Boolean Solids inside Solids in Grasshopper

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Permalink Reply by Brian Harms on February 15, 2017 at 5:21pm

hmm... how would you do this in rhino?

I believe that unless the geometries intersect in some way you will have problems doing this in rhino or grasshopper. 

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 15, 2017 at 5:26pm

Yes "rhino is surface editor" that is correct though still mergenonmanifolfsurfaces command manages to hollow breps out (although apparently it is only a work-around and it wasn't its intended use)

I am just wondering if there is similsr solution in GH?

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 15, 2017 at 5:28pm

*'nonmanifoldmerge'

Permalink Reply by Brian Harms on February 16, 2017 at 11:53am

Gotcha. Is there a reason you'd need the two geometries to be "merged" as one?

Just wondering if there is a workaround you can use.

As a last resort you can call rhino commands from grasshopper with a simple script component.

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 16, 2017 at 11:56am

That would be actually really helpful if you could attach example how to do script like that.

It is something I am coming across many times at various occasions really.

Dan

Permalink Reply by Brian Harms on February 16, 2017 at 12:31pm

I think the easiest way, without having to deal with scripting yourself, would be to download lunchbox and use the "rhino command" component. You can type in a list of commands (what you would type in rhino) and it will be executed from GH. 

Keep in mind if there are multiple prompts in a command, you have to write out each one.

For example, if you wanted to scale some stuff up 200% in rhino about the origin, you'd maybe type something like:

SelAll

Enter (or spacebar)

Scale

Enter (or spacebar)

0,0,0

Enter (or spacebar)

2

Enter (or spacebar)

You can either type it all out in one string of text, or break them up into multiple panels for better readability.

Before running the commands:

After running the commands:

Hope that helps you get started.

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 16, 2017 at 1:14pm

Thank you very much. That is very helpful - didn't know about this 'macro' component in lunchbox. 

I tried to use it, but some things don't seem all right. Do you know how to make it input object from grasshopper instead of selecting them in Rhino? Can it take id/GUI names of grasshopper objects? 

Permalink Reply by Brian Harms on February 16, 2017 at 6:32pm

One thing you could try (kind of hacky, but could work) is to do something like:

1. bake the object to rhino with a grasshopper component (lunchbox has one, can specify layer, etc.)

2. run your macro (starting with SelLast - which selects that last object in rhino)

3. use the dynamic geometry pipeline component to reference the modified geometry either by name, layer, color, etc.

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 17, 2017 at 4:45am

That's interesting. Thank you.

Also I wanted to ask you how to use dynamic geometry pipeline to also "Select that last object/s"? It would be useful to have this step completely automated, so not to come back to it each time when geometry changes.

Permalink Reply by Brian Harms on February 17, 2017 at 12:32pm

If you double click on the layer name on the pipeline component, you can type in the layer that you will be baking your geometry to. It should automatically reference anything on that layer. 

Permalink Reply by Daniel on February 17, 2017 at 12:35pm

Great, thanks again.