Adding tabs to panelized surface trouble

I figure that I am just missing something simple but I have been struggling to add tabs to a panelized surface that I created. I have been looking at a couple of tutorials one being the digital tool box "offset and scale/create tabs" one. The problem I am having comes after I explode the panels, offset the edges, find their center and scale them. When I try to put that data list into three list items with three respective i values (0, 1, 2) all of the data goes to the list item with i=0 and none of it goes to the other two. The line-like curves coming out of the coming out of the scale function all have a zero at the beginning rether than being broken into sets with 0, 1, 2 at the beginnings like the output from the explode function. The result of this is that the edges of the tabs are all in one list item so when I find the endpoints and try to connect them to finish the tabs stuff goes a bit wrong. Any help would be much appreciated.

I've attached the files and a jpg

Thanks
Tom

Attachments:

aaa.3dm, 1.5 MB
aaa.ghx, 683 KB
aaa.JPG, 220 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by taz on March 2, 2010 at 5:15pm

...Tree problem... let me get back to you in a second.

Permalink Reply by taz on March 2, 2010 at 6:03pm

Well, the short answer is something changed in GH (presuming the definition was functional with an earlier version) with [Offset].

The surfaces edges had a hierarchy with their corresponding surface (number of branches = number of faces, item count = 3 for each branch), but [Offset] now seems to graft each output curve into it's own separate branch.

Selecting list items at the end of the definition works on EACH branch to get the total list of curves for creating points.

The screengrab should make more sense than words.

Permalink Reply by Tom on March 3, 2010 at 12:18am

Taz,
Thanks a bunch for the help. I saw how that was happening to the output from the [offset] but I just didn't know how to fix it. I'm still figuring out data trees. I have had this problem with other definitions as well so this should help out with those as well.
One thing I don't understand was that I was still having problems with the definition until I put a [Param Viewer] in the wire going from the [explode] to the [duplicate data]. I thought that the [param viewer] just let you see the output and didn't alter or organize it.
Thanks again.

Tom

Permalink Reply by taz on March 3, 2010 at 12:31pm

If you're learning more about trees you'll also want to be familiar with [Path Mapper]. It's a very useful tool, but doesn't work in all situations (such as your case). That's when the older [Replace Branches] needs to be used. It's not as intuitive or friendly.

As to your question, the output from [Param Viewer] is a list of the names of the paths as strings. [Duplicate] is simply taking each of the old path names and making 3 copies.

Check out the help files for [PM] and [RB]. They're both pretty extensive.

Permalink Reply by Jeff on March 18, 2010 at 5:37pm

Taz, I have a question about your screen grab. I'm experiencing the same problem as Tom and I've attempted to solve it with your screen shot. What kind of data is plugged into the Duplicate Data component? I see a 3 and a False plugged in but have been unable to reproduce the results on my end with an integer and a boolean. I also thought it might be a problem with my series component. Does it start at 0 and step 1? Thanks in advance.

Permalink Reply by taz on March 18, 2010 at 7:07pm

Jeff,

In this case [Param Viewer] is not just for displaying information.

See what Tom mentions above, but a [Param Viewer] needs to be connected between the E output of [Explode] and the D input of [Duplicate].

What is being duplicated is path names (string data) and this is the output of the [Param Viewer].

Let me know if that's not clear enough.

Permalink Reply by Jeff on March 18, 2010 at 7:32pm

Taz,

I have the [Param Viewer] hooked up to the D input in [Duplicate]. For some reason the [Replace Branches] continues to give me errors. What I'm having trouble grasping is still what information goes into the N input of the [Duplicate] component. It asks for an Integer and I want 3 paths for each branch so I put 3 in a string and fed it in. If you could offer any more clarification or guidance I would appriciate it. I set the O boolean to False. I'm sure it some some careless error on my part. By the way, your site, fancywires.com is amazing.

Thanks for your help,
Jeff

Attachments:

grasshopperdefinition.3dm, 2.2 MB
grasshopperdefinition.ghx, 1.4 MB

Permalink Reply by taz on March 18, 2010 at 8:25pm

Huh.. Somehow your offset results are producing a different tree structure.

There's an extra level of tree hierarchy, but this isn't a bad thing because it allows the use of [Path Mapper].

The difference must be related to the hole your adding to the panels upstream...

Try this:

Permalink Reply by Jeff on March 18, 2010 at 8:43pm

That did the trick. Thank you very much.

Permalink Reply by machinehistories on August 11, 2010 at 1:17pm

I too ran into issues doing the tutorial so I did it like this, I know this is not the way you are doing it but it seems to work for me. Bake the CRV node to do the perforations and bake the SUBSET node to do the boundary thru-cuts.

Attachments: