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.

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

The line-up includes:

Ioulietta Zindrou, Maite Bravo, Verena Volger, Luis Fraguada (of Barcelona/IAAC fame);
Yours truly Dimitrie (of Bucharest fame);
Henning Rambow, Patrik Bedarf (Leipzig crew);

I haven’t been that productive lately due to the many things happening all the time, but hopefully I’ll be able to get back on the research track in summer.

(27.05.09) The Symposium takes place at 18:00 in the Geodätenstand 6 O.G. TU Berlin Hauptgebäude, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin.

The Rule Based Design Symposium highlights contemporary academic and practice based research employing CAD, CAM, Coding/Web tools in addressing & communicating architectural design intents & constraints. The research spectrum ranges from theory to the digital crafting of buildings and their components.

Organized by Christophe Barlieb.

Flexibility in thought and expression is vital to all creative fields. The power of a new generation of parametric and bespoke CAD tools lies in the ability to negotiate and communicating the design intent clearly. This streamlining saves time, materials while integrating architecture, engineering and fabrication over the course of the entire architectural design process.

The symposium features research works by young contemporary academics in the fields of mathematics, architecture and fabrication

Schedule:
Time Speaker Affiliation Theme
18:00 Gisela Baurmann TU Berlin RBD Opening Statements
18:05 Kristoffer Josefsson TU Berlin Mathematics in Architecture
18:25 Dimitrie Stefanescu U.Bucharest Scripting Architecture
18:45 Christophe Barlieb TU Berlin Integration of Engineering & Design
19:05 Norbert Palz CITA Rapid Prototyping in Architecture
19:25 Martin Tamke CITA Fabrication of Architecture
19:45 Baurmann, Barlieb, Pfeiffer TU Berlin Discussion with Speakers & Public
20:00 PARTY

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.

(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.

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.

SPRscrpts

for Rhino is out now. Grab it while it’s fresh (and buggy).

Sorry for the huge delay.

SPRscrpts is coming (with documentation). It brings to your Rhino 4 SuperShapes, SphericalHarmonics, SuperTori and Shells. Below is an illustration of what it can do (that’s the shell script at work).

Well, you easily can.

The following will generate quite a few possible shapes, some of which will surely look better than this.

Option Explicit
‘Script written by didi stefanescu
‘Released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
‘http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode

Dim arrVertices
Dim arrFaces

””””””””””””””””””””””””
”CHANGE THE RESOLUTION/DETAIL LEVEL BELOW    ”
”BUT BEAR IN MIND THAT 128 IS QUITE HIGH     ”
”SO IF YOU’RE ON A SLOWER COMPUTER YOU WOULD ”
”LIKE TO USE SOMETHING LIKE res = 64         ”
””””””””””””””””””””””””

Dim res : res = 128
Dim PI : PI = Rhino.Pi()
Dim du, dv

Dim m0, m1, m2, m3, m4, m5, m6, m7
Dim colors : colors = True
Dim MESH

Call Main()

Sub Main()

du = PI * 2 / res
dv = PI / res

Call initParams()
Rhino.EnableRedraw(False)

arrVertices = createVertices()
arrFaces = createFaces()

MESH = Rhino.AddMesh(arrVertices,arrFaces)

If(colors) Then
Call ColorMe(MESH)
End If

Rhino.EnableRedraw(True)
End Sub

””””””””””””””””””””””””
”CHANGE THESE PARAMETERS TO WHATEVER YOU LIKE”
”AS LONG AS THEY STAY INTEGERS               ”
””””””””””””””””””””””””

Function initParams()
m0 = 4 : m1 = 1 : m2 = 5 : m3 = 2
m4 = 2 : m5 = 1 : m6 = 4 : m7 = 5
End Function

Function createVertices()
Dim u, v, i, j
Dim k : k = -1
Dim arrVert()

For    i = 0 To res Step 1
u = i * du
For j = 0 To res Step 1
k = k + 1
v = j * dv
ReDim Preserve arrVert(k)
arrVert(k) = sphHarmonics(u, v)
Next
Next
createVertices = arrVert
End Function

Function createFaces()
Dim i, j
Dim k : k = -1
Dim base
Dim arrF()
For i = 0 To res – 1 Step 1
For j = 0 To res – 1 Step 1
k = k + 1

ReDim Preserve ArrF(k)
base = i * (res + 1) + j
arrF(k) = Array(base, base + 1, base + res + 2, base + res + 1)
Next
Next

createFaces = arrF

End Function

Function sphHarmonics(ByVal th, ByVal phi)

Dim r, x, y, z

r = sin(m0 * phi) ^ m1 + cos(m2 * th) ^ m3 + sin(m4 * phi) ^ m5 + cos(m6 * th) ^ m7

x = r * sin(phi) * cos(th)
y = r * cos(phi)
z = r * sin(phi) * sin(th)

sphHarmonics = Array(x, y, z)
End Function

Function colorMe(ByVal obj2Color)
Dim vert : vert = Rhino.MeshVertices(obj2Color)
Dim face : face = Rhino.MeshFaceVertices(obj2Color)
Dim color() : ReDim color(Ubound(vert))

Dim i, tempV

For i = 0 To Ubound(vert) Step 1
tempV = vert(i)
color(i) = RGB(abs(tempV(0)*200), abs(tempV(1)*200), abs(tempV(2)*100))
Next

Call Rhino.AddMesh(vert, face, , , color)
Call Rhino.DeleteObject(obj2Color)
End Function