What is the purpose of the "Group" component?

On the Transform > Util menu there is the Group / Ungroup components. I'm having a difficult time understanding the purpose of these components and was wondering if someone could explain a usage model.

I know that I can use the Group component and get a resulting group. But what do I do with that? I can't find any way to reference any object within the group other than by deconstructing the group so why group it in the first place?

Is there really any advantage in using the Group component or is it just as good to combine objects using something like the "Entwine" component outputting to a geography parameter?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on February 18, 2014 at 10:20am

The groups in Grasshopper are meant to wrap up several pieces of geometry into one. It then becomes easier to transform them all at once. So it's basically a way of keeping things together as they get transformed.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Permalink Reply by cughudson on February 13, 2017 at 11:20pm

Hi, David Rutten, Is there any C# API to make geometry into an group in Grasshopper?

It waste my lots of to find the C# API, But failed.

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on February 18, 2014 at 10:29am

It's mainly to do with transforming objects as a group.

I use a lot of text files with ship positions and headings in to plot tracks. My ship model is made up of many different components so to get them to move to the correct location and then rotate to the correct heading for every line in the file I group them first.

Otherwise the data matching of GH would only move the first object on my ship to the first location and then rotate it. The second object to the second location and rotate etc etc.

It is also use full when using the Compound Transformation component where you can build up a series of move&rotate transformations from the X output of the Affine, Arrray and Euclidean Transformation Components

Permalink Reply by Michael Pryor on February 18, 2014 at 12:42pm

here is a situation it was useful to keep lines together without making a complex data tree, making the transformation logic easier to manage. http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/data-trees-and-workflow?x...

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