dynamically creating and assigning geometry?

hey, i am confronted with the following (simplified) challenge: dynamically create and assign spheres of radius x and curve parameter y (location of sphere center on the segment) to segments of a polyline (see image).

it should work as follows: choose the segment-index with one slider, choose the number of spheres for that segment with another one. finally, step through spheres to set their radius and location on the respective segment.

can this be done at all? any help appreciated.

best regards from vienna,

heinz.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on August 2, 2010 at 6:31am

Is the radius to be pre-set or assigned based on its location or proximity to the other spheres?

Permalink Reply by Heinz Schmiedhofer on August 2, 2010 at 6:35am

no, the user should be able to raise and lower the amount of spheres per segment and freely edit the radii and sphere positions.

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on August 2, 2010 at 6:54am

For this scenario you would either need to have a maximum number of spheres limit where you created a slider for location and one for radius for each individual sphere up to your maximum. or you would have to edit the values in a text panel manually.

Sliders: Individual Spheres created using individual sliders

Panels: Multiple Spheres created using panels

Permalink Reply by Heinz Schmiedhofer on August 2, 2010 at 7:07am

hey danny, thanks a lot!

however, since the number of segments may change throughout the design phase (up to approx. 100), and the number of spheres per segment may vary a lot (up to 10 also), manual editing of values won't be efficient.

to become more specific, my question was targetted at how to dynamically organize a data-tree in order to achieve a data-structure capable of holding the described scenario. do you think this is possible in some way?

best, heinz.

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on August 2, 2010 at 7:18am

Sorry I missed the Segments bit. I'll have re-think and get back to you.

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on August 2, 2010 at 7:33am

I think I would approach this with the data being managed in Excel to generate csv files with the dynamic data. And then streaming the contents of text files into GH with the panels. Split the text strings with GH v0.7's string tools and plug these into the location and sphere components.

Permalink Reply by Heinz Schmiedhofer on August 2, 2010 at 8:04am

hey danny, this is definitely heading into the right direction. do you think there is any chance of interactively setting the contents of the leftmost lists in your image via grasshopper?

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on August 2, 2010 at 10:36am

Up to 100 segments, possible 10 spheres per segment, 2 variables per sphere. Makes for 2000 interactive inputs.

Is this something you need to do interactively?

There are ways of linking Excel with grasshopper so that when data is changed in Excel you can see the results in Rhino.

Permalink Reply by Heinz Schmiedhofer on August 5, 2010 at 1:26pm

hey danny, the spheres thing was just a largely simplified example for something i need in a design tool, such that editing excel-sheets is not really an option. i now c-sharped a component holding an appropriate data-tree which can be edited interactively. works well, but took me quite a while.

thanks a lot again, heinz.

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