problem later) to fit more shapes that are otherwise won't fit in.
On the example below horizontal rectangle couldn't fit in but its rotated analog could and thus was placed in.
Later, when placed shapes are used to generate frames, because of this rotation, the position of the starting points changes and because of the approach I use to generate the frames some angle values are attached to the wrong corners, this brakes the frame shape and looks like this (on the left the frame of sick shape and on the right the frame of the healthy shape):
Again, this happens because the angle values are assigned to the specific corners (points) and previously rotated shapes get these all messed up:
Easy fix, don't rotate the shapes, problem is, I've already baked a good number of them for later use. I'd like to avoid regeneration because it takes a lot of time and without rotation I constrict the algorithm even more.
Better fix, use a different approach, this is where I'd like to hear suggestions and kicks in a right direction. Please take a look at my definition. It works but I have a feeling like giving an amputee a job of sweeping the floor.
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t. So here we go!
1. Honeybee is brown and not yellow [stupid!]...
As you probably remember Honeybee logo was initially yellow because of my ignorance about Honeybees. With the help of our Honeybee expert, Michalina, now the color is corrected. I promised her to update everyone about this. Below are photos of her working on the honeybee logo and the results of her study.
If you think I'm exaggerating by calling her a honeybee expert you better watch this video:
Thank you Michalina for the great work! :). I corrected the colors. No yellow anymore. The only yellow arrows represent sun rays and not the honeybee!
2. Yellow or brown, W[here]TH Honeybee is?
I know. It has been a long time after I posted the initial video and it is not fun at all to wait for a long time. Here is the good news. If you are following the Facebook page you probably now that the Daylighting components are almost ready.
Couple of friends from Grasshopper community and RADIANCE community has been helping me with testing/debugging the components. I still think/hope to release the daylighting components at some point in January before Ladybug gets one year old.
There have been multiple changes. I finally feel that the current version of Honeybee is simple enough for non-expert users to start running initial studies and flexible enough for advanced users to run advanced studies. I will post a video soon and walk you through different components.
I think I still need more time to modify the energy simulation components so they are not going to be part of the next release. Unfortunately, there are so many ways to set up and run a wrong energy simulation and I really don’t want to add one new GIGO app to the world of simulation. We already have enough of that. Moreover I’m still not quite happy with the workflow. Please bear with me for few more months and then we can all celebrate!
I recently tested the idea of connecting Grasshopper to OpenStudio by using OpenStudio API successfully. If nothing else, I really want to release the EnergyPlus components so I can concentrate on Grasshopper > OpenStudio development which I personally think is the best approach.
3. What about wind analysis?
I have been asked multiple times that if Ladybug will have a component for wind study. The short answer is YES! I have been working with EFRI-PULSE project during the last year to develop a free and open source web-based CFD simulation platform for outdoor analysis.
We had a very good progress so far and our rockstar Stefan recently presented the results of the work at the American Physical Society’s 66th annual DFD meeting and the results looks pretty convincing in comparison to measured data. Here is an image from the presentation. All the credits go to Stefan Gracik and EFRI-PULSE project.
The project will go live at some point next year and after that I will release the Butterfly which will let you prepare the model for the CFD simulation and send it to EFRI-PULSE project. I haven’t tried to run the simulations locally yet but I’m considering that as a further development. Here is how the component and the logo looks like right now.
4. Teaching resources
It has been almost 11 months from the first public release of Ladybug. I know that I didn't do a good job in providing enough tutorials/teaching materials and I know that I won’t be able to put something comprehensive together soon.
Fortunately, ladybug has been flying in multiple schools during the last year. Several design, engineering and consultant firms are using it and it has been thought in several workshops. As I checked with multiple of you, almost everyone told me that they will be happy to share their teaching materials; hence I started the teaching resources page. Please share your materials on the page. They can be in any format and any language. Thanks in advance!
I hope you enjoyed/are enjoying/will enjoy the longest night of the year. Happy Yalda!
Cheers,
-Mostapha
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creating the structural frame, finding the endpoints, linking these endpoints with curves and afterwards lofting the surfaces between the curves.
The results were quite nice, however, the procedure is very time consuming and inefficient. There is just too much copy-pasting involved.
(see attached file: "Old Attempts.zip" )
Mesh relaxation:
I have later on used Daniel Piker's tutorials on Mesh Relaxation and realized that this might be the way to go.
The link to these online tutorials on wewanttolearn.net is:
https://wewanttolearn.wordpress.com/2011/10/22/mesh-relaxation-kangaroo-tutorial/
His tutorials, however, only deal with mesh boxes which are ideal cubes. He then joins them together in various directions, but it is under 90 degrees angle.
( see attached file: "Daniel Pikers Examples" )
What I would like to achieve:
I want my bridges to go in all directions and angles, not just under 90 degree angle.
Ideally I would like to make a square (polygon) follow a curve (which moves in all axis) at certain number of division points. I would then loft these squares into a mesh and use that shape as a mesh box. I would later use this mesh box and relax it the same way as Daniel Piker used the cubes in his tutorial. The anchor points are only the vertices of the squares which create the lofted mesh box.
( see attached file: "New Attempts" )
As you can see below this procedure works even if the curve is moving in all directions not only along xy axis. There are, however, many problems connected to it.
The problem:
Despite all the effort I cannot seem to come up with a design where I would be able to draw a random curve which would be the guideline for my mesh box and then apply this box to one definition in order to relax the mesh and create the shape that I want. Without this I am again forced into a lot of copy pasting as the final mesh box is made out of several sections.
Also is there any way I could make the final resulting mesh a bit smoother? Increasing the number of mesh faces is probably the only way, right?
Thank you guys so much for any potential help.
All best,
Luka
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ur setup. Can you say what sensor you are using? Are you using an Arduino to write this ascii information to the serial port? If so, there may be some formatting code for the string that you'll need to do to get the Read component to function properly. I see that you were able to open the port and Start reading... so my first thought is that the data is formatted correctly....
All of the read components look for a specific character (in this case two characters) to indicate when it has reached the end of the line being read and should spit out the data. In this case, Firefly uses the Carriage Return (\r) and Line Feed (\n) to know when it has reached the end of the line. In arduino, these are automatically added to any line if you use the Serial.println("blah, blah, blah"); command. Notice, this is different from the Serial.print("nothing to see here"); command. This doesn't mean that you can't still use the regular print command... it's just you need to use the println command to indicate when you've reached the end of the line. Let's take a look at a simple example.
void setup() { Serial.begin(9600);}void loop() { int sensorValue = analogRead(A0); Serial.print("The value of the sensor is: "); Serial.println(sensorValue);
delay(20); // important to wait some small time so you aren't sending just a ton of info over to GH which will cause it to crash :(
}
The first print statement prints a string to the serial port... and the next one adds the current sensor value... and THEN adds the carriage return and line feed to start a new line. The nice thing about using these together is that you can concatenate any type of data you want. If you were to upload this sketch, you should see a sentence being printed to the serial port that says "The value of the sensor is: 512". I made up the number, but you get the idea. Notice, I also had to include a delay function. You don't always need this (there are other ways to go about this) but the important thing to note is that the loop cycle on the Arduino can run really fast. I mean... really fast. So, you wont want to send so much data over to GH, because this could flood the string buffer in the Read component and cause it to crash (eventually). It's a good idea to add some small time interval just to slow it down a bit. I should say that I've optimized the refresh rate in the next release so it's significantly faster... so hopefully this wont be as big of a problem... but hopefully that helps some.
Now... Why are you writing data to a sensor? Sensors by default are considered inputs... so I'm quite confused as to why you would want to send data back (if you are... then you need some way to handle the string data being sent from GH... this is the whole reason we built the Firefly firmata... it sets up the two-way protocol so you don't have to deal with all of that mess... If you're going to read and write, you're better off just uploading the firmata and using the Uno Read and Write components). Also, I'm not very familiar with the Hyperterm or Advanced Serial Port Terminal... but I will say that could get COM conflicts if you're trying to open the port with different tools. Anyway, I hope some of this helps you get up and running.
Cheers,
Andy
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greatly appreciate it!!
You can write the number of the question and write your answer next to it, example:
1) a
2) c
3) a) Washington University in St. Louis
4) 2 weeks (1week+1week shipping)
5) 130
6) b
7) b
The survey questions are as follows:
1)
Did you 3D print before?
5)
How much did it cost (in dollars)?
a.
Yes, for a school project
a.
Between 20 & 50
b.
Yes, for a personal project
b.
Between 50 & 80
c.
Between 80 & 120
2)
Print size
d.
Please specify if otherwise: _____ dollars
a.
Between 2 & 6 cubic inches
b.
Between 6 & 12 cubic inches
6)
Do you think the price was expensive?
c.
Between 12 & 20 cubic inches
a.
Not at all
d.
Please specify if otherwise: ____cubic inches
b.
A little bit expensive
c.
Very expensive
3)
Where did you print your object?
a.
School
7)
Were you satisfied with the printed object?
b.
Outside school: _________________
a.
Yes, it was a great print without problems
b.
Not bad, some issues
4)
How long did it take to print?
c.
I was not satisfied, very bad quality
a.
___ days
b.
___ weeks
Thank you very much to all!!
PS: If you did many 3D prints, you can post multiple answers.
Wassef…
whole design intent, but this is what Inventor is good at. The way it packages bits of 'scripted' components into 'little models' that can be stored and re-assembled is central to MCAD working.
The Inventor model shown is almost 5 years old. We don't model like that any more, however it does offer a good idea of general MCAD modeling approaches.
iParts is useful in certain situations, it could've been useful in the above model, its usefulness is often in function of the quantity of variants/configurations.
So much is scripted in GH, maybe it should also be possible to script/define/constrain/assist the placement/gluing of the results?
...
Starting point: I think we are talking across purposes. AFAIK, the solving sequence of GH's scripted components is fixed. It won't do circular dependencies... without a fight. The inter-component dependencies not 'managed' like constraints solvers do for MCAD apps.
Components and assemblies are individual files in MCAD.
Placement of these within assemblies in MCAD is a product of matrix transforms and persistent constraints. There is no bi-directional link, the link is unidirectional (downflow only), because of the use of proxies.
Consequently, scripting the placement of components is irrelevant in GH, unless you decide that each component needs to be contained in its own separate file.
This also brings up the point that generating components and assemblies in MCAD is not as straightforward. In iParts and iAssemblies, each configuration needs to be generated as a "child" (the individual file needs to be created for each child) before those children can be used elsewhere.
You notice the dilemma, if you generate 100 parts, and then you realize you only need 20, you've created 80 extra parts which you have no need for, thus generating wasteful data that may cause file management issues later on.
GH remains in a transient world, and when you decide to bake geometry (if you need to at all), you can do that in one Rhino file, and save it as the state of the design at that given moment. Very convenient for design, though unacceptable for most non-digital manufacturing methods, which greatly limits Rhino's use for manufacturing unless you combine it with an MCAD app.
One of the reasons why the distributed file approach makes perfect sense in MCAD, is that in industry you deal with a finite set of objects. Generative tools are usually not a requirement. Most mechanical engineers, product engineers and machinists would never have any use for that.
The other thing that MCAD apps like Inventor have, is the 'structured' interface that offers up all that setting out information like the coordinate systems, work planes, parameters etc in a concise fashion in the 'history tree'. This will translate into user speed. GH's canvas is a bit more freeform. I suppose the info is all there and linked, so a bit of re-jigging is easy. Also, see how T-Flex can even embed sliders and other parameter input boxes into the model itself. Pretty handy/fast to understand, which also means more speed.
True. As long as you keep the browser pane/specification tree organized and easy to query.
:)
Would love to understand what you did by sketching.
I'll start by showing what was done years ago in the Inventor model, and then share with you what I did in GH, but in another post.
Let's use one of the beams as an example:
We can isolate this component for clarity.
Notice that I've highlighted the sectional sketch with dimensions, and the point of reference, which is in relation to the CL of the column which the beam bears on. The orientation and location of the beam is already set by underlying geometry.
Here's a perspective view of the same:
The extent of the beam was also driven by reference geometry, 2 planes offset from the beam's XY plane, driven by parameters from another underlying file which serves as a parameter container:
Reference axes and points are present for all other components, here are some of them:
It starts getting cluttered if you see the reference planes as well:
Is I mentioned earlier, over time we've found better ways to define and associate geometry, parameters, manage design change, improving the efficiency of parametric models. But this model is a fair representation of a basic modeling approach, and since an Inventor-GH comparison is like comparing apples and oranges anyways, this model can be used to understand the differences and similarities, for those interested.
I haven't even gotten to your latest post yet, I will eventually.…
Added by Santiago Diaz at 10:36am on February 26, 2011
he picture (4).
Previously, I had a problem with generating intersections between the two directions of the beams, but a colleague helped me by extending beams, so there was no problem with lines of intersection. But this solution has generated curl (5) at the highest vertex geometry, which I ignored in order to repair it before printing, perhaps this mean my problem with my beam spread properly. Only when the beams is 19, does not jump no problem, but I still can not distribute them properly.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
I tried to show as simply as possible by removing or signing my code in GHX file.
Thank you in advance for your help
…
uired information, a poor representation of data evolve misreading messages and by turn ambiguous responses especially with complex data. Inforgraphics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and clearly. In the nowadays flow of complex information, Infographics is the key for optimized visual communication. The use of infographics is an important step towards developing a pedagogical approach that draws on visuals where 90% of Information is transmitted to the brain so it is crucial to tickle the optic nerves to get people excited about data. The workshop investigates how computational tools can aid in designing and controlling complex information to be easily understood in addition to improve cognition by utilizing graphics to enhance the human visual system’s ability to see patterns and trends and much more likely to be remembered in today’s fast – paced environment. This workshop investigates multiple computational tools and techniques of developing coefficient visualization of data types including; network, statistical and hierarchal data. The workshop objective is to reconsider visual representation a promising design tool for architects, artists and designers. /// Application To apply, please follow this link to fill the application form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1HOv6c1_LzhHNJU5n_FLvuhC-Yg75HDfbEcq6TN6mulI/viewform /// Fees 1200 EGP for students / 1500 EGP for graduates and young professionals more info on the workshop webpage: http://www.encodestudio.net/#!infographics/cqvl
POSTS
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ike using something like the Z vector, but technically you can use any vector you want. This vector will actually determine the static rotatation of all the planes, so you can control that here if you like. One important thing that I've noticed is that the closer the vector is to the plane of the curve or if its too similar to one of the tangent vectors, the more likely you'll have "flipping"
2) Take the cross product between the tangent and the static vector. This will be your first perpendicular vector, which you can use for the X component of the plane.
3) Take the cross product between the tangent and the result of the previous cross product. Use this result as the Y component of the plane. All three components (X, Y, and Z (which is the tangent vector)) are all perpendicular to each other now.
After you've done that you should have planes that decrease twisting. If your curve is not planar, then there will always be some twisting in the frames, but it will be minimal enough to use them effectively.
There also may be "flipping" within the frames, which means one (or both) of two things. First, you could have planes that have reversed their vectors, so the X vector is properly oriented, but pointing down when it should be pointing up. Second, the X and Y vectors could have potentially swapped, so that Y "should" be X and X "should" be Y. In order to check these things, you'll need to do a few tests. The first one is find out whether the vector (X or Y) of the plane your testing is pointing in the opposite direction of previous vector. The second test is to find out whether the vector (X or Y) of the plane your testing is perpendicular to the previous vector. In both cases, an angle test between the two vectors will be able to tell you what you need to know, but you will likely NEVER get exactly 180 for an opposite test or 90 for a perpendicular test. That means that you have to choose a range with which to determine that a given vector is opposite or perpendicular.
You should start testing the X vector to see if anything is wrong. If you find that the X vector is fine, then just move on because Rhino will only allow you to create right handed planes, and the Z vector (the tangent) will always be the same.
I don't believe that there's a native function within the old dotNET SDK for calculating angles, so use the example at the link below. It basically takes the arcCosine of the Dot Product of the two vectors your testing to return the angle in Radians. I'm not sure if this function is included in RhinoCommon or not....
http://wiki.mcneel.com/developer/sdksamples/anglebetweenvectors…