can work in any node of a given hierarchy tree (loaded in your work session) by making the node "active". "Nodes" can be other things as well (like workplane, clip definitions etc).
Why to do that weird thing? Well, think any design being "flat" > meaning that all objects are placed in a single file (and in a single layer). Not that good > although the items are present you barely can handle them (because power is nothing without control, he he).
Let's go one step further: we can start classifying objects in "groups" (like a directories/files organization in any O/S). This means, in MCAD speak, creating assemblies (a void thing kinda like a directory) that contain components/entities (kinda like files).
Several steps further we end up with severely nested "arrangements" of entities (an assembly could be parent of something and child of something else).
For instance, it could be rather obvious the logical classification of a "geodetic" (so to speak) structure like this : a 40000m2 "hangar" defining some thematic park.
I mean : a void master that owns 4 equal void segment sets that own 4 "legs" that own various geodesic structural members + cables + membranes + you name it etc etc.
Each "leg" owns the concrete base (Shared) and a rather complex set of objects.
Notice that some tensile membrane "fixture" combos (see above)...act as perimeter light fixtures as well...meaning that the membrane tension plate may could be a child of a void "light" parent...or may could be a "stand alone" assembly etc etc.
These arrangements can be internal (belonging in, say, a x node within the current active file) or external (belonging in a y node within another file). If they deal with the same (topologically speaking) object they define clusters of Shared entities (or variations)- where only the view transformation matrix changes (in the simple scenario, he he). For instance the disk shown above is a Shared Assembly that owns the bolts, the plates, the tension member etc etc. Selective Instancing allows modifying some attributes without affecting the topology (i.e. the geometry).
The whole (terrible) mess is controlled by some tree like "dialog" (in Catia is "transparent") that is called Structure Browser. By controlled I mean (1) display/display mode with regard any tree member combo/selection set (assembly and/or component) in any View (2) clip state control (3) active status (for modifications/variations) (4) workplane control (5) drag and drop ownership control (6) ....
Now...what if I would chan…
he plug-in supports intuitive design of paneling concepts as well as rationalize complex geometry into a format suitable for analysis and fabrication. The plug-in is closely integrated with Rhino 7 and is widely used for architectural and other building designers.
Download
The new PanelingTools for the new Rhino 7.2 is now available. You can access Rhino 7 evaluation and upgrades from here…
Documentation
For documentation and examples, please check:
PanelingTools Manual for detailed description of commands and options.
PanelingTools for Grasshopper Manual includes tutorials and description of PT-GH components.
Paneling Scripting page has a listing of paneling methods for RhinoScript.
Paneling Tutorials page has links to video tutorials.
Paneling Short Clips page has short video tutorials that covers the core functionality of PanelingTools.
Paneling Gallery page has users projects with PanelingTools.
Videos
**NEW** PanelingTools Webinar Course - December 2014 learn how Paneling tools works and how best to integrate it into your design process.
Paneling Tools Webinar - February 11, 2011
Paneling Tools Webinar on Vimeo
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Source: McNeel Wiki
Keshia C. Stich
Grid Paneling Group
…
ake a network of lines (i.e. a graph) and make a Plankton Mesh, from which you can use Cytoskeleton to make a solid mesh (and then smooth it with Weaverbird).
Works with ngons (polygons with 3 or more sides). Other examples I found only worked with tris and quads.
Works on open or closed surfaces
While these examples start with a surface, you could start with a network of lines and make a patch surface
This is meant for 2D networks/surfaces. I haven't attempted filling a 3D volume. My guess is this wouldn't work as it would require a non-manifold mesh that Plankton wouldn't handle.
Note similar results could be achieved with the following:
TSplines
MeshDual (dual of a tri mesh, not as much freedom/control)
Working backwards, here is the GhPython script from Will Pearson that builds a Plankton Mesh from vertices and faces. The vertices are a list of 3D coordinates, the faces are a tree a lists, with each list containing the indices of vertices that form a closed loop. From Will, "Plankton only handles manifold meshes, i.e. meshes which have a front and a back. This orientation is determined by the "right-hand rule" i.e. if the vertices of a face are ordered counter-clockwise then the face normal will be out of the page/screen."
# V: list of Point3d # F: tree of int
import Grasshopper appdata = Grasshopper.Folders.DefaultAssemblyFolder
import clr clr.AddReferenceToFileAndPath(appdata + "Plankton.dll")
import Plankton
pmesh = Plankton.PlanktonMesh()
for pt in V: pmesh.Vertices.Add(pt.X, pt.Y, pt.Z)
for face in F.Branches: face = list(face)[:-1] pmesh.Faces.AddFace(face)
These vertices and faces are precisely the output from Starling. Starling takes in a list of Polylines which form the (properly oriented) face loops.
The polyline face loops can be generated...
Directly from Panels on a surface using LunchBox
Using any network of lines/curves on a surface (curves will need to be converted to polylines before Starling)
The latter was achieved using the Surface Split command, then converting the face edges (converted to curves) into polyline loops to represent faces.
…
). It deals with the potential possibility to port GH into AEC fields (real-life AEC fields, nothing to do with academic thinking). The bad news are that the smart AEC sector is occupied solely by Bentley/GenComp – expect soon Revit/Dynamo as well (not to mention CATIA). The good news are that there’s millions of designers/engineers/industrial designers out there who could be interested for a 3rd alternative.
Intro: Well, in the old days (when men had mustache and muttonchops) AEC design performed in a nice top-to-bottom sequence (kinda like a vector) : the Big Man (aka The Brain) did some sketches (with crayons) and the rest (known as the “others”) struggled to make The Idea a reality. Today things are different, mind. Or they should be different. Or may be different. Or whatever. The big easy:For a zillion o reasons (AEC matures, PLM, cost, outsourcing, sustainable engineering…add several more) this vector like process of the past is like a Brown motion these days: Right down the moment that you (or your team) “sketch” The Big Idea … another team design simultaneously (i.e. in parallel) the components (parts) that compose the whole. This is the so called bottom-to-top design mentality. So the whole and the parts meet in some "middle point" instead the later being dictated by the former. In quite a few occasions parts dictate the whole (cost, cost and cost being the main reasons). The more a design is contemporary the more this bottom-to-top thing plays a critical role. Ignore it and have a very big time (sooner or later).The bad news:If you accept the above…well GH – at present phase - is not ready for contemporary AEC work. At.All.3 Main reasons for that:1.You can’t use parametric parts (i.e. nested blocks to speak Rhino language) into a given definition (in this case attached : truss nodes, connection flanges, mount plates, cable tensioners, planar glazing components, roof skin components…etc etc). This is obviously a Rhino domain.2.You can’t bake a given solution in such a way that the Rhino file is structured (i.e. assemblies of nested blocks). Or you can do it theoretically writing some VB/C code – but the core of the matter is that corresponding components are MIA. That means that you can’t export anything useful actually into established AEC oriented apps and/or established MCAD apps (for doing/calculating the parts for real-life production).3.The GH process can’t being interrupted. Imagine defining, say, a building “envelope” in GH and then …er…use Evolute tools in order to optimize things (say quad planarization and the likes). Then …continue in GH for more detailed work. Then design the parts as in 1 above. Then back to Evolute. Then back to GH.So…if anyone is interested I would be glad to start the mother of all debates and/or some kind of crusade (GH for President, that is).PS: This definition is a WIP thing – more refined stuff to follow (in particular a complex canopy tubes pre-stress system).
PS: Tree8 components are used sporadically.
PS: Use Saved Views
May the Dark Force be with us.Best, Peter …
e 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.
I get that. That’s why that 3D shape I’m trying to apply the voronoi to was done in NX. I do wonder where the GUI metaphor GH uses comes from. It reminds me of LabVIEW.
"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.
It’s not the primary components that catalyzed this thought but rather the secondary components. I was toying with a component today (twist from jackalope) that made use of three toggle components. The things they controlled are checkboxes in other apps.
Take a look at this jpg. Ignore differences; I did 'em quickly. GH required 19 components to do what SW did with 4 commands. Note the difference in screen real estate.
As an aside, I really hate SolidWorks (SW). But going forward, I’ll use it as an example because it’s what most people are familiar with.
"[...] 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.
I agree, and disagree. I believe parametric applies equally to GH AND SW, NX, and so forth, while algorithmic is unique to GH (and GC and Dynamo I think). Thus I understand why you prefer the term. I too tend to not like referring to GH as a parametric modeler for the same reason.
But I think it oversimplifies it to say parametric modelers move the clicks. SW tracks clicks the same way GH does; GH holds that information in geometry components while SW holds it in a feature in the feature tree. In both GH and SW edits to the base geometry will drive a recalculation, but more commonly, it’s an edit to input data, beit equations or just plain numbers, that drive a recalculation.
I understand the difference in these programs. What brought me to GH is that it can create a visual dialog that standard modelers can’t. But as I've grown more comfortable with it I’ve come to realize that the GUI of GH and the GUI of other parametric modelers, while looking completely different, are surprisingly interchangeable. Do not misconstrue that I’m suggesting that GH should replace it’s GUI with SW’s. I’m not. I refrain from suggesting anything specific. I only suggest that you allow yourself to think radically.
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'.
Given a choice, I'd pick kick-ass algorithmic modeller with no parametrics tacked on.
2. 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.
I'll admit, this is a bit tough to explain. As I've re-read my own comment, I think it was partly a precursor to the context sensitivity point and touched upon other stated points.
This now touches upon my own ignorance about GH’s target market. Are you moving toward a highly specialized tool for programmers and/or mathematicians, or is the intent to create a tool that most designers can master? If it’s the former, rock on. You’re doing great. If it’s the latter, I’m one of the more technically sophisticated designers I know and I’m lost most of the time when using GH.
GH allows the same freedom as a command line editor. You can do whatever you like, and it’ll work or not. And you won’t know why it works or doesn't until you start becoming a bit of an expert and can actually decipher the gibberish in a panel component. I often feel GH has the ease of use of DOS with a badass video card in front.
Please indulge my bit of storytelling. Early 3D modelers, CATIA, Unigraphics, and Pro-Engineer, were unbelievably difficult to use. Yet no one ever complained. The pain of entry was immense. But once you made it past the pain threshold, the salary you could command was very well worth it. And the fewer the people who knew how to use it, the more money you could demand. So in a sense, their lack of usability was a desirable feature among those who’d figured it out.
Then SolidWorks came along. It could only do a fraction of what the others did, but it was a fraction of the cost, it did most of what you needed, and anyone could figure it out. There was even a manual on how to use it. (Craziness!) Within a few short years, the big three all had to change their names (V5, NX, and Wildfire (now Creo)) and change the way they do things. All are now significantly easier to use.
I can tell that the amount of development time that’s gone into GH is immense and I believe the functionality is genius. I also believe it’s ease of use could be greatly improved.
Having re-read my original comments, I think it sounded a bit snotty. For that I apologize.
3. 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 [...] 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.
You bring up both interesting points and limits to my understanding of coding. I’ve reached the point in my learning of GH where I’m just getting into figuring out the sets tab (and so far I’m not doing too well). I often find myself wondering “Is all of this manual conditioning of the data really necessary? Doesn’t most software perform this kind of stuff invisibly?” I’d love to be right and see it go away, but I could easily be wrong. I’ve been wrong before.
5. 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.
I kinda like this. It’s a continuation of what you’re currently doing with things like the panel component.
"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.
6. 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.
You work for McNeel yet you seem to speak of them as a separate entity. Is this to say that there are technical reasons GH can only access things through the Rhino SDK? I’d think you would have complete access to all Rhino API’s. I hope it’s not a fiefdom issue, but it happens.
7. 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.
It begs the question that I have to ask. When is GH1.0 scheduled to launch? And if you need another person to proofread the current draft of new primer.
patrick@girgen.com
I can’t believe wikipedia has an entry for feature creep. And I can’t believe you included it. It made me giggle. Thanks.
8. 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.
I believe it’s been helpful for me to have figured this out. I recently completed a GH course at a local Community College and have done a bunch of online tutorials. The first real project I decided to tackle has turned out to be one of the more difficult things to try. It’s the source of the questions I posted. (Thanks for pointing out that they were posted in the wrong spot. I re-posted to the discussions board.)
I just can't seem to figure out how to turn the voronoi into legitimate geometry. I've seen this exact question posted a few times, but it’s never been successfully answered. What I'm showing here is far more angular than I’m hoping for. The mesh is too fine for weaverbird to have much of an effect. And I haven't cracked re-meshing. Btw, in product design, meshes are to be avoided like the plague. Embracing them remains difficult.
As for offsetsurf, in Rhino, if you do an offsetsurf to a solid body, it executes it on all sides creating another neatly trimmed body thats either larger or smaller than the original. This is how every other app I know of works. GH’s offsetsurf creates a bunch of unjoined faces spaced away from the original brep. A common technique for 3D voronois (Yes, I hit the voronoi overuse easter egg) is to find the center of each cell and scale them by this center. If you think about it, this creates a different distance from the face of the scaled cell to the face of the original cell for every face. As I've mentioned, this project is giving me serious headaches.
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.
--
David Rutten
Thank you for taking the time to reply David. Often we feel that posting such things is send it into the empty ether. I’m very glad that this was not the case.
And thank you for all of the work you've put into GH. If you found any of my input overly harsh or ill-mannered, I apologise. It was not my intent. I'm generally not the ranting sort. If I hadn't intended to provide possibly useful input, I wouldn't have written.
Cheers
Patrick Girgen
Ps. Any pointers on how to get a bit further on the above project would be greatly appreciated.
…
tly light vehicles such as bicycles and variations thereof. Although frame design is mostly of a structural nature, there are a number of elements that interact mechanically. Also, as you may be aware, bicycle and high grade tubing is not of constant section so shelling method in FEA is out of the question, but even so, because the joint needs to be modeled very accurately, that means different geometry and properties for welded area, heat affected area and base material; like so a simpler FEA package may not suffice.
I don't know karamba extensively, rather superficially, actually, but I'm under the impression it mostly deals with beam analysis. Pls correct me if I am under the wrong impression. I must say it would be very nice to have a complete FEA package inside GH really!!
Typical workflow for me would be to model everything in Solidworks, and then export to Ansys Mechanical. Although Ansys needs to read every input and naturally remesh back again, integration within Solidworks, Catia, Inventor, Creo, Solidthinking... and the sort, works reasonably well.
Now, I don't remember Ansys having a Rhinoceros plugin so that you could bridge the 2 together, but maybe I should go check again.
3) Great work with that fractal tree. It's nice to know it is a possibility at least. I have tried Apophysis and others, but to my knowledge there's not an application that could deliver 3D fractal designs in a way that you could further manipulate with conventional modelling techniques, maybe apply textures and render, or export to CAM, 3D printing... etc.
P.S.: I have tried all the apps mentioned above and then some more. All of them have serious limitations when it comes to parametric design. For complex models they crash plenty upon rebuilding... a number of time consuming errors appear, and general work flow isn't very efficient for purely parametric work. Speaking for myself, I'd rather spend the time on a definition that enables me to have full control and then generate a new result within seconds, than model everything very quickly and then taking a long time with each new result.
(Thanks for the replies and sorry for the long text, you asked to elaborate).…
sion app (Modo, Z Brush etc) in order to get "as equal" as possible mesh faces.
For instance ... see a W depth truss (tri mesh > meaning that the "out" grid is hexagons) out from a Kangaroo "inflated" mesh:
2. A space frame is NOT a collection of abstract lines ... meaning that clash members detection (via trigonometry and NOT by checking boolean intersections) is far more important than the "concept" it self. If "live" alterations are required for addressing local clash issues ... well ... that's 100% impossible with native components.
See a typical clash detection capability:
3. A truss without proper connectivity Data Trees means nothing in real-life (vertices to edges, vertex to vertex, edges to vertices).
4. Each "standard" truss member (say: sleeves, cones and the likes) should be an instance definition placed in space according appropriate orienting planes. That way you may be able to handle thousands of components that in real-life participate in any truss of a certain size.
All the above are far easier to do with code (V4 is impossible with components).…
e chosen to dive into Grasshopper. I’m about 6 months in. If some of my comments are completely off, please take that to mean that a feature is too inaccessible to a newish user rather that it’s just missing, as I may have stated.
One of my primary pain points is this. Things that can be done in other programs are invariably easier in other programs. This is a big enough issue that I doubt there’s an easy solution that an armchair qb like myself can offer up.
The interface:
I’ve used a lot of 3D programs. I’ve never encountered one as difficult as grasshopper. 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. Yet PTC (Parametric Technology Corp.) has been doing parametric design software since 1985 and has a far cleaner and more intuitive interface. So does SolidWorks, Inventor, CATIA, NX, and a bunch of others.
In the early 2000's, when parametric design software was all the rage, McNeel stated quite strongly the Rhino would remain a direct modeler and would not become a parametric modeler. Trends come. Trends go. And the industry has been swinging back to direct modeling. So McNeel’s decision was probably ok. But I have to wonder if part of McNeel’s reluctance to incorporate some of the tried and proven ideas of other parametric packages doesn't have roots in their earlier declaration to not incorporate parametrics.
A Visual Programming Language:
I read a lot about the awesomeness and flexibility of Grasshopper being a visual programming language. Let’s be clear, this is DOS era speak. I believe GH should continue to have the ability to be extended and massaged with code, as most design programs do. But as long as this is front and center, GH will remain out of reach to the average designer.
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.
Sliders:
I hate sliders. I understand them, but I hate ‘em. I think they should be optional. Ya, I know I can r-click on the N of a component and set the integer. It’s a pain, and it gives no feedback. The “N” should turn into the number if set. AAAnd, sliders should be context sensitive. I like that the name of a slider changes when I plug it into something. But if I plug it into something that'll only accept a 1, a 2, or a 3, that slider should self set accordingly. I shouldn't be able to plug in a “50” and have everything after turn red.
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.
And this item I’m guessing on. I’m not yet good enough at GH to know if this may have adverse effects. Reverse, Flatten, Graft, etc.; could these be context sensitive? Could some of these items disappear if they are contextually inappropriate or gray out if they're unlikely?
Tighter integration with Rhino:
I'm not entirely certain what this would look like. Currently my work flow entails baking, making a few Rhino edits, and reinserting into GH. I question the whole baking thing, btw. Why isn't it just live geometry? That’s how other parametric apps work. Maybe add more Rhino functionality to GH. GH has no 3D offset. I have to bake, offsetserf, and reinsert the geometry. I’m currently looking at the “Geometry Cache” and “Geometry Pipeline” components to see if they help. But I haven't been able to figure it out. Which leads me to:
Update all of the documentation:
I'm guessing this is an in process thing and you're working toward rolling GH from 0.9.00075 to 1.0. GH was being updated nearly weekly earlier this year. Then it suddenly stopped. If we're talking weeks before a full release, so be it. But if we're looking at something longer, a documentation update would help a lot. Geometry Cache and Geometry Pipeline’s help still read “This is the autogenerated help topic for this object. Developers: override the HtmlHelp_Source() function in the base class to provide custom help.” This does not help. And the Grasshopper Primer 2nd Ed. was written for GH 0.60007.
Grasshopper is fundamentally a 2D program:
I know you'll disagree completely, but I'm sticking to this. How else could an omission like offsetsurf happen? Pretty much every 3D program in existence has this. I’m sure I can probably figure out how to deconstruct the breps, join the curves, loft, trim, and so forth. But does writing an algorithm to do what all other 3D programs do with a dialog box seem reasonable? I'm sure if you go command by command you'll find a ton on such things.
If you look at the vast majority of things done in GH, you'll note that they're mostly either flat or a fundamentally 2D pattern on a warped surface.
I've been working on a part that is a 3D voronoi trimmed to a 3D model. I've been trying to turn the trimmed voronoi into legitimate geometry for over a month without success.
http://www.grasshopper3d.com/profiles/blogs/question-voronoi-3d-continued
I’ve researched it enough to have found many others have had the exact same problem and have not solved it. It’s really not that conceptually difficult. But GH lacks the tools.
Make screen organization easier:
I have a touch of OCD, and I like my GH layout to flow neatly. Allow input/output nodes to be re-ordered. This will allow a reduction in crossed wires. Make the wire positions a bit more editable. I sometimes use a geometry component as a wire anchor to clean things up. Being able to grab a wire and pull it out of the way would be kinda nice.
I think GH has some awesome abilities. I also think accessing those abilities could be significantly easier.
~p…
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
rtitions." (http://wias-berlin.de/software/index.jsp?id=TetGen&lang=1)
To continue with my wrapping career, TetRhino (or Tetrino) is a .NET wrapper for the well-known and pretty amazing TetGen mesh tetrahedralization program. It provides one new GH component for discretizing or remeshing objects using TetGen. Basic tetrahedralization functionality is exposed with a few different output types that can be controlled. At the moment, the only control for tetrahedra sizes is the minimum ratio, which is controlled by a slider. This is hardcoded to always be above 1.0-1.1, as it is very easy to generate a LOT of data (and crash)...
The libs are divided again into different modules to allow flexibility and fun with or without Rhino and GH, so have fun. All 4 libs should be placed in a folder (maybe called 'tetgen') in your GH libraries folder. Remember to unblock.
Once again, the libs are provided as-is, with no guarantee of support for now, as I use them internally and do not intend to develop this into a shiny, polished plug-in. If there is enough interest, I can tidy up the code-base and upload it somewhere if someone more savvy than me wants to play.
TetgenGH.gha - Grasshopper assembly which adds the 'Tetrahedralize' component to Mesh -> Triangulation.
TetgenRC.dll - RhinoCommon interface to the Tetgen wrapper.
TetgenSharp.dll - dotNET wrapper for Tetgen.
TetgenWrapper.dll - Actual wrapper for Tetgen.
Obviously, credit where credit is due for this excellent and tiny piece of software:
"The development of TetGen is executed at the Weierstrass Institute for Applied Analysis and Stochastics in the research group of Numerical Mathematics and Scientific Computing." See http://wias-berlin.de/software/index.jsp?id=TetGen&lang=1 for more details about TetGen.
To wrap up, some notes about the inputs:
These are the possible integer Flags (F) values and resultant outputs for the GH component:
0 - Output M yields a closed boundary mesh. Useful for simply remeshing your input mesh.
1 - Output M yields a list of tetra meshes.
2 - Output I yields a DataTree of tetra indices, grouped in lists of 4. Output P yields a list of points to which the tetra indices correspond.
3 - Output I yields a DataTree of edge indices, grouped in lists of 2. Output P yields a list of points to which the edge indices correspond. Useful for lots of things, very easy to create lines from this to plug into K2 or something for some ropey FEA (or not so ropey!) ;)
As this component can potentially create a LOT of data, especially with dense meshes, care should be taken with the MinRatio (R) input. This will try to constrain the tetra to be more or less elongated, which also means that the lower this value gets, the more tetra need to be added to satisfy this constraint. Start with very high values and lower them until satisfactory.
Hopefully shouldn't be an issue, but it's possible that you need the 2015 Microsoft C++ Redistributable.
Happy tetrahedralizing...
UPDATE: The tetgen.zip has been updated with some fixes.
UPDATE2: This is now available on Food4Rhino: http://www.food4rhino.com/app/tetrino
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Added by Tom Svilans at 1:27am on October 24, 2017