ahams's question about how shades are accounted for in the simulation/thermal map and Theodore's thought that just accounting for shades in the E+ run was sufficient. I think that it may be clearest to explain what is going on with this infographic:
As the graphic shows, the thermal maps are made from 4 key types of inputs. The radiant temperature map is formed through a consideration of both the temperature of the surfaces surrounding the occupants and the direct solar radiation that might fall onto the occupants through un-shaded windows. The first surface temperature effect is easily computable from your Energy simulation results and the HBZone geometry. However, the second is calculated by seeing how sun vectors pass through the windows of the zones and uses the SolarCal method of the CBE team (http://escholarship.org/uc/item/89m1h2dg) to compute an MRT delta resulting from solar radiation. This delta is then added to the initial values computed through surface temperature view factor. When you do not connect up your shading brep geometry, internal furniture breps, or outdoor context geometry that might block sun to the additionalShading input, the thermal map will assume that sun can pass unobstructed through the window or through indoor furniture to fall onto occupants. It is important to stress that the EnergyPlus simulation does not count for blind geometry or internal furniture as actual geometry. Just as numerical abstractions of surface area and material properties. So we need you to plug in the actual geometry of these things when we compute the MRT delta resulting from sun falling directly onto people.
Next, to clear up the definition of window transmissivity. The important thing to clarify here is that, whether it refers to the tranmittance of glass or to the amount of sun coming through a fine screen of blinds, the value is multiplied by the radiation falling on the occupant and thus has a direct correlation to the MRT Delta from sun falling on occupants. So, if you set transmissivity to zero, the sun falling on the occupants will not be considered in the calculation and, if you set the transmissivity to 1, the assumption is that there is no window (or the window glass is 100% clear). So, Abraham, your definition of it as a coefficient is appropriate.
Normally, I would just recommend that you leave this value at the default 0.7, which corresponds to the transmittance of the default glass material in Honeybee. However, there are 4 cases in which you might consider changing it:
1) You are not using the default Honeybee glazing material, in which case, you should change the transmissivity to be equal to this new value.
2) You have a lot of really small blind/shade geometries and you do not want the view factor component to take several minutes to trace sun vectors through the detailed shade geometry and so you are ok with using just a simple abstraction instead of plugging shade breps into the additionaShading. In this case, you might try to estimate the average percentage of radiation coming through the blind geometry (maybe with some simple Ladybug radiation studies or with your intuition about the amount of sun blocked by the shades). You will then multiply this by the tranmissivity of your glass and this will be the value that you input to the component.
3) Your blinds for your Honeybee simulation are dynamic, in which case, plugging shade breps into additionalShading is not going to work because the component will assume that those shades are always there. In this case, you should be plugging a list of 8760 values into the transmissivity that correspond to when the shades are pulled. When the blinds are completely up, the value should be the tranmittance of your window and, when they are down, the value should be the window tranmittance multiplied by the fraction of light coming through the shades.
4) You have shades/blinds but they are transparent or are not completely opaque. The additionalShading_ input assumes that all shade geometry is opaque and so you cannot use it to account for such shades. Accordingly, you will need to account for it through the tranmissivity.
In the future, I may try to pull more information about blinds and glass properties off of the HBzones inside the view factor component but, for now and for the next few months, the above describes how it works.
Theodore, for curved geometry, I think that your safest bet is going to be planarizing the Rhino geometry before you turn it into a HBZone (so you just divide the curved surface into a few vertical planar panes of glass that approximate the curve well enough). This is essentially what the runSimulation component does for you automatically (it meshes the geometry as you see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMQ2Pau4q6c&index=12&list=PLruLh1AdY-SgW4uDtNSMLeiUmA8YXEHT_). If I were to figure out a way to incorporate shades in this automatic meshing workflow, your EnergyPlus simulation would take a very long time to run and I am not even sure if the result will be that accurate with the way E+ abstracts shades. So I don't think that it's really worth it over just planarizing the geometry yourself.
Lastly, I won't be able to figure out the problem with your current run Theodore, unless I get the GH file from you. Make sure that you are using all up-to-date components.
-Chris…
Because the Adaptive methodology is founded upon the notion that there are hundreds of social factors that influence comfort and that the best we can do to forecast comfort is to find variables with good correlations to these social factors (like outdoor temperature), the premise that these published Adaptive model holds regardless of cultural norms is dangerous. Notably, the founders of the adaptive model have stressed that this particular linear correlation that you cite comes from recent surveys of buildings where people have both the the ability to open windows AND a great freedom to dress down. Hypothetically, if occupants were able to open the windows in Abraham's building but the cultural norm was that everyone was expected to wear multi-layered suits or dresses (as in historic Britain), a different correlation between outdoor temperature and comfort temperature would exist. In fact, historical European comfort surveys show that people likely preferred cooler temperatures in buildings (about 1-2C cooler) than today's occupants. Accordingly, after recognizing this social premise in the Adaptive model, I have built in a few ways to adjust/alter the version in Ladybug based on the literature I have read (even though these alterations are not a part of any official ASHRAE or European standard).
Abraham, you might have to be a bit more specific about how you would like to adjust the Adaptive comfort model for me to help your particular case and this may lead to me adding in new functionality. For the time being, I can tell you that the 'Ladybug_Adaptive Comfort Parameters' component is going to be your friend and I would recommend using the Adaptive Comfort Chart to visualize how you are changing the model. You can plug these 'Adaptive Comfort Parameters' into the 'Adaptive Comfort Recipe' component to have the microclimate analysis run with these parameters. Here are a few examples of how to alter the model:
1) Mixed-mode Building - Humphreys and the European Adaptive comfort team derived two separate correlations.
One for naturally ventilated buildings:
and conditioned buildings:
The dimensionless value between 0 and 1 for _levelOfConditioning allows you to create different correlations depending on whether occupants have complete freedom of dress and window operability (0) or have slight restrictions like in a mixed mode building (0.5, for example):
2) Changing Response Time of Occupants - There has been a bit of a debate in Literature about whether it is better to use the average monthly temperature or a weekly running mean temperature. The avgMonthORRunningMean input allows you to adjust this like so:
Average Month:
Running Mean:
3) Greater Temperature Range Tolerance - While this last one is actually a part of the European and Adaptive standards, you can adjust the range of the comfort band with either the 'eightyOrNintetyComf' input or the comfortClass input like so:
Ninety Percent Comfortable
Eighty Percent Comfortable
Abraham, let me know if you would like more controls over the model or if this is enough to do what you are thinking of. This example file allows you to construct the images I have above:
http://hydrashare.github.io/hydra/viewer?owner=chriswmackey&fork=hydra_2&id=Adaptive_Comfort_Chart&slide=0&scale=1&offset=0,0
-Chris…
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. …
nd the challenge "Building the Invisible: Informing Digital Design with Real World Data". Information about each Workshop Cluster can be found here:
Cyber GardensUse the ForceUrban FeedsSuspended DreamsInteracting with the CityAgent ConstructionAuthored SensingPerforming SkinsResponsive Acoustic SurfacingHybrid Space Structure Typologies
The SmartGeometry 2011 Workshop will take place at CITA http://cita.karch.dk/
Applications to attend the SmartGeometry 2011 Workshop in Copenhagen will close on 31st January 2011. General Conference registration will open within 1 month.
We hope to see you there!
****************************************************
Workshop 28th-31st March
Shop Talk 1 April
Symposium 2 April
Reception 2 April
These events follow the highly successful previous SG events in Barcelona 2010, San Francisco 2009, Munich 2008, New York 2007, Cambridge/London, UK 2006 and multiple preceding events.
Click here for more info...
This year's Challenge is entitled:BUILDING THE INVISIBLEInforming Digital Design with Real World Data
THE PREMISEVast streams of data offer a rich resource for designers. By incorporating external information into our design processes the autonomy of the design is challenged. User data, energy calculations, embedded sensing, material and structural simulation, human behaviour and perception, particle flows and force fields allows design to be situated and responsive. From the simulation of megacities to the solid modelling of material systems, design has the potential to be informed by the real. Design sits not separate from is environment but inhabits an ecological system, open, dynamic and interdependent, diverse, partially self-organising, adaptive, and fragile. Across scale and within time we now have the chance to instil architecture with an immanent intelligence creating new relationships between the user, the built and its ecosphere.THE OPPORTUNITYSystems theorists suggest that data is only a raw material. It can be differentiated from information, knowledge and wisdom. Understanding is multi-levelled: understanding of relations, understanding of patterns, understanding of principles. As digital designers our challenge is in harnessing the power of computation to assist us in informing our design process. Computers help us collect, manage and analyse the environment and inform us about an abundance of data. Our challenge is to use these inputs in a meaningful way to help us make better informed design decisions.THE AIMSG 2011 explores how the incorporation of real world data challenges existing design thinking. The SG 2011 workshop aim is to create physical prototypes of design systems to be exhibited in the SG2011 exhibition.
The SmartGeometry Group is a not-for-profit educational organization dedicated to the use of computational tools in architecture and engineering. SG brings professionals, academics, and industry together to explore the next generation of digital design. SG Workshops are non-platform specific, believing it is the methodology, not the tool, that matters.
…
Added by Shane Burger at 11:23am on January 6, 2011
looked at autodesk simulation cfd 2015 and was optimistic because it had an export plugin from revit, which i use anyway for material takeoffs and etc, but found that it did not take solar radiation into account. This was a downer because I have heard that solar radiation could effect indoor airflow - convection - as much as 50 percent at a time.
Then I searched again and found that Hyperworks, a software by altair technology can be coupled with a radiation software. So I went through the trouble of obtaining an educational license of Hyperworks. However, though some email exchange I have found that the coupling is a one-way. The radiation analysis software was used, I think, for understanding the solar loading for a SOM project called church of light.
The support guy said : "Unfortunately our coupling with Hyperworks is really a one way coupling. We can accept H coefficients from their software in RadTherm, but they will not read in our wall temps. That said, it still can be a useful coupling in the sense that you can run the analysis in Hyperworks, send H coefficients to RadTherm, and run the analysis to better understand radiation and conduction. Most importantly, that analysis can be done for longer transient analysis, but will require much less compute time and resources."
Not only did I not understand what he means by the H coefficients, my wanting to get a CFD understanding coupled with solar radiation was again, unsatisfied. In the mean while I had to finish a presentation so I haven't had the time to try to get some result on the natural ventilation. I would probably need to look into how their solutions work before I can understand if their software would "do the job"
Thank you for letting me know about your work on this. I downloaded the Honeybee_Set EP Natural Ventilation component and made sure that it is allowed, but it does not show up in grasshopper.
You pointed out that "The component (and the corresponding equation) is mostly meant for cases where you have zones with windows that are NOT connected by an air wall (or a larger airflow network)." I wondered if you are suggesting it would be a code violation for zones to be connected by an air wall for fire safety reasons. It would be a violation I guess, like not putting an fiber insulation or some kind of smoke stop between Spandrel panels and the edge of a floor plate would be a code violation for a typical office building.
There is a project by kevin daly architects where you can see a section drawing with what seems like a cfd analysis (could be an illustration)
it was my initial visualization/simulation goals were for a facade design I am working on
1) an average air velocity across a zone at noon, for example, if a passive design strategy like this was used. for this I am guessing cfd is not entirely necessary. probably means that it could be used earlier in a design process, too. This would be more about user comfort.
2) at a later phase, like in detailing facade components, if airflow is indeed as expected for a zone that is connected to an air wall / chimney like feature (and to see if there is a proper mixing of air)
3) and a projection of energy savings, of course.
After seeing a video of simulation cfd I was optimistic, but like I said sim cfd does not take account of solar loading. I think I would probably go ahead start with one zone with sim cfd first, try three zones stacked on top of each other, then try hyperworks and try to factor in solar radiation.
For analyzing multiple zones on different levels, being able to add a chimney would be especially useful, I think. Having said that, I don't have a lot of experience of using honeybee except for the daylight component so it would take some time for me to understand the components.
I hope some of the information here is useful for you. after all, both sim cfd and hyperworks are commercial softwares and somewhat different than the e plus project you are working on, I guess but still trying to address a similar problem.
so.. in cased you missed it I was asking I downloaded the Honeybee_Set EP Natural Ventilation component and made sure that it is allowed and placed in the user object foler, but it does not show up in grasshopper. what could be the reason?
…
whole design intent, but this is what Inventor is good at. The way it packages bits of 'scripted' components into 'little models' that can be stored and re-assembled is central to MCAD working.
The Inventor model shown is almost 5 years old. We don't model like that any more, however it does offer a good idea of general MCAD modeling approaches.
iParts is useful in certain situations, it could've been useful in the above model, its usefulness is often in function of the quantity of variants/configurations.
So much is scripted in GH, maybe it should also be possible to script/define/constrain/assist the placement/gluing of the results?
...
Starting point: I think we are talking across purposes. AFAIK, the solving sequence of GH's scripted components is fixed. It won't do circular dependencies... without a fight. The inter-component dependencies not 'managed' like constraints solvers do for MCAD apps.
Components and assemblies are individual files in MCAD.
Placement of these within assemblies in MCAD is a product of matrix transforms and persistent constraints. There is no bi-directional link, the link is unidirectional (downflow only), because of the use of proxies.
Consequently, scripting the placement of components is irrelevant in GH, unless you decide that each component needs to be contained in its own separate file.
This also brings up the point that generating components and assemblies in MCAD is not as straightforward. In iParts and iAssemblies, each configuration needs to be generated as a "child" (the individual file needs to be created for each child) before those children can be used elsewhere.
You notice the dilemma, if you generate 100 parts, and then you realize you only need 20, you've created 80 extra parts which you have no need for, thus generating wasteful data that may cause file management issues later on.
GH remains in a transient world, and when you decide to bake geometry (if you need to at all), you can do that in one Rhino file, and save it as the state of the design at that given moment. Very convenient for design, though unacceptable for most non-digital manufacturing methods, which greatly limits Rhino's use for manufacturing unless you combine it with an MCAD app.
One of the reasons why the distributed file approach makes perfect sense in MCAD, is that in industry you deal with a finite set of objects. Generative tools are usually not a requirement. Most mechanical engineers, product engineers and machinists would never have any use for that.
The other thing that MCAD apps like Inventor have, is the 'structured' interface that offers up all that setting out information like the coordinate systems, work planes, parameters etc in a concise fashion in the 'history tree'. This will translate into user speed. GH's canvas is a bit more freeform. I suppose the info is all there and linked, so a bit of re-jigging is easy. Also, see how T-Flex can even embed sliders and other parameter input boxes into the model itself. Pretty handy/fast to understand, which also means more speed.
True. As long as you keep the browser pane/specification tree organized and easy to query.
:)
Would love to understand what you did by sketching.
I'll start by showing what was done years ago in the Inventor model, and then share with you what I did in GH, but in another post.
Let's use one of the beams as an example:
We can isolate this component for clarity.
Notice that I've highlighted the sectional sketch with dimensions, and the point of reference, which is in relation to the CL of the column which the beam bears on. The orientation and location of the beam is already set by underlying geometry.
Here's a perspective view of the same:
The extent of the beam was also driven by reference geometry, 2 planes offset from the beam's XY plane, driven by parameters from another underlying file which serves as a parameter container:
Reference axes and points are present for all other components, here are some of them:
It starts getting cluttered if you see the reference planes as well:
Is I mentioned earlier, over time we've found better ways to define and associate geometry, parameters, manage design change, improving the efficiency of parametric models. But this model is a fair representation of a basic modeling approach, and since an Inventor-GH comparison is like comparing apples and oranges anyways, this model can be used to understand the differences and similarities, for those interested.
I haven't even gotten to your latest post yet, I will eventually.…
Added by Santiago Diaz at 10:36am on February 26, 2011
doing this with the current tools or a bit of scripting since the Flickr API allows you to make requests in a REST format, but utilizing the Flickr.net API library makes it much simpler.
First and foremost, you need a Flickr API key...do you have one of those?
A great way to get to know the Flickr API is with the API Explorer. Here is a link to the page for the flickr.photos.search method explorer: http://www.flickr.com/services/api/explore/flickr.photos.search
The cool thing about this page is that it generates the REST Http call towards the bottom. So, here is what I did:
1. Grab the coordinates of the bounding box per Flickr API request:
bbox (Optional)
A comma-delimited list of 4 values defining the Bounding Box of the area that will be searched. The 4 values represent the bottom-left corner of the box and the top-right corner, minimum_longitude, minimum_latitude, maximum_longitude, maximum_latitude. Longitude has a range of -180 to 180 , latitude of -90 to 90. Defaults to -180, -90, 180, 90 if not specified. Unlike standard photo queries, geo (or bounding box) queries will only return 250 results per page. Geo queries require some sort of limiting agent in order to prevent the database from crying. This is basically like the check against "parameterless searches" for queries without a geo component. A tag, for instance, is considered a limiting agent as are user defined min_date_taken and min_date_upload parameters — If no limiting factor is passed we return only photos added in the last 12 hours (though we may extend the limit in the future).
So, I went to Google Earth, picked a city (London, UK) and dropped two pins:
This gave me two locations, which I can put into the Explorer Page next to the bbox option. Here is what I put for these two points: -0.155941,51.496768,-0.116783,51.511431
2. Check has_geo
3. In extras, type in geo
4. Make the call!
You will see a list of responses in an XML format, these responses will be from the first page. Geolocated photos are limited to 250 / page, so you will have to grab them page by page.
If you want to add more options (minimum upload date, maximum upload date, etc) you can do this as well)
The best is at the bottom, you get the full http call for this: http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?method=flickr.photos.search&api_key=ffd44f601393a46e86aa3a5f8a013360&bbox=-0.155941%2C51.496768%2C-0.116783%2C51.511431&has_geo=&extras=geo&format=rest&api_sig=b42330e5d1523bd5fe60c2ad43acde99
Notice this call has some other api key, you should eventually replace this with your own.
You could copy and paste this into a browser and you will get the results with the latitude and longitude:
So this is really what you need to know to do this through GH. Since gHowl has an XML parser component that can access files on the web, you should be able to use the same http call into this component.
Eventually, we get a response, and we need to grab the lat and lon data. With gHowl we can map these to xyz coordinates, and generate the heatmap...this is just a linear mapping:
Attached are both the Rhino file and the Grasshopper file, as well as the image underlay.
I am working on a series of components that makes this more straightforward, but for now, this should get you started.
…
r." I'm sorry to hear that, I take the interface and ease-of-use rather seriously so this sounds like a fundamental failure on my part. On the other hand, Grasshopper isn't supposed to be on a par with most other 3D programs. It is emphatically not meant for manual/direct modelling. If you would normally tackle a problem by drawing geometry by hand, Grasshopper is not (and should never be advertised as) a good alternative."What in other programs is a dialog box, is 8 or 10 components strung together in grasshopper. The wisdom for this I often hear among the grasshopper community is that this allows for parametric design."Grasshopper ships with about 1000 components (rounded to the nearest power of ten). I'm adding more all the time, either because new functionality has been exposed in the Rhino SDK or because a certain component makes a lot of sense to a lot of people. Adding pre-canned components that do the same as '8 or 10 components strung together' for the heck of it will balloon the total number of components everyone has to deal with. If you find yourself using the same 8 to 10 components together all the time, then please mention it on this forum. A lot of the currently existing components have been added because someone asked for it."[...] has a far cleaner and more intuitive interface. So does SolidWorks, Inventor, CATIA, NX, and a bunch of others."Again, GH was not designed to be an alternative to these sort of modellers. I don't like referring to GH as 'parameteric' as that term has been co-opted by relational modellers. I prefer to use 'algorithmic' instead. The idea behind parameteric seems to be that one models by hand, but every click exists within a context, and when the context changes the software figures out where to move the click to. The idea behind algorithmic is that you don't model by hand.This is not to say there is no value in the parametric approach. Obviously it is a winning strategy and many people love to use it. We have considered adding some features to GH that would make manual modelling less of a chore and we would still very much like to do so. However this is such a large chunk of work that we have to be very careful about investing the time. Before I start down this road I want to make sure that the choice I'm making is not 'lame-ass algorithmic modeller with some lame-ass parametrics tacked on' vs. 'kick-ass algorithmic modeller with no parametrics tacked on'.
Visual Programming.I'm not exactly sure I understand your grievance here, but I suspect I agree. The visual part is front and centre at the moment and it should remain there. However we need to improve upon it and at the same time give programmers more tools to achieve what they want.
Context sensitivity."There is no reason a program in 2014 should allow me to make decisions that will not work. For example, if a component input is in all cases incompatible with another component's output, I shouldn't be able to connect them."Unfortunately it's not as simple as that. Whether or not a conversion between two data types makes sense is often dependent on the actual values. If you plug a list of curves into a Line component, none of them may be convertible. Should I therefore not allow this connection to be made? What if there is a single curve that could be converted to a line? What if you want to make the connection now, but only later plan to add some convertible curves to the data? What you made the connection back when it was valid, but now it's no longer valid, wouldn't it be weird if there was a connection you couldn't make again?I've started work on GH2 and one of the first things I'm writing now is the new data-conversion logic. The goal this time around is to not just try and convert type A into type B, but include information about what sort of conversion was needed (straightforward, exotic, far-fetched. etc.) and information regarding why that type was assigned.You are right that under some conditions, we can be sure that a conversion will always fail. For example connecting a Boolean output with a Curve input. But even there my preferred solution is to tell people why that doesn't make sense rather than not allowing it in the first place.
Sliders."I think they should be optional."They are optional."The “N” should turn into the number if set."What if you assign more than one integer? I think I'd rather see a component with inputs 'N', 'P' and 'X' rather than '5', '8' and '35.7', but I concede that is a personal preference."But if I plug it into something that'll only accept a 1, a 2, or a 3, that slider should self set accordingly."Agreed.
Components."Give components a little “+” or a drawer on the bottom or something that by clicking, opens the component into something akin to a dialog box. This should give access to all of the variables in the component. I shouldn't have to r-click on each thing on a component to do all of the settings."I was thinking of just zooming in on a component would eventually provide easier ways to access settings and data."Could some of these items disappear if they are contextually inappropriate or gray out if they're unlikely?"It's almost impossible for me to know whether these things are 'unlikely' in any given situation. There are probably some cases where a suggestion along the lines of "Hey, this component is about to run 40,524 times. It seems like it would make sense to Graft the 'P' input." would be useful.
Integration."Why isn't it just live geometry?"This is an unfortunate side-effect of the way the Rhino SDK was designed. Pumping all my geometry through the Rhino document would severely impact performance and memory usage. It also complicates the matter to an almost impossible degree as any command and plugin running in Rhino now has access to 'my' geometry."Maybe add more Rhino functionality to GH. GH has no 3D offset."That's the plan moving forward. A lot of algorithms in Rhino (Make2D, FilletEdge, Shelling, BlendSrf, the list goes on) are not available as part of the public SDK. The Rhino development team is going to try and rectify this for Rhino6 and beyond. As soon as these functions become available I'll start adding them to GH (provided they make sense of course).On the whole I agree that integration needs a lot of work, and it's work that has to happen on both sides of the isle.
Documentation.Absolutely. Development for GH1 has slowed because I'm now working on GH2. We decided that GH1 is 'feature complete', basically to avoid feature creep. GH2 is a ground-up rewrite so it will take a long time until something is ready for testing. During this time, minor additions and of course bug fixes will be available for GH1, but on a much lower frequency.Documentation is woefully inadequate at present. The primer is being updated (and the new version looks great), but for GH2 we're planning a completely new help system. People have been hired to provide the content. With a bit of luck and a lot of work this will be one of the main selling points of GH2.
2D-ness."I know you'll disagree completely, but I'm sticking to this. How else could an omission like offsetsurf happen?"I don't fully disagree. A lot of geometry is either flat or happens inside surfaces. The reason there's no shelling (I'm assuming that's what you meant, there are two Offset Surface components in GH) is because (a) it's a very new feature in Rhino and doesn't work too well yet and (b) as a result of that isn't available to plugins.
Organisation.Agreed. We need to come up with better ways to organise, document, version, share and simplify GH files. GH1 UI is ok for small projects (<100 components) but can't handle more complexity.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the feedback, I really do, but I want to be honest and open about my own plans and where they might conflict with your wishes. Grasshopper is being used far beyond the boundaries of what we expected and it's clear that there are major shortcomings that must be addressed before too long. We didn't get it right with the first version, I don't expect we'll get it completely right with the second version but if we can improve upon the -say- five biggest drawbacks (performance, documentation, organisation, plugin management and no mac version) I'll be a happy puppy.
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David Rutten
david@mcneel.com…
ger work.
Be aware, this release breaks file-forwards compatibility. You will not be able to open gh and ghx files saved with 0.8.0050 on previous versions, though of course you should be able to open old files without problems. If this is not the case, please yell loudly.
If you're having trouble loading Grasshopper, note that you must have the latest Microsoft C++ Runtimes installed on your machine. They can be downloaded from the microsoft website.
The new release can be downloaded from the usual location.
Here's a list of changes, additions and fixes since 0.8.0013:
File format forwards compatibility has been broken. You will not be able to open files saved with 0.8.0050 on earlier versions.
This release contains many breaking changes and GHA libraries compiled for older version may not work anymore.
Grasshopper Binary files (*.gh) are now saved as compressed data.
Grasshopper Binary files (*.gh) are now the default format.
Support for ancient versions of the Text Panel (still called Post-It from back then) has been removed.
Support for ancient versions of the Path Mapper (still called Path Lexer from back then) has been removed.
Placeholders for ancient versions of the Graph Mapper have been removed.
Gradient input parameters now show state tag icons (Reversed, Flatten etc.).
Geometry Cache name changes are now updated on every key press.
Geometry Cache name changes can now be cancelled with Escape.
Geometry Cache name changes can now be undone.
Mesh|Mesh intersection component now uses a different algorithm. The old behaviour is still available from the component menu.
Warning and Error balloons are now drawn as part of a Canvas Widget and will no longer show up in the Hi-Res image export.
Galapagos now accepts multiple fitness values. The true fitness will be the average of the collection.
Galapagos wires are drawn much fainter when the Galapagos object is unselected.
Medium fast redraw mode in Galapagos now immediately redraws instead of at the end of each generation.
Redesigned all Grasshopper file format icons and added larger size icons for high-dpi explorer views.
Redesigned the Most Recently Used files menu, it should now display much quicker.
Compass widget has been rewritten in an attempt to increase display performance.
Added preferences section for Compass widget.
Added preferences section for Align widget.
Added preferences section for Default Preview colours.
Added preferences section for Document Preview colours.
Added preferences section for the Most Recently Used files menu.
The Area component now accepts Breps, Meshes and Planar Closed Curves.
The Area Centroid component now accepts Breps, Meshes and Planar Closed Curves.
The Volume component now accepts Breps and Meshes.
The Volume Centroid component now accepts Breps and Meshes.
Added Merge Faces component (Surface.Util panel).
Added a Mesh Smooth component (Mesh.Util panel).
Added a Curve Seam component (Curve.Util panel).
Added Interpolate Curve With Tangents component (Curve.Spline dropdown).
Added GrasshopperFolders command to open Settings, Components and UserObject folders without loading the core plugin.
The window that reports on certain Loading Errors now has a Copy button.
Added Simplify post-process filter to parameters (in addition to Reverse, Flatten and Graft).
Parameter post processes (Reverse, Flatten, Graft & Simplify) can now also be assigned to output parameters.
Version History window now has formatting (not happy with this, I'm working on something better).
The Process Info window is gone.
Main menu has been redesigned.
Canvas toolbar has been redesigned.
Canvas context menu has been replaced by a Radial Menu.
Canvas now has a radial menu which will pop up on Middle Mouse Button clicks.
It's possible to switch between Radial and Legacy menus in the Preferences (Interface.Canvas section).
'Save As Copy' feature has been replaced by 'Save Backup' which is a GUI-less save including date+time stamp.
Added a 'Show in Folder' item to the File menu.
AutoSave settings are no longer available from the File menu, you now need to use the Preferences.
Selection shifts now also modify the view so you can use Ctrl+Left and Ctrl+Right to navigate up and downstream.
Mesh Edge display can now be toggled with Ctrl+M.
Preview modes now have shortcuts (Ctrl+1 = no preview, Ctrl+2 = wireframe, Ctrl+3 = shaded).
Solution States now have a default name.
Data Viewer window now responds to all required events.
Data Viewer window can now handle input and output parameters as well.
Canvas Navigation pane can now be dragged using the icon in the upper left corner.
The Persistent Data Editor has been redesigned.
It's now possible to select multiple items in the Persistent Data Editor list and edit their properties.
It's now possible to drag multiple items at the same time in the Persistent Data Editor list.
Item addition to the Persistent Data Editor is much improved.
The Persistent Data Editor is now non-modal.
The Canvas would remain black upon maximizing the Rhino window, this is fixed.
Sliders would cause multiple updates under certain conditions, this is fixed.
Digit Scrollers would cause multiple updates under certain conditions, this is fixed.
Pipes were inside out. This is fixed.
The curve component would not adjust invalid nurbs degrees, this is fixed.
Curves referencing Brep edges failed to load, this is fixed.
Points referencing Brep edges failed to load, this is fixed.
Referenced dlls in the VB/C# components sometimes resulted in invalid imports statements, this is fixed.
Pasting geometry in Rhino would cause a recompute of the Grasshopper solution, this is fixed.
Importing a file into the Rhino document would cause a recompute of the Grasshopper solution, this is fixed.
Galapagos would trigger superfluous solutions, this is fixed.
Mesh Solid Difference had a wrong name and description, this is fixed.
Several menu items were not greyed out despite not being usable, this is fixed.
The position and size of the Grasshopper window failed to get stored on Rhino shutdown, this is fixed.
The Persistent Data Editor would crash on parameters that did not support data proxies, this is fixed.
I'll add some additional information regarding some of the new UI features in subsequent posts.
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David Rutten
david@mcneel.com
Poprad, Slovakia…