make quad mesh usable with Kangaroo and with limited inputs parameters in order to simulate funicular structures like "Vaulted Willow" or "Pleated Inflation" from Marc Fornes and the Verymany.
Here is a first attempt script.
As inputs there are :
Lines_in, just lines, no duplicates, on XY plane could have Z values, but the algorithm works on a , on XY plane could have Z values, but the algorithm works on a flat representation.
Tolerance is used to glue lines when points are closer than tolerance
Width is the half width of the “roads” going through the network
Angle is the shape of the ends of the roads, 0° means flat end, 180° a totally rounded end
Deviation is the shift generating spikes or enabling to generate pleated geometry
N_u is the number of subdivision along the “roads”, image above with 3 subdivisions on the roads
N_u is the number of subdivision across the “roads”
Zbool if false everything is flat, if true the mesh is in 3d, best with angle = 180° or -180°
For the outputs there is the topology of the network (like Sandbox)
As outputs geometry are put on datatree, each branch represent a path on the road, above 3 paths, which are brep output.
Adding a diagonal there are now 4 paths so 4 branches
The mesh M goes with F which are fixed points, anchor in Kangaroo.
U and V are lines in datatree, there will be used as spring in Kangaroo, U above
This script could be used to draw sort of roads, like in here https://codequotidien.wordpress.com/2013/03/22/hemfunction/
But the primary purpose is to do that.
…
hat aren’t completely there. BIM will have to continue to evolve some more if their supporters want to get to realize the promise that still is. I can’t say much about PLM, but I would say that both BIM and PLM should be considered in future developments of GH and Rhino. David has said several times that some GH limitations regarding geometry and data structures (central to interoperability) are actually Rhino limitations. So, I wouldn’t put so much pressure on David for this, or at least I would distribute the pressure also on the core Rhino development team.
Talking about Rhino vs. GH geometry, there is one (1) wish I have: support for extrusion geometry. GH already inputs extrusion elements from Rhino, but they are converted to breps. Is not a bad thing per se. The problem is when you need to bake several breps that make the Rhino file to weight several hundred MB. When these breps are actually prismatic, extrusion-like solids, is a shame that they aren’t stored as Rhino V5’s extrusion geometry in a file of just a couple of MB (I overcame this once with an inelegant RhinoScript that wasn’t good for other people). This was one of RhinoBIM’s main arguments. We can develop a structural model made of I-beams in GH using the Extrude components. We should be able to bake them as extrusions. That would also work for urban models with thousands of prismatic massing buildings (e.g. extruded footprints). Even GH’s boxes are baked as breps! Baking boxes as extrusions could be practical for voxelated or Minecraft-like models.
(2) Collaborative network support. Maybe with worksession handling, or something that aloud project team members to work on a single definition or in external references or something alike. I know there is another Rhino limitation on this, but maybe clusters are already going in that direction?
And maybe on the plug-ins domain:
(3) Remote control panel that could be really “remote”, like from other computer or device. There is an old Android App for that, but is not only a matter of updating. I mean, it would be great to control a slider with the accelerometer of an Android phone, but to have that on an iPhone will require another development team. If GH could support networks, a remote counterpart of a RCP plug-in could be developed as a cross-platform web app. I don’t know if you can access accelerometer functionality through HTML5 already, but for now, asking a client (or an spectator or any stakeholder for that matter) to control your sliders from gestures of his/her own phone would be awesome (maybe Firefly will fill that hole?).
(4) GIS support. GH already imports .shp files. Meerkat can even access the database, but what about writing to shapefiles or generating our own with databases processed/generated in GH?
(5) SketchUp support. Not only starchitects and corporations are using GH in the AEC. There are a lot of small firms, freelancers and students interested. Most of them use SketchUp for 3D modeling (not CATIA, neither Revit). Yes, you can import/export .skp from Rhino, but if GH could support nested block at bake time (also mentioned by others), it could write .skp files with complex relations of blocks (that are called components in SketchUp) and nested groups, going beyond what Rhino can export.
(6) Read/Write other formats. There are some challenges with proprietary formats that are not completely supported by Rhino, but they’re still a lot of open formats that are relevant to the fields of GH users, like stl and ply for 3D-printing. It could be nice to write mesh colors to a ply for 3D-printing a colored prototype based on GH colors. There are others, like IGES, STEP, COLLADA, etc. and 2D, like svg, odg and pdf. Some of them could offer special formatting options like custom data that the format supports but nobody uses just because is impractical to access this from direct modeling environments (but not from visual programming).
--Ernesto…
de modelación en 3D y aprovechen las ventajas que plantean, como mejorar su proceso de diseño y explorar múltiples alternativas para un proyecto en lapsos de tiempo muy reducidos en comparación de los métodos tradicionales.
En consecuencia, los alumnos tendrán la posibilidad de disminuir sus tiempos de trabajo, con resultados iguales o incluso mejores a los que obtenían con anterioridad; mejorar la calidad de sus presentaciones y, lo que es más importante, ampliar la fundamentación de sus proyectos en el aspecto funcional y formal, dependiendo de las características del proyecto.
Para lograr estos objetivos, se contemplan dos temarios y un ejercicio práctico.
Al finalizar el curso, los asistentes serán capaces de manejar Rhinoceros y Grasshopper en un nivel medio, con el objetivo que el alumno pueda continuar aprendiendo con alguno de nuestros siguientes workshops o de manera autodidacta.
Además del contenido teórico se incluye un ejercicio práctico, la magnitud del ejercicio y el material que se le destine se definirán con base en el número de asistentes.
El workshop tiene una duración de cinco sesiones:
Sesión 1 – Temario de Rhinoceros
Sesión 2 y 3 – Temario de Grasshopper
Sesión 4 y 5 – Ejercicio práctico
El horario es de 9 am a 4 pm, con una hora de receso para tomar un refrigerio.
No es necesario traer el equipo necesario para trabajar, se cuenta con un equipo para cada persona asi como el material de trabajo para el ejercicio práctico, por lo cual se les recomienda que no traigan portátiles u otro material, únicamente dispositivos de almacenamiento si desean guardar sus trabajos.
El costo del evento es de $3,500 estudiantes y $4,000 profesionales.
(Para poder tener el descuento de estudiante es necesaria una constancia de la universidad de la que proviene, acreditando que el interesado está cursando algún semestre de la carrera. Personas graduadas que estén cursando una maestría o algún grado superior no reciben el descuento).
Para apartar su lugar pueden realizar un depósito de $1,500 y terminar de efectuar el pago antes del 15 de abril si es mediante un depósito bancario o el primer día del evento en efectivo.
El evento se realizará en las oficinas de Vegasot, ubicadas en Circuito Cirujanos No. 23-A
Cd. Satélite, Naucalpan, Edo. de México 53100
http://www.vegasoft.com.mx
Para cualquier duda por favor escriban un correo a luzytextura@gmail.com, por teléfono al 044 55 4381 3302, o en facebook.com/archbernardorivera…
2: https://vimeo.com/107502226
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Hi all,
1. Chris, Chien Si and I will present Ladybug and Honeybee at IBSA-USA NYC this Thursday (August 21st). The presentation will include some of the latest developments that we are working on. If you are interested to know more about some of the new developments and see some of the workflows and you are around New York then just stop by. If can't attend in person you can still watch the presentation online. Check the links below. (Make sure to register by Wednesday if you are attending in person.)
2. We would like to show some of the works that you have done with Honeybee and Ladybug during the presentation so if there is anything that you think is interesting and can be presented publicly send it to us at thisisladybug@gmail.com or just post it here. Make sure to let us know who do you want us to credit the image.
3. That's it for now. I copy the information about the presentation below and hope to see some of you there. Thanks for your help and support.
Cheers,
Mostapha
IBPSA-USA New York Regional Chapter presents:
Parametric Modeling Tools | Ladybug and Honeybee
Location: Thornton Tomasetti, 44 East 27th street (between Madison and Park)
Date & Time: Thursday, August 21, 2014 - 6:00-7:30 PM.
6:00-6:30 PM Networking
6:30-7:30 PM Ladybug and Honeybee
Mostapha Sadeghipour Roudsari, Thornton Tomasetti
Chris Mackey, MIT
Chien Si Harriman, Terabuild
7:30-7:45 PM Q & A
Click here to register**: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6507378565592582402
**Please register at least a day in advance if you wish to attend in person
Descriptions
Ladybug + Honeybee
Ladybug and Honeybee are open source environmental plugins for Grasshopper that help architects and engineers create an environmentally-conscious architectural design.
Ladybug imports standard EnergyPlus Weather files (.EPW) into Grasshopper and provides a variety of 3D interactive graphics to support the decision-making process during the initial stages of design. The plugin also provides further support for designers as they test their initial design options with radiation, sunlight-hour, and shading analyses. Integration with Grasshopper allows for an almost instantaneous feedback and, since the plugin runs within the design environment, the information and analyses are interactive.
Honeybee connects Grasshopper3D to EnergyPlus, Radiance, Daysim and OpenStudio for building energy and daylighting simulation. The Honeybee project intends to make many of the features of these simulation tools available in a parametric way. Just as users have made changes to geometry for years in Grasshopper, now users can parameterize system types, zoning schemes, schedules of operation, daylight sensor placement and controls - all of the “hardcore” simulation parameters that have never been exposed to parametric modeling tools.
https://www.facebook.com/LadyBugforGrasshopper http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/ladybug
…
is set up to manipulate strings into an STL file that is quite different from how Grasshopper defines meshes, in that an STL seems to define each face by XYZ points, Grasshopper wants a single list of all vertex points and then has an allied lists of topological connectivity according to vertex number, so for now I just hacked it to spit out points minus so many duplicates it generates for STL:
Right now it has an internal 3D trigonometric function I added input sliders to control, that creates surfaces that look a lot like molecular orbitals.
So how do I make a mesh? I failed to make a single mesh face from each STL face since AddMesh seems to want a list, so I tried making a single list and matching it with a simple ((1,2,3),(4,5,6),(7,8,9)...) array of connectivity but it hasn't worked yet since the STL list of vertices has duplicates that won't work for Grasshopper and removing the duplicates scrambles the connectivity relation.
After some work on this and seeing the output, I figure I could just randomly populate the mathematical function with points instead, unless it really gives a better mesh result than other routines. I'm not sure what to do with it yet, even if I get the mesh figured out.
import rhinoscriptsyntaximport RhinoPOINTS_CONTAINER =[]POINTS = []class Vector: # struct XYZ def __init__(self,x,y,z): self.x=x self.y=y self.z=z def __str__(self): return str(self.x)+" "+str(self.y)+" "+str(self.z) class Gridcell: # struct GRIDCELL def __init__(self,p,n,val): self.p = p # p=[8] self.n = n # n=[8] self.val = val # val=[8] class Triangle: # struct TRIANGLE def __init__(self,p1,p2,p3): self.p = [p1, p2, p3] # vertices # HACK TO GRAB VERTICES FOR PYTHON OUTPUT POINTS_CONTAINER.append( (p1.x,p1.y,p1.z) ) POINTS_CONTAINER.append( (p2.x,p2.y,p2.z) ) POINTS_CONTAINER.append( (p3.x,p3.y,p3.z) )# return a 3d list of values def readdata(f=lambda x,y,z:x*x+y*y+z*z,size=5.0,steps=11): m=int(steps/2) ki = [] for i in range(steps): kj = [] for j in range(steps): kd=[] for k in range(steps): kd.append(f(size*(i-m)/m,size*(j-m)/m,size*(k-m)/m)) kj.append(kd) ki.append(kj) return ki from math import sin,cos,exp,atan2 def lobes(x,y,z): try: theta = atan2(x,y) # sin t = o except: theta = 0 try: phi = atan2(z,y) except: phi = 0 r = x*x+y*y+z*z ct=cos(PARAMETER_A * theta) cp=cos(PARAMETER_B * phi) return ct*ct*cp*cp*exp(-r/10) def main(): data = readdata(lobes,10,40) isolevel = 0.1 #print(data) triangles=[] for i in range(len(data)-1): for j in range(len(data[i])-1): for k in range(len(data[i][j])-1): p=[None]*8 val=[None]*8 #print(i,j,k) p[0]=Vector(i,j,k) val[0] = data[i][j][k] p[1]=Vector(i+1,j,k) val[1] = data[i+1][j][k] p[2]=Vector(i+1,j+1,k) val[2] = data[i+1][j+1][k] p[3]=Vector(i,j+1,k) val[3] = data[i][j+1][k] p[4]=Vector(i,j,k+1) val[4] = data[i][j][k+1] p[5]=Vector(i+1,j,k+1) val[5] = data[i+1][j][k+1] p[6]=Vector(i+1,j+1,k+1) val[6] = data[i+1][j+1][k+1] p[7]=Vector(i,j+1,k+1) val[7] = data[i][j+1][k+1] grid=Gridcell(p,[],val) triangles.extend(PolygoniseTri(grid,isolevel,0,2,3,7)) triangles.extend(PolygoniseTri(grid,isolevel,0,2,6,7)) triangles.extend(PolygoniseTri(grid,isolevel,0,4,6,7)) triangles.extend(PolygoniseTri(grid,isolevel,0,6,1,2)) triangles.extend(PolygoniseTri(grid,isolevel,0,6,1,4)) triangles.extend(PolygoniseTri(grid,isolevel,5,6,1,4)) def t000F(g, iso, v0, v1, v2, v3): return [] def t0E01(g, iso, v0, v1, v2, v3): return [Triangle( VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v0],g.p[v1],g.val[v0],g.val[v1]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v0],g.p[v2],g.val[v0],g.val[v2]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v0],g.p[v3],g.val[v0],g.val[v3])) ] def t0D02(g, iso, v0, v1, v2, v3): return [Triangle( VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v1],g.p[v0],g.val[v1],g.val[v0]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v1],g.p[v3],g.val[v1],g.val[v3]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v1],g.p[v2],g.val[v1],g.val[v2])) ] def t0C03(g, iso, v0, v1, v2, v3): tri=Triangle( VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v0],g.p[v3],g.val[v0],g.val[v3]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v0],g.p[v2],g.val[v0],g.val[v2]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v1],g.p[v3],g.val[v1],g.val[v3])) return [tri,Triangle( tri.p[2], VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v1],g.p[v2],g.val[v1],g.val[v2]), tri.p[1]) ] def t0B04(g, iso, v0, v1, v2, v3): return [Triangle( VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v2],g.p[v0],g.val[v2],g.val[v0]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v2],g.p[v1],g.val[v2],g.val[v1]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v2],g.p[v3],g.val[v2],g.val[v3])) ] def t0A05(g, iso, v0, v1, v2, v3): tri = Triangle( VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v0],g.p[v1],g.val[v0],g.val[v1]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v2],g.p[v3],g.val[v2],g.val[v3]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v0],g.p[v3],g.val[v0],g.val[v3])) return [tri,Triangle( tri.p[0], VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v1],g.p[v2],g.val[v1],g.val[v2]), tri.p[1]) ] def t0906(g, iso, v0, v1, v2, v3): tri=Triangle( VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v0],g.p[v1],g.val[v0],g.val[v1]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v1],g.p[v3],g.val[v1],g.val[v3]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v2],g.p[v3],g.val[v2],g.val[v3])) return [tri, Triangle( tri.p[0], VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v0],g.p[v2],g.val[v0],g.val[v2]), tri.p[2]) ] def t0708(g, iso, v0, v1, v2, v3): return [Triangle( VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v3],g.p[v0],g.val[v3],g.val[v0]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v3],g.p[v2],g.val[v3],g.val[v2]), VertexInterp(iso,g.p[v3],g.p[v1],g.val[v3],g.val[v1])) ] trianglefs = {7:t0708,8:t0708,9:t0906,6:t0906,10:t0A05,5:t0A05,11:t0B04,4:t0B04,12:t0C03,3:t0C03,13:t0D02,2:t0D02,14:t0E01,1:t0E01,0:t000F,15:t000F} def PolygoniseTri(g, iso, v0, v1, v2, v3): triangles = [] # Determine which of the 16 cases we have given which vertices # are above or below the isosurface triindex = 0; if g.val[v0] < iso: triindex |= 1 if g.val[v1] < iso: triindex |= 2 if g.val[v2] < iso: triindex |= 4 if g.val[v3] < iso: triindex |= 8 return trianglefs[triindex](g, iso, v0, v1, v2, v3) def VertexInterp(isolevel,p1,p2,valp1,valp2): if abs(isolevel-valp1) < 0.00001 : return(p1); if abs(isolevel-valp2) < 0.00001 : return(p2); if abs(valp1-valp2) < 0.00001 : return(p1); mu = (isolevel - valp1) / (valp2 - valp1) return Vector(p1.x + mu * (p2.x - p1.x), p1.y + mu * (p2.y - p1.y), p1.z + mu * (p2.z - p1.z)) if __name__ == "__main__": main() # GRASSHOPPER PYTHON OUTPUTPOINTS = rhinoscriptsyntax.AddPoints(POINTS_CONTAINER)POINTS = rhinoscriptsyntax.CullDuplicatePoints(POINTS)…
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
…
Added by Tom Svilans at 1:27am on October 24, 2017
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…
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.
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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.
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