s: [Mesh Brep] which used the Rhino mesher, [Mesh Surface] which create a rectangular grid of mesh faces on a single surface and [Simple Mesh] which attempts to represent each face in a Brep using a single Tri or Quad and accuracy be damned. Let's focus on the easy ones first...
[Simple Mesh] is a first attempt at providing a completely reductionist meshing engine. It was born out of a skype discussion I had with Brian James one night during the weekly Seattle RMA developer meeting. It only handles very simple cases at the moment so it's probably not all that useful, but it's there anyway just in case. If this mesher cannot handle a certain Brep face because it's too complicated it will use the native Rhino mesher for that face.
The purpose of [Mesh Surface] is to provide a single surface mesh that isn't distorted by the underlying parameterization of a surface. My approach for this actually turned out to be really slow, which is why the [Q] input is set to false by default. This mesher was never designed to take trims into account, however you get a single option [H] to control how trims interact with the mesh.
[Mesh Brep] merely channels the native Rhino mesher. You can supply meshing settings that look a little bit like the meshing settings that Rhino itself exposes. With these settings you can control how seams in breps are handled, how much the mesh is allowed to deviate from the underlying geometry, how many quads you want etc. This is the most customizable option, but even here it's totally possible you can't get what you want. For example, there is no way to enforce a mesh that contains only quads. As soon as seams are stitched or whenever trims are present, you're going to get triangles along the edges of meshes.
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David Rutten
david@mcneel.com…
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as you can see I devided it into 3 parts.
part1: when I try to connect the new shape to the rest of your definition,the plan z,which gives the panels individually when baked(so I can work them individually)doesn't work,apparently there is something missing when I want to explode it.
that is why I connected it to the definition that I already had(part2)( the only cool part about that one is the attractor point)well it kind works,but not really(if you zoom in you can see that there are some parts overlapped and really not looking good).however I much rather your definition because of the option it gives me to work with individual panels when baked(planz).
however it's around 4 am. and I have decided to make some major changes in design (to prepare some closed and open space,I'm talking about part3 that works with the fibonacci like shape,I know it doesnt look really good,but seriously 4am.!).the major problem is that I tried to make a form like that with kangaroo so the shape would be smoother but I wasnt really able to make it with kangaroo,that's why I made it manually in rhino.I was wondering if you can help me make something like this ( not exacly like this) with kangaroo or (if impossible to be made with kangaroo)even helping me optimizing it so it doesnt look as bad,as you can see when I try to work the grasshopper definition on this shape,it gives me different panel sizes for each surface and all of them are to small compared with the overall size of the so-called pavillion(give it 200-500 sq feet (20-50 sq.m).and any suggestions about the shape would be appreciated,please forgive my basic knowledge of rhino and grasshopper,and let's say I wanted to make a shape like these(don't laugh please!)
u promised not to laugh!!!
please help me find the right way!
…
lName, signalValue, operationMode):
sigV=signalValue
if sys.version_info[0] == 3:
if type(signalName) is str:
signalName=signalName.encode('utf-8')
if type(signalValue) is bytearray:
sigV = (ct.c_ubyte*len(signalValue))(*signalValue)
if type(signalValue) is str:
signalValue=signalValue.encode('utf-8')
sigV = (ct.c_ubyte*len(signalValue))(*signalValue)
else:
if type(signalValue) is bytearray:
sigV = (ct.c_ubyte*len(signalValue))(*signalValue)
if type(signalValue) is str:
signalValue=bytearray(signalValue)#<========This is line 1052
sigV = (ct.c_ubyte*len(signalValue))(*signalValue)
sigV=ct.cast(sigV,ct.POINTER(ct.c_ubyte)) # IronPython needs this
return c_WriteStringStream(clientID, signalName, sigV, len(signalValue), operationMode)
It displays the following error:
Program started
Connected to remote API server
Runtime error (TypeErrorException): unicode argument without an encoding
Traceback:
line 1052, in simxWriteStringStream, "C:\Program Files (x86)\V-REP3\V-REP_PRO_EDU\programming\remoteApiBindings\python\python\vrep.py"
line 70, in script
Any hint?…
are hotter than the least overlapped parts.
I'm trying to create gradients when overlapping between closed surfaces occur. The gradient goes from the center of the most overlapped figure to the edges of the least overlapped figures.
To help understand how I'm thinking it, I will first show you my solution for one figure.
As I said in the title, it's kind of a pseudo gradient. It's a way of organising areas (rings) inside of the geometry. To achieve this I thought in creating a series of rays that then can be divided in segments, in this case 3 segments of same lenght per ray, I could get more resolution in the gradient by dividing in more thus creating more rings...
in this picture the rays are in dark red and go from the center to 4 points in the perimeter, if I wanted more resolution I could have more rays, but with this simple figure 4 is enough
the rings are in a gradient of colors from the center to the perimeter, lighter in color each time:
so when I have 2 overlapping geometries
the center of the gradient should be on the center of the most overlapped part (in red) and go to the perimeter of the pink parts
for the red figure I draw the rays from the center to its perimetry. and for the pink figures the gradient should go from the parts that are in contact with the red figure to the perimeter, something like this:
still that is something I did with rhino and it's pretty intuitive...
the problem gets worse when i have more figures and more "heat centers"
like in these examples
maybe the approach should not be with rays to create the rings... maybe with offsets..
not sure if it's not too complicated to achieve in grasshopper and maybe there's another way of creating a gradient with multiple focuses...
would aprecciate any help
cheers…
x geometry which will be the basis in plan for a building facade. The problem is as follows:
I am generating a series of arcs using 3 different ranges for radii. Each segment of the geometry is assigned one of the radii. The length of each arc segment is controlled by a specific number, also within a range -- the end goal is to divide this geometry into perfectly equal segments.
(Parameter Ranges)
I am building these arcs in such a way that they are tied to the arc drawn before it - meaning that as the length of the previous arc is adjusted, the arc in question will still begin where the previous arc ends, and be tangent from said previous arc.
This approach works well until I get to the final segment of the form. I want to be able to close the form in a way that the final arc both meets the first arc at its tangent point and is a length divisible by the desired segment length.
Through a series of trial and error by means of adjusting the radii, panel size, and arc lengths, I have been able to get the geometry to being very close to closed, but there is always some sort of remainder, or the last arc is not tangent to the first arc.
My thought is that this would be a perfect scenario to use Galapagos, but my attempts to do so have resulted in an almost immediate crash of rhino. I'm not sure if I'm feeding too many inputs into galapagos (the radii ranges and segment length ranges), or that the number I'm telling it to minimize is incorrect (distance between the end of the final segment and the start of the first segment), or if there is a larger issue with the definition I've written, but I haven't been able to figure out the issue.
Are there any thoughts out there on how I might be able to reach a possible solution? Or at the very least is there any precedent for a geometric shape similar to what I am trying to create which follows the same number of parameters I'm using?
I've attached the GH definition as well as a rhino model for your visual reference. To preview the GH form in rhino, simply assign the only curve in the attached rhino model to the crv node in grasshopper:
This simply locates everything that's being generated in grasshopper in space in rhino.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts, and also apologies for a somewhat potentially messy definition.
…
Added by Ray LeChase at 11:12am on August 31, 2016
So it's not true that Bounds.X is only a getter. However it does behave as though it is. This is because RectangleF is a Value Type instead of a Reference Type. When you assign a variable of one value type to another variable of the same type, you always assign a copy of the first value. So when you request the Bounds from an attributes class, what you get is a copy of the actual bounds. Changing the X on this copy would be a useless operation which is why Visual Studio catches this mistake.
Let's assume that Dog is a class (a reference type) and it has a get/set property for fur type. Then, if I type:
Dog A = new Dog();
A.Coat = Long;
Dog B = A;
B.Coat = Short;
At the end of these lines, both A and B have a short coat, because the act of assigning A to B (line 3) means that both A and B now point to the same instance of Dog in memory. In effect, A and B are the same. If Dog were a struct (a value type), then at the end of this code A and B would have different coats, because assigning A to B means creating a copy of A. Any changes made to B will not affect A.
The one place where this causes annoying situations is exactly where you ran into it. If a property returns a value type then it's typically not useful to call properties and methods on that returned data, as it would only affect the copy of the actual data instead of the original data. That's why, if you want to change the Bounds of an attribute, you need code like this:
RectangleF box = Bounds;
box.X +=10;
Bounds = box;
On to the second problem, which is that doing it this way won't help you one bit. Laying out a component is a difficult job and the size of the Bounds depends on many things:
The display mode of the component (icon or text).
The size of the text (depending on which Font to use).
The maximum number of input and output parameters.
The maximum width of the longest input/output parameter name.
The maximum number of state icons to draw on the input/output parameters.
Changing the Bounds after the layout has occurred will basically just invalidate the parameter layout, resulting in parameter names and grips being drawn in the wrong places.
If you want to affect the size of the Bounds for a GH_Component class, you're going to have to dive in and do the laying out yourself. As mentioned before, this is not trivial.
There are static methods on GH_ComponentAttributes which are helpful when doing this, have a look at:
LayoutComponentBox()
LayoutInputParams()
LayoutOutputParams()
LayoutBounds()
Unfortunately they are undocumented.
--
David Rutten
david@mcneel.com…
Added by David Rutten at 1:39pm on January 31, 2014
guages I'd recommend all use the RhinoCommon SDK and thus all have access to the same functionality.
How long would it take me to understand and write my own code?
If you already know how to program, it probably won't take too long. If you're past the hurdle of what it means to declare and assign variables, how conditionals and loops work and what scope is, you've already rounded the hardest corner.
Is it even worth it?
That really depends. "Learn programming" is clearly not blanket good advice. Most people out there do not have to learn programming to be happy with their lives and successful in their careers. For some people it can make a small difference, and for a few people it can make a huge difference. If you feel you're in the 'some' category then this is indeed a question you have to answer. Note that the investment for learning programming is a continuous process. Unless you keep up your skills and learn about new stuff that becomes available, you'll lose the ability to write successful code over time.
Where do I start?
Step 1 is to answer the previous question. It is unlikely that anyone besides yourself can answer it, but you can start by making a list of things you do manually now that may be programmable. Then make a list of the things you are unable to do now but which you might be able to do with programming. If while looking at these lists your reaction is: "meh", the answer is probably no.
Step 2 is to pick a language. This is again a very personal thing; there's no wrong answer, because there's no right answer.
Step 3 is to start learning this language. My experience is that the best way to learn a programming language is to try and solve a real problem that you understand very well. If the problem statement is nebulous or poorly understood, you'll be learning two things and that's a recipe for unnecessary frustration.
Here are my thoughts on language:
Python: I don't use Python myself, I can sort of read it while moving my lips. I don't particularly like Python though. The indentation sensitiveness stresses me out, and I find the lack of type-safety disturbing. However it is a good language for mathematical/scientific programs. There are lots of additional code libraries you can easily import that will ease the development of mathematically intense algorithms.
C#: I like C# very much, but it does suffer from geekerosis. A lot of the keywords used in the language are not self-explanatory (abstract, sealed, virtual). For me this is no longer a problem as I've memorised what they all mean. C# is designed to be an efficient language to write, rather than an easy one to learn.
The great thing about C# though is that there's a huge amount of material out there for learning it. It is one of the most popular, mature and modern languages you can hope to pick.
VB: I learned VBScript as my first language, and then moved on to VB5, VB6 and VB.NET. It is somewhat more friendly than C#, and functionally it is almost identical. The switch from VB to C# is reasonably low-threshold and there are excellent tools for translating VB code to C# and vice versa.
Since you already know some Python, it probably makes the most sense to continue on that path. If you want to switch, C# is more like Python than VB, so C# would be my next suggestion.
As for where to get information... you have 4 major options when developing code for Rhino.
If it's a question about the language itself, StackOverflow is a great resource. It can be a pretty hostile place for beginner questions, but I find that mostly the questions I'm asking have been asked already and the answers on SO tend to be good. In fact usually when I google my questions, the first few hits are always SO posts.
If it's a question about the Rhino SDK or Grasshopper, you can ask it either on the GH forums (where we are now), or on Discourse. We're not as quick on the draw as SO, but we do know about Rhino.
If you're looking for a basic explanation of what a keyword or a type is for, perhaps with an example, MSDN is the best first choice. In fact if you google the name a of a .NET type, the first hit is almost always an MSDN page.…
Added by David Rutten at 2:03pm on December 3, 2014
umbrella of Urban Heat Island (UHI) and I am going to try to separate them out in order to give you a sense of the current capabilities in LB+HB.
1) UHI as defined as a recorded elevated air temperature in an urban area:
If you have access to epw files for both an urban area and a rural area, you can use Ladybug to visualize and deeply explore the differences between the two weather files. Ladybug is primarily a tool for weather file visualization and analysis and it can be very helpful for understanding the consequences of UHI on strategies for buildings or on comfort. This said, if you do not have both rural and urban recorded weather data or you want to generate your own weather files based on criteria about urban areas (as it sounds like you want to do), this definition might not be so helpful.
2) UHI defined by air elevated air temperature but viewed as a computer model-able phenomenon resulting primarily from urban canyon geometry, building materials, and (to a lesser degree) anthropogenic heat:
This definition seems to fit more with they type of thing that you are looking for but it is unfortunately very difficult and computationally intensive such that we do not currently have anything within Ladybug to do this right now. I can say that the state-of-the art for this type of modeling is an application called Town Energy Budget (TEB) and this is what all of the advanced UHI researches that I know use (http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/surfex/spip.php?article7). Unfortunately for those trying to use it in professional practice, it can take a while to get comfortable with it and it currently runs exclusively on Linux (this does mean that it is open source, though, and that you can really get deep into the assumptions of the model). A couple years ago, a peer of mine translated almost all of TEB into Matlab language making it possible to run it on Windows if you have Matlab. He wrapped everything together into a tool called the Urban Weather Generator (UWG), which can take an epw file of a rural area and warp it to an urban area based on inputs that you give of building height, materials, vegetation, anthropogenic heat, etc. I would recommend looking into this for your project, although, bear in mind that is it not open source like the original TEB tool and that you may need to get a (very expensive) copy of MATLAB (http://urbanmicroclimate.scripts.mit.edu/uwg.php).
3) UHI as defined by a thermal satellite image of an urban area depicting an elevated average radiant environment that reaches a maximum a the city center and changes by land use:
This is the definition of UHI that I am most familiar with and was the basis of much of my past research. I feel that it is also a definition of UHI that is a bit more in line with where a lot of contemporary UHI research is headed, which is away from the notion of UHI as a macro-scale meteorological phenomena that is averaged as an air temperature over a huge area towards one that accepts that different land uses have different microclimates and (importantly) different radiant environments. While the air temperature difference between urban and rural areas usually does not change more than 1-4 C, the radiant environment can be very different (on the order of 10-15 C differences). The best way to understand UHI in this context is with Thermal satellite images, for which there is ha huge database of publicly available data on NASA's glovis website (http://glovis.usgs.gov/) or their ECHO website (http://reverb.echo.nasa.gov/reverb/#utf8=%E2%9C%93&spatial_map=satellite&spatial_type=rectangle). I tend to use thermal data from LANDSAT 5-8 and ASTER satellites in my research. Unfortunately, there is a lot f bad data with a lot of cloud cover mixed in with the really good stuff and it can take some time to find good images. Also, there aren't too many programs that read the GeoTiff file format that you download the data as. I know that ArcGIS will read it, a program called ENVI will read it (I think that the open source QGIS can also red it). I have plans to write a set of components to bring this type of data into Rhino and GH (I may get to it a few months down the line).
4) UHI as a computer model-able notion of "Urban Microclimate" with consideration of local differences and the local radiant environment:
This is where a lot of my research has lead and, thankfully, is an area that Honeybee can help you out a lot with. EnergyPlus simulations can output information on outside building surface temperatures and these can be very helpful in helping get a sense of the radiant environment around individual buildings. Right now, I am focusing just on using this data to fully model the indoor environments of buildings as you see in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNylb42FPIc&list=UUc6HWbF4UtdKdjbZ2tvwiCQ
I have plans to move this methodology to the outdoors once I complete this initial application to the indoors. For now, you can use the "Surface result reader" and the "color surfaces based on EP result" components to get a sense of variation in the outside temperature of your buildings.
I hope that this helped,
-Chris
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