Season’s greetings. Can you spot Santa? If you do, I’ll share the definition file

Grasshopper’s scripting capabilites are now a huge super cool feature, especially if you’re coding in visual studio (c#) and then pasting the shit or making dlls. I did this some time ago when i suddenly realized that you can declare your own static variables inside scripting nodes (and these guys hold up their values during the updating procedure). And the vector math is already there too.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7cEvMYDn5M]

This is an implementation based on Craig Reynolds‘s neurons, and a little bit on Daniel Shiffman’s processing example (which was updated and used some time ago for this.

Now, if somebody will be nice and implement some collision detection…

PS: I will upload the def. soonish (i have to clean it up a bit first). Ok i didn’t clean it up; here’s the link.

Here’s a new 10 day link: http://dl.transfer.ro/boidsT-Transfer_RO-16Nov-ad56f6.zip

Final link, stable and sound: http://improved.ro/Grasshopper/boidsTCAV.zip

Definition file (.ghx).

Referenced assembly (.dll).

Please note that the referenced assembly is based entirely on code from luvtechno.net.

More as a scripting experiment, when i was mucking about trying to make the delaunay triangulation work in grasshopper i somehow found the wonderfully complex qhull library which i promptly set to push and pull to get it to work with grasshopper. As advised on their website, the best way to do it is to call it as an external program, which is exactly what i’ve done:  no files are written or read, no dos windows pop up, everything’s smooth.

Given that you don’t have many complex operations in grasshopper after the solution is generated, you’ll be able to handle quite an impressive amount of points (say 200 on my three-year old toplap) in real time. If you add the simple planarSrf operation, then say 60-70 and it gets sloppy.

What you’ll need to do to get things rolling:

0. Download the 3dvqhull definition and example file, and remember not to use it for commercial purposes, share-alike whatever you do with it and take the time to give the proper credits: 

1. Download qhull, and unzip it in a folder of your choice.

2. Get going and search for “System.dll”. What you’re interested in is the 2.0 version which you’ll usually find in here: “C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.5[...]\”. If you can’t find it, I’m amazed grasshopper works for you. Anyway, you can find and install it from here.

3. Add the newly found System.dll version 2.o as a referenced assembly of the qhull component in the definition file.

If it turns orange, it’s cool.

4. Write in the panel that is linked to the “path” input the full path to the qhull program qvoronoi. You don’t need to add the .exe extension, but you can do it if you feel confortable.

5. There’s just one more thing you should know: facets that contain the infinite vertex are omitted altogether, without remorse. So as to have as little facets tending towards infinitum, I always add the corners of the points bounding box to the input sites.

You can scale the bounding box in respect with its center, or you can just call the whole thing off – it’s your choice.

I think this just about covers everything. Take care and have fun.

didi out.

PS: Qhull does more than voronoi. So if you have the time to explore and test, please do – the package is very powerfull and it can be used for more than this.

How about 60 points for real-time 3d voronoi manipulation in grasshopper?

Here’s a screenshot:

This isn’t a scam. Stay tuned for more free voronoi PrOn (and other qhull-enabled goodies.)

(right click save target as)

Delaunay Triangulation in Rhino‘s Grasshopper plugin.

It’s pretty straightforward. Just don’t input in the magic node duplicating points or everything will start blowing up.

First one to make it output the voronoi diagram wins a candybar.

Again, out of popular requests during some time since the original was made, I have cleaned up the multiple attractors definition file. Included is also an example of attractors influencing the aperture openings of a given surface. The definition is now much more explained (exccesive use of post-it notes). Have fun, and download!

Download. ( 40kb .zip)

Out of popular demand, I have compiled a nice file detailing the possible uses of the Voronoi node, complete with the accompanying rhino file.

Download. (60 kb .zip)

For those who really like to play with voronoi regions and stuff, here’s the final grasshopper definition file (right click, save target as – else you’ll get a ~250kb of useless xml in your browser window).

The vcell component outputs now individual cells as closed polylines and closed nurbs curves. This is useful if you are using this for some urban project like i am i would have liked to, mostly due to easy offsetting and area calculation possiblities – included in the definition file – or height extrusion – included as well. You can even go further and color (using shaders) each cell coresponding with its mass/area/height etc.

Download the definition.

(right click and save target as)

Some nice people over in Spain (Laboratorio de Arquitectura y Computación) have made a nifty video detailing on how to use the thing:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEynRywJIb4&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]

Source code of the Vornoi2D node.

Have fun, and drop a line if something isn’t working the way it should (take care to select the boundary points in order – clockwise or trigonometric – doesn’t really matter).

Having some more haha with the previous grashopper sketch, this time working on curves.

This is intended in some sort of terrain manipulation for the ongoing project – too bad things started shaping like some sort of electrical field/strange attractor (it has nothing to do with the above, the similarity is purely formal).

Download the .ghx file here. (right click, save target as)

Also there’s a bug in the code – something’s not working right. Initial attractors seem to have much more power than the latter. Maybe someone that takes a fresh look over the code could point out my mistakes.

– LATER EDIT –

There seems to be also a little glitch in provding the code for curve_gen scripting node, so here it is (copy and paste it):

Multiple Attractors working in Rhino’s Grasshopper, all handled in a nice VBScript Component.

Works with quite anything (initially deisgned for surfaces).

Download the definition file.

Have fun with it. I still didn’t have the time to put this to a proper, nicely rendered use and it’s been almost a month now since it’s finished. Quite fustrating.

Here’s the link to download the grasshopper .wrm file.

Grasshopper brings to you real close to actual parametric architecture. I guess you’ll be better off reading the description over on the mcneel site.

Though the visual programming paradigm is a bit hard to grasp from the begining, you’ll be on your own quite soon. You’ll be flying if you’ve used PD, vvvv or max/msp before.