of varying difficulty and dimensionality suggestt hat the real-cod ed GAs with t he SBX operator ar e ab le to perform asgood or bet t er than binary-cod ed GAs wit h t he single-po int crossover.SBX is found to be particularly useful in problems having mult ip le optimalsolutions with a narrow global basin an d in prob lems where thelower and upper bo unds of the global optimum are not known a priori.Further , a simulation on a two-var iable blocked function showsthat the real-coded GA with SBX work s as suggested by Goldberg
and in most cases t he performance of real-coded GA with SBX is similarto that of binary GAs with a single-point crossover. Based onth ese encouraging results, this paper suggests a number of extensionsto the present study.
7. ConclusionsIn this paper, a real-coded crossover operator has been develop ed bas ed ont he search characte rist ics of a single-point crossover used in binary -codedGAs. In ord er to define the search power of a crossover operator, a spreadfactor has been introduced as the ratio of the absolute differences of thechildren points to that of the parent points. Thereaft er , the probabilityof creat ing a child point for two given parent points has been derived forthe single-point crossover. Motivat ed by the success of binary-coded GAsin problems wit h discrete sear ch space, a simul ated bin ary crossover (SBX)operator has been develop ed to solve problems having cont inuous searchspace. The SBX operator has search power similar to that of the single-po intcrossover.On a number of t est fun ctions, including De Jong's five te st fun ct ions, ithas been found that real-coded GAs with the SBX operator can overcome anumb er of difficult ies inherent with binary-coded GAs in solving cont inuoussearch space problems-Hamming cliff problem, arbitrary pr ecision problem,and fixed mapped coding problem. In the comparison of real-coded GAs wit ha SBX operator and binary-coded GAs with a single-point crossover ope rat or ,it has been observed that the performance of the former is better than thelatt er on continuous functions and the performance of the former is similarto the lat ter in solving discret e and difficult functions. In comparison withanother real-coded crossover operator (i.e. , BLX-0 .5) suggested elsewhere ,SBX performs better in difficult test functions. It has also been observedthat SBX is particularly useful in problems where the bounds of the optimum
point is not known a priori and wher e there are multi ple optima, of whichone is global.Real-coded GAs wit h t he SBX op erator have also been tried in solvinga two-variab le blocked function (the concept of blocked fun ctions was introducedin [10]). Blocked fun ct ions are difficult for real-coded GAs , becauselocal optimal points block t he progress of search to continue towards t heglobal optimal point . The simulat ion results on t he two-var iable blockedfunction have shown that in most occasions , the sea rch proceeds the way aspr edicted in [10]. Most importantly, it has been observed that the real-codedGAs wit h SBX work similar to that of t he binary-coded GAs wit h single-pointcrossover in overcoming t he barrier of the local peaks and converging to t heglobal bas in. However , it is premature to conclude whether real-coded GAswit h SBX op erator can overcome t he local barriers in higher-dimensionalblocked fun ct ions.These results are encour aging and suggest avenues for further research.Because the SBX ope rat or uses a probability distribut ion for choosing a childpo int , the real-coded GAs wit h SBX are one st ep ahead of the binary-codedGAs in te rms of ach ieving a convergence proof for GAs. With a direct probabilist ic relationship between children and parent points used in t his paper,cues from t he clas sical stochast ic optimization methods can be borrowed toachieve a convergence proof of GAs , or a much closer tie between the classicaloptimization methods and GAs is on t he horizon.
In short, according to the authors my SBX operator using real gene values is as good as older ones specially designed for discrete searches, and better in continuous searches. SBX as far as i know meanwhile is a standard general crossover operator.
But:
- there might be better ones out there i just havent seen yet. please tell me.
- besides tournament selection and mutation, crossover is just one part of the breeding pipeline. also there is the elite management for MOEA which is AT LEAST as important as the breeding itself.
- depending on the problem, there are almost always better specific ways of how to code the mutation and the crossover operators. but octopus is meant to keep it general for the moment - maybe there's a way for an interface to code those things yourself..!?
2) elite size = SPEA-2 archive size, yes. the rate depends on your convergence behaviour i would say. i usually start off with at least half the size of the population, but mostly the same size (as it is hard-coded in the new version, i just realize) is big enough.
4) the non-dominated front is always put into the archive first. if the archive size is exceeded, the least important individual (the significant strategy in SPEA-2) are truncated one by one until the size is reached. if it is smaller, the fittest dominated individuals are put into the elite. the latter happens in the beginning of the run, when the front wasn't discovered well yet.
3) yes it is. this is a custom implementation i figured out myself. however i'm close to have the HypE algorithm working in the new version, which natively has got the possibility to articulate perference relations on sets of solutions.
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u might already noticed.
Second great thing is that is quite fast, precise and versatile (for this kind of things); also is way OPEN (meaning you can attach and or interface it with almost anything you can imagine, meaning hardware, and other sw components, etc (like a CNC machine (additive manufacturing toys..) or any sw like C# component)) making a GREAT HUGE difference with almost any other CAD (and CAM sw i must say)
i made a simple fully functional CAM component - highly powerful ! - in a couple of days...
also tested an arduino interface (meaning control over almost any elctronic device out there)... in a matter of hours...
and saw and can easily think about lots and lots of extremely cool usages of this great tool in almost any area ...
So that's why i would suggest - and will do something about for - it (or similar tools) to be teached at first stages of education !
But power comes with responsability. and is far better exploited when your are smart ;)
I think people that uses GH will be n-times as good when they don`t forget manufacturing.
This includes teachers btw....
Interesting thing to account is that all things that GH is great at (a LOT) means reducing dramatically the time spent to model almost anything...
But usually the purpose (unless the objective is just learning or doing some kind of virtual art (both legal stuff btw...;) but guess it might not be your case now and after graduating..)) is to end up by actually building some real 3D stuff...
So what Joseph is poining is key...
If you have a good teacher.. i guess it should pay more and more attention not just at your gh skills but rather the way in which you use the power, versatility and extra time gh (and additive manufacturing tech) saves, to think about how to design the stuff focusing on the ultimately relevant stuff...
optimisation...
So..
I would say that any heat interchanger like the one involved in your thesis, has to deal with fluids.. have to account for some sort of life span (involving cheaper an ideally no maintenance needed along its life...), and of course also critical the costs of manufacturing.
so... be the best one...
use GH smartly ! ie...
account for different profile paths for oil and water.. they're different fluids meaning they have different specific heat, viscosity, blah... and so... they might not even traverse the interchanger at same flow ratio, etc.
So... maybe you want to start by reshaping the grid... (parametrically...!) so you can arbitrarily and dynamically modify and get to see interactively in your definition the areas ratio of sections so as to finaly get to set the "ideal" (meainng optimum) relative areas (sections) ratio of oil to water paths... (or whatever other fluids could be !), and the material also...
Secondly you might also consider that triangles might not be well suited for the conduit sections because are not the best shape to carry most fluids... (hoses are of circular sections...worst case are kinda rectangular with rounded corners..;) not only because the're easy to manufacture but also because they minimise (optimize) flowing energy losses AND are less prone to (ie salt or debree deposits in the interior) ). so think about rounded shapes, of if you want some regular polygons stuff but 5 or more faces...kinda circular...got it ?
I love bees by the way..
and if you happen to need more interchange area (obviously another (and probably the #1 key one) figure you should be displaying interactively in your definition ) you can always add some more extrusion length...
third... the twisting stuff is cool... (artistically ;)) but i 100% agree with Joseph is far likely to involve higer costs for manufacturing with no clear benefit on surface maximization... and most probably some other losses in added friction to the flow of fluids (meaning higher costs for pumping, etc...)...
fourth...
consider the area, (then the volume!) of the "building material"... you should optimise that too ! so this could be another one of your interactive displays...
in this case... you not only can see optimisation by reducing the amount of materials to build your interchanger...
but you can also notice that if the "building tech" involves the well and common additive manufacturing process of extrusion deposits... that surface area, and that extrusion length, meaning volume and cost of raw material, also mean TIME to manufacture... and i guess you teacher will find good for you to consider and mention that one too...
fifth...
finally (for now hehe), and globally most important in the short term :)
if the objective of yor teacher is for you just to learn GH and impress him and the rest of the world then, ok, do the twist the swirl and imagine all kind of sea star and or ondulated conduit sections (maybe some recursive forms (fractals...) like snowflakes... or any n-arms (mutant !) starfishes shapes) but make sure you first get to know and validate what it will be the objectives of your evaluator...
.. in the near end this is all about passing your thesis while learning GH while having fun.. isn't it ?
go for it and best of luck !
ps: for the mid and long term.. some day take a look at linear optimisaton if you already didn't.
i think GH is a great tool to try out some linear optimisation stuff directly linking geometry related figures (areas, volumes...) along with costs figures !...
I haven't seen anything like that yet (but since i'm only a few months old in gh, i think is likely to already be something or this stuff out there. )
If not... well you can always be the first !
(and this particular case of your thesis is a great example (few key variables) to try out "automatic optimisation")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplex_algorithm
that... by the way...has lots to do with spatial geometry...
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