ve Intermediate Insight of Computational Design Strategies While Exploring Rangoli Art form in 2 Dimension and 3Dimesion in which Participants will not only be trained to Digitally Design using Parametric software's but they will also be trained to Fabricate them in reality.
This Course will be explored in manner where Participants will understand inter-dependency of Rhinoceros3D & Grasshoper3D through a unique Hybrid Teaching Method While Exploring Rangoli Geometry .
The course will also take participants through Topics such as - Computational Thinking, - Computational / Parametric Design, - Computational Rangoli Exploration, - Digital Fabrication, - 3D Visualization ( Rhino3D 6), - Making Info-graphics & Design Diagrams ( Rhino3d 6 ).
Participants will also be doing a Project at the last Leg of Workshop in which they will implement the skill they gained in first Few Weeks.
{ Tutor } Nitant Pixelkar (Computational Artist / Designer, Mumbai)
Nitant Hirlekar A.k.a. Pixelkar, is a Computational Artist. He graduated from Rachana Sansad school of Interior Design 2011, Mumbai. In Academics He Bagged Two Gold and One Silver Medal on National Level.
In his post academic days, he came across the Emerging Computational Techniques in Design industry in which Algorithm serves as a main Functional part. He uses Algorithms to Deconstruct the Captured images in Pixelated form using the Grid of the Desired Indian Art Forms.
He Heads Collective Group Named "Mutation Lab” which is a multidisciplinary Design & Art Cell. Where they Explore Computational Approach while Designing Various Scales Spatial Installation, Digital Fabrication, Interactive Installations and Computational Consultancy for Various Architects.
He has exhibited his first artwork in Kalaghoda Arts Festival for in 2014 And further in 2016 and 2017.In 2015 he exhibited in Dharavi Biennale” organized by Wellcome Trust,London & Sneha Organisation, Mumbai Which was internationally acclaimed. In 2016 he got Featured on a TV show - The Creative Indian's as an Absolut Creative Indian of the Week.
Academically he is been involved in Many Computational Design Workshops / Elective Studios for School of Interior Design (Rachna Sansad), LS Raheja College of Architecture & Rat-Lab (Delhi).
{ Participants } The Course is aimed at Architecture, Interior Design, Product Design,Furniture Design & Fashion Design Students and Professionals. However we would be thrilled to have any Interdisciplinary Artist / Creator/ Maker to join the Course as well.
{ Level }
Intermediate
{ Timing } Monday To Friday - 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM (15 Hours/ Week = 5 Week X 15 Hours = 75 Hours )
{ Dates } Registration Ends - 24th April 2020 **Subejct to Availablity
{ Workshop Dates } 4th May 2020 To 5th June 2020
{ Venue } Lower Parel,Mumbai ( Details To Be Announced )
{ Schedule }
{Registration Form}…
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.
--
David Rutten
david@mcneel.com…
Introduction to Grasshopper Videos by David Rutten.
Wondering how to get started with Grasshopper? Look no further. Spend an some time with the creator of Grasshopper, David Rutten, to learn the
ttern with many panels is an assembly. an assembly is made of parts. The cardinal thing is that Rhino does not export a mesh in these formats but only surfaces or solids..and then one must remesh them in Abaqus.. I'm trying to export the mesh itself.
here are the supported file formats as Abaqus describes them:
Abaqus/CAE reads and writes geometry data stored in the following formats:
3D XML (file_name.3dxml)
3D XML is an XML-based format developed by Dassault Systèmes for encoding three-dimensional images and data. The format is open and extendable, allowing three-dimensional graphics to be easily shared and integrated into existing applications and processes. 3D XML files can be many times smaller than typical model database files. The 3D XML Player from Dassault Systèmes is required to view 3D XML files or to integrate them into business applications. You can also view 3D XML files in CATIA V5.
You can export viewport data from Abaqus/CAE in 3D XML or compressed 3D XML format. For more information, see “Exporting viewport data to a 3D XML-format file,” Section 10.9.5. You cannot import 3D XML into Abaqus/CAE.
Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit input files
Abaqus/CAE generates an input file when you submit a job for analysis. You can import input files into Abaqus/CAE. Abaqus/CAE translates the keywords and data lines in the imported input file into a new model; however, a limited set of Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit keywords is supported, as described in “Importing a model from an Abaqus/Standard or an Abaqus/Explicit input file,” Section 10.5.1. For more information on creating and submitting jobs, see “Basic steps for analyzing a model,” Section 18.2.1.
ACIS (file_name.sat)
ACIS is a library of solid modeling functions developed by Spatial, and most CAD products can generate ACIS-format parts. You can import ACIS-format parts, and you can export parts or the assembly in ACIS format. In addition, you can import and export sketches in ACIS format. For more information, see “Importing parts from an ACIS-format file,” Section 10.7.4; “Importing sketches,” Section 10.7.1; and “Exporting geometry and model data,” Section 10.9.
AutoCAD (file_name.dxf)
Two-dimensional profiles stored in AutoCAD (.dxf) files can be imported as stand-alone sketches. However, Abaqus/CAE supports only a limited number of AutoCAD entities, and you should use this format only if no other formats are available. For more information and details on the AutoCAD entities supported by Abaqus/CAE, see “Importing sketches,” Section 10.7.1.
CATIA V4 (file_name.model, file_name.catdata, or file_name.exp)
CATIA is a CAD/CAM/CAE software package marketed by IBM and Dassault Systèmes. You can import CATIA-format parts. You can also import an entire CATIA V4 assembly into the Abaqus/CAE assembly, or you can choose to import only selected part instances. For more information, see “Importing a part from a CATIA V4- or V5-format file,” Section 10.7.5; and “Importing an assembly from a CATIA V4-format file,” Section 10.7.13. You cannot export parts from Abaqus/CAE in CATIA format.
CATIA V5 Elysium Neutral File or Elysium Neutral Assembly File (file_name.enf_abq or .eaf_abq)
A translator plug-in is available for CATIA V5 that will generate a geometry file using the Elysium Neutral File (.enf) format or the Elysium Neutral Assembly File (.eaf) format. You can use Elysium Neutral Files to import CATIA V5 parts. In addition, you can use Elysium Neutral Files or Elysium Neutral Assembly Files to import an entire CATIA V5 assembly into the Abaqus/CAE assembly, or you can choose to import only selected part instances. For more information, see “Importing a part from an Elysium Neutral file,” Section 10.7.6, and “Importing an assembly from an Elysium Neutral file,” Section 10.7.14. You cannot export parts or assemblies from Abaqus/CAE in Elysium Neutral File or Elysium Neutral Assembly File format.
CATIA V5 parts and assemblies (file_name.CATPart or .CATProduct)
With the optional CATIA V5 Associative Interface add-on feature for Abaqus/CAE, you can import CATIA V5-format parts and assemblies. For more information, see “Importing a part from a CATIA V4- or V5-format file,” Section 10.7.5. You cannot export parts from Abaqus/CAE in CATIA V5 format.
I-DEAS Elysium Neutral File or Elysium Neutral Assembly File (file_name.enf_abq or .eaf_abq)
Abaqus provides a translator plug-in for I-DEAS that will generate a geometry file using the Elysium Neutral File (.enf) format or the Elysium Neutral Assembly File (.eaf) format. You can use Elysium Neutral Files to import I-DEAS parts. In addition, you can use Elysium Neutral Files or Elysium Neutral Assembly Files to import an entire I-DEAS assembly into the Abaqus/CAE assembly, or you can choose to import only selected part instances. For more information, see “Importing a part from an Elysium Neutral file,” Section 10.7.6, and “Importing an assembly from an Elysium Neutral file,” Section 10.7.14. You cannot export parts or assemblies from Abaqus/CAE in Elysium Neutral File or Elysium Neutral Assembly File format.
IGES (file_name.igs or .iges)
The Initial Graphics Exchange Specification (IGES) is a neutral data format designed for graphics exchange between computer-aided design (CAD) systems.
You can import IGES-format parts, and you can export parts in IGES format. In addition, you can import and export sketches in IGES format. For more information, see “Importing a part from an IGES-format file,” Section 10.7.7;“Importing sketches,” Section 10.7.1; and “Exporting geometry and model data,” Section 10.9.
The IGES-format allows for many interpretations, and most of the parts that you import into Abaqus/CAE using IGES-format will need to be repaired before you can use them. Thus, it is recommended that you try to use another format, if possible.
Output database (output_database_ name.odb)
An output database contains the data generated during an Abaqus/Standard or Abaqus/Explicit analysis. You can import parts from an output database in the form of orphan meshes. An orphan mesh part contains no feature information and is extracted from the output database as a collection of nodes, elements, surfaces, and sets. If the output database contains multiple part instances, you can select the part instances to import. Abaqus/CAE imports each part instance as a separate orphan mesh part. You can import either the undeformed or the deformed shape. If you import the deformed shape, you can specify the step and the frame from which to import.
To verify the quality of the orphan mesh, you can display the orphan mesh part in the Mesh module and select MeshVerify from the main menu bar. In addition, you can use the Mesh module to change the element type assigned to the mesh and to edit the original mesh definition. For more information, see “Importing a part from an output database,” Section 10.7.12; “What can I do with the Edit Mesh toolset?,” Section 46.1; and “Assigning Abaqus element types,” Section 17.5.
You can also import a model from an output database. The model that is imported will contain orphan mesh parts representing each of the undeformed part instances in the output database along with an orphan mesh representation of the undeformed assembly. The model will also contain any sets, surfaces, materials, section definitions, and beam profiles that were defined in the output database. For more information, see “Importing a model from an output database,” Section 10.5.2.
Parasolid (file_name.x_t, file_name.x_b, file_name.xmt_txt, or file_name.xmt_bin)
Parasolid is a library of solid modeling functions developed by UGS. A variety of CAD products can generate Parasolid-format parts, such as NX, SolidWorks, Solid Edge, FEMAP, and MSC.Patran. You can import Parasolid-format parts. You can also import an entire Parasolid assembly into the Abaqus/CAE assembly, or you can choose to import only selected part instances. For more information, see “Importing a part from a Parasolid-format file,” Section 10.7.9; and “Importing an assembly from a Parasolid-format file,” Section 10.7.15. You cannot export parts or assemblies from Abaqus/CAE in Parasolid format.
Pro/ENGINEER Elysium Neutral File or Elysium Neutral Assembly File (file_name.enf_abq or .eaf_abq)
Abaqus provides a translator plug-in for Pro/ENGINEER that will generate a geometry file using the Elysium Neutral File (.enf) format or the Elysium Neutral Assembly File (.eaf) format. You can use Elysium Neutral Files to import Pro/ENGINEER parts. In addition, you can use Elysium Neutral Files or Elysium Neutral Assembly Files to import an entire Pro/ENGINEER assembly into the Abaqus/CAE assembly, or you can choose to import only selected part instances from the assembly. For more information, see “Importing a part from an Elysium Neutral file,” Section 10.7.6, and “Importing an assembly from an Elysium Neutral file,” Section 10.7.14. You cannot export parts or assemblies from Abaqus/CAE in Elysium Neutral File or Elysium Neutral Assembly File format.
STEP (file_name.stp or .step)
The STandard for the Exchange of Product model data (STEP ISO 10303–1) is designed as a high-level replacement for IGES that attempts to overcome some of the shortcomings of IGES. The STEP AP203 standard is designed to provide a computer-interpretable representation of a mechanical product throughout its life cycle, independent of any particular system.
You can import STEP-format parts, and you can export parts in STEP format. In addition, you can import and export sketches in STEP format. For more information, see “Importing a part from a STEP-format file,” Section 10.7.10; and“Exporting geometry and model data,” Section 10.9.
STEP-format parts are similar to IGES-format parts in that most of the parts that you import into Abaqus/CAE using STEP-format will need to be repaired before you can use them. Thus, it is recommended that you try to use another format, if possible.
VDA-FS (file_name.vda)
The Verband der Automobilindustrie Flachën Schnittstelle (VDA-FS) surface data format is a geometry standard developed by the German automotive industry. Both VDA-FS and IGES files contain a mathematical representation of the part in an ASCII format; however, the VDA-FS standard concentrates on geometry information. Additional information covered by the IGES standard, such as dimensions, text, and colors, is not stored in a VDA-FS file.
You can import VDA-FS-format parts, and you can export parts in VDA-FS format. For more information, see “Importing a part from a VDA-FS-format file,” Section 10.7.11; and “Exporting geometry and model data,” Section 10.9.
VDA-FS format parts are similar to IGES-format parts in that most of the parts that you import into Abaqus/CAE using VDA-FS format will need to be repaired before you can use them. Thus, it is recommended that you try to use another format, if possible.
VRML (file_name.wrl)
Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) is the ISO standard for displaying three-dimensional images in a web browser or a stand-alone VRML client. It is an open, platform-independent, vector-based, three-dimensional modeling language that encodes computer-generated graphics to allow them to be shared easily across a network. VRML-format files can be many times smaller than typical model database files. A special plug-in viewer, such as Cortona or Cosmo, is required to view VRML files.
You can export viewport data from Abaqus/CAE in VRML format or compressed VRML format. For more information, see “Exporting viewport data to a VRML-format file,” Section 10.9.4.
…
rp edges fairly well, but since it has such kinetic behavior, seemingly optimized for speed on small test systems, it doesn't give the most uniform mesh, most of the time. If you take the dual of the triangular mesh, you see lots of squares and octagons.
I also had to rely on MeshMachine to refine Cocoon marching cubes organic surfaces, since the refine component of Cocoon blows up even worse than MeshMachine, which it is black box based on, with five completely undocumented parameters.
So I searched for many days for various scriptable libraries, all of them in C++, and not only did few work well as software, they gave lots of squares too, meaning they are poor at dividing up a surface evenly, since those four triangles per square dual shape are so small of an area. I want something more like a beehive or a fly's eye.
The standard library for geometry out there is CGAL, and it would be nearly impossible for most Grasshopper users to install it, since there are no binaries of the latest versions, and you have to compile several smaller libraries as you spend upwards of many full days searching forums for answers to errors in just installing it. And who knows how good of meshes it makes? I can only test it in C++, fairly easy enough, and may be able to compile a remeshing function that I can call from the command line which I can upload as a working binary, that will write the output to disk. That means I could call it from Python, anybody could, since Python is so simple. But what I can't do after the installation is get Python bindings to work on Windows. That's just broken completely.
The breakthrough, after struggling through truly terrible Windows utility programs, was finding OpenFlipper, a geometry plug-in development platform. It even has a Grasshopper-like nodal editor to build scripts, but that's so far limited. The normal scripting commands are easy to pick up on though, so I wrote Grasshopper wrappers for three remeshing strategies that result in no squares or even octagons and above, only pentagons, hexagons and septagons in the resulting dual of the triangle mesh. I used Python to write an input mesh to disk as an STL, then I create an OpenFlipper script on the fly, also written to disk, then I have OpenFlipper run and I read in the resulting STL file back into Python and spit out a Rhino/Grasshopper mesh again. It briefly brings up the GUI of OpenFlipper then closes it to put you back in Grasshopper, since the command-line-only option seems to be broken and this allows all commands to run, not just blind capable ones.
The Python scripts are simple enough to modify on your own to add more OpenFlipper commands.
Just download the Windows program here, the "Staging" version being the desired beta version with more features:
https://www.openflipper.org/download/
Install it in the normal Programs Folder. In the future you will have to edit the path in Python with updated OpenFlipper version numbers, in line 35 below. [See troubleshooting posts below about right clicking on Rhino.exe and OpenFlipper.exe to set the Compatibility tab checkbox in Properties to "Open this program as administrator." and to also check that OpenFlipper's directory matches what's in the Python code that you can view by double clicking the Python component on the Grasshopper canvas.]
None of the three strategies automatically preserves hard edges, so for those the adaptive strategy is often best.
Use Weaverbird Dual to gain quick access to this blissfully better distribution of cells on a surface than the "alien slime" of random Voronoi diagrams.
These will not smooth out original large facets from crude meshes, so subdivide those first using Weaverbird. I included a source meshing group, to apply to NURBS polysurfaces, too, since OpenFlipper won't import surfaces, only meshes.
Such ideal meshing that lack tight little square areas in the dual will also afford highest quality 3D tetrahedral meshes. I ported Tetgen to Grasshopper too, in the past, for that, and that also affords 3D polyhedral cells.…
Added by Nik Willmore at 9:22am on October 6, 2017
xes as well.
If you want to jump straight in, you can download the latest build from the Firefly website or from Food4Rhino project page. Or, if you'd rather learn more about all the new features, keep reading!
Improved Arduino Support The Firefly Firmata (Arduino Sketch) has gone through a massive overhaul - making it much more compact, efficient, and extensible. The sketch is now just over 230 lines of code (compared to more than 500 in the previous version). But more importantly, the firmata is now more extensible; making it easier to add support for new Arduino boards... Like what you ask? Well, support for the new Arduino Due platform for example. The Arduino Due is an advanced board and while it may look similar to the Arduino Mega... it's actually quite different under the hood. It features an ARM Cortex-M3 CPU which means its really fast. It also features 12-bit analog resolution for reading and writing (which is pretty awesome). As I said, the Due is a more advanced board and it does require some caution when getting started. You can find out more about the Due platform at the Arduino Due Getting Started page.
One of the biggest changes with the revision of the Firmata was that it required some structural changes with how the data is sent/received from Grasshopper. So, if you are planning on using the latest version of the Firmata, you'll need to also have the latest Firefly components installed as well. This shouldn't be an issue because the installer will place the new Firefly Firmata in your sketchbook folder and install the new components as well... but it's worth noting so you don't try to mix and match the versions.
Kinect Version 2 Support Earlier this summer, Microsoft released a new and improved version of its popular Kinect motion tracking sensor. The sensor includes better body, hand, and joint orientation, 1080p color video (1920x1080), depth video (512x424), and a new active infrared video (512x424). The sensor now has the capability to track up to 6 people at once (compared to only two people with the previous version).
This build of Firefly now comes with three new components to work with this new sensor. The Video Stream can access the color, depth, and infrared video streams at different resolutions. Simply right-click on the video component to choose the video feed and resolution. Note: You may need to update your graphics card in order to get the infrared video stream to work properly (at least I did before it began working properly). The Skeleton Tracker is similar to the previous version, but can now track up to 6 people. And the Mesh Reconstruction component will build a fully colored 3D mesh using the color and depth data from the sensor. I plan to add more components to this section soon, but I wanted to go ahead and release this so more people could use it! [EDIT: I would like to thank Panagiotis Michalatos for his collaboration in the development of the Kinect V2 tools].
New Computer Vision Tools This release also includes a number of new computer vision tools. One component to note is the Bitmap Tracer, which can be seen in action here. The Bitmap Tracer component spawns a number of randomly generated particles which trace the edges of a bitmap using the nearest contouring vector. Another pair of components is the Bitmap Decompose/Recompose which can either decompose or reconstruct a bitmap using a list of values for its constituent channels. These two can be used together to swap channels in an image (think chroma keying). There's also a Bitmap Threshold component which uses the average dithering algorithm to find the color quantization of an image. Lastly, I've updated the Leap Motion Finger Tracking component to work with the latest release of the Leap v2.2.1 software release. The component now has improved finger tracking including joint and bone position/orientation.
In addition to these new features, there's also a number of bug fixes too (check out the readme if your interested). As always, I welcome any and all feedback on this build. Your support really helps, so please let me know what you think!…
xes as well.
If you want to jump straight in, you can download the latest build from the Firefly website or from Food4Rhino project page. Or, if you'd rather learn more about all the new features, keep reading!
Improved Arduino Support The Firefly Firmata (Arduino Sketch) has gone through a massive overhaul - making it much more compact, efficient, and extensible. The sketch is now just over 230 lines of code (compared to more than 500 in the previous version). But more importantly, the firmata is now more extensible; making it easier to add support for new Arduino boards... Like what you ask? Well, support for the new Arduino Due platform for example. The Arduino Due is an advanced board and while it may look similar to the Arduino Mega... it's actually quite different under the hood. It features an ARM Cortex-M3 CPU which means its really fast. It also features 12-bit analog resolution for reading and writing (which is pretty awesome). As I said, the Due is a more advanced board and it does require some caution when getting started. You can find out more about the Due platform at the Arduino Due Getting Started page.
One of the biggest changes with the revision of the Firmata was that it required some structural changes with how the data is sent/received from Grasshopper. So, if you are planning on using the latest version of the Firmata, you'll need to also have the latest Firefly components installed as well. This shouldn't be an issue because the installer will place the new Firefly Firmata in your sketchbook folder and install the new components as well... but it's worth noting so you don't try to mix and match the versions.
Kinect Version 2 Support Earlier this summer, Microsoft released a new and improved version of its popular Kinect motion tracking sensor. The sensor includes better body, hand, and joint orientation, 1080p color video (1920x1080), depth video (512x424), and a new active infrared video (512x424). The sensor now has the capability to track up to 6 people at once (compared to only two people with the previous version).
This build of Firefly now comes with three new components to work with this new sensor. The Video Stream can access the color, depth, and infrared video streams at different resolutions. Simply right-click on the video component to choose the video feed and resolution. Note: You may need to update your graphics card in order to get the infrared video stream to work properly (at least I did before it began working properly). The Skeleton Tracker is similar to the previous version, but can now track up to 6 people. And the Mesh Reconstruction component will build a fully colored 3D mesh using the color and depth data from the sensor. I plan to add more components to this section soon, but I wanted to go ahead and release this so more people could use it! [EDIT: I would like to thank Panagiotis Michalatos for his collaboration in the development of the Kinect V2 tools].
New Computer Vision Tools This release also includes a number of new computer vision tools. One component to note is the Bitmap Tracer, which can be seen in action here. The Bitmap Tracer component spawns a number of randomly generated particles which trace the edges of a bitmap using the nearest contouring vector. Another pair of components is the Bitmap Decompose/Recompose which can either decompose or reconstruct a bitmap using a list of values for its constituent channels. These two can be used together to swap channels in an image (think chroma keying). There's also a Bitmap Threshold component which uses the average dithering algorithm to find the color quantization of an image. Lastly, I've updated the Leap Motion Finger Tracking component to work with the latest release of the Leap v2.2.1 software release. The component now has improved finger tracking including joint and bone position/orientation.
In addition to these new features, there's also a number of bug fixes too (check out the readme if your interested). As always, I welcome any and all feedback on this build. Your support really helps, so please let me know what you think!
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