Grasshopper

algorithmic modeling for Rhino

Thornton Tomasetti’s CORE studio is pleased to announce Platypus, a new plugin for Grasshopper.  We are releasing an Alpha build of Platypus today, for evaluation by the Grasshopper community.

Platypus allows Grasshopper authors to stream geometry to the web in real time.  It works like a chatroom for parametric geometry, and allows for on-the-fly 3D model mashups in the web browser.  Multiple [Grasshopper] authors can stream geometry into a shared 3D environment on the web – a Platypus Session – and multiple viewers can join that session on 3dplatyp.us to interact with the 3D model.  Platypus can be used to present parametric 3D models to a remote audience, to quickly collaborate with other Grasshopper users, or both!

You can down load the Grasshopper plugin at food4rhino, and visit 3dplatyp.us to view your geometry on the web. This first round of Alpha testing will run for two weeks, until April 24 2014, after which the Grasshopper components will not solve. 

We are very interested in hearing feedback from the community while the project is still in the prototyping stages of development.  Please use the comments on this discussion to ask questions, suggest ideas, report bugs, etc.  We are planning on rolling out another public alpha release or two this Spring, depending on how this first one goes, in advance of our Technology Symposium and Hackathon in New York.

Check out our getting started video below, and enjoy!

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Replies to This Discussion

Hi Ben,

First of all I want to thank you an TT CORE for putting this out there for us to mess around with. With the most recent update, I'm seeing some major potential in the remote control sliders. While messing around, I tried to set up a Gate Filter to be controlled by a streamed slider that would define which geometry is being streamed. For now I set up 2 options, lines representing a the basic geometry of a "structure" and meshes of the actual "structure" itself. When I first start the connection, only the lines show (as expected), but as I switch the gate index back and forth between 0 and 1, I get somewhat inconsistent displays on the website end. It seems that the meshes stick around until I reset the connection, and that the lines actually appear on the opposite gate index. In Grasshopper they're displaying how I'd expect them to, so it's (hopefully) not a problem with the definition. I've attached it for you to check out. 

Nonetheless, as this gets developed more, I can see this being used to display different model layers (basic geometry, structure, solar study colored meshes), which will be pretty revolutionary for sharing models. Keep up the good work! 

Dan

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Hi Dan,

Thanks for the interest and the great feedback.  I was able to repeat the issue and consider that a bug - thanks for the find.  We need to send a 'delete this component's geometry' event to the browser if the component just solved successfully, and then changes to a state that doesn't let it solve (like a missing line or mesh input in your case).  We'll put it on the list and try to issue an updated alpha release soon.

If you have a minute or two, I'd love to hear how you imagine layers working on the front end, or any other feature ideas / requests.  We have some ideas brewing for an upcoming set of Beta releases, and layers (of some sort) are certainly in the mix.

Some kind of list, probably a drop-down, that could be streamed like sliders would be really beneficial. I suppose I'd imagine it being similar to that definition, where you plug you different geometry sets into a Stream Filter node. You could then set up a Value List node to give layers an index value, then the user can select the layer and that geometry / info will be sent. Not sure how you'd be able to set up multiple layers to stream at once though. Of course, that would mean all the computing is done on the host computer. Is that how you were thinking of doing layers? Or would a basic model get streamed, then the server would do the processing when decided how (or if) something gets displayed?

On the front end, streaming text-based data would great. Whether it's static information to accompany a set of iterations or something that changes with the sliders, it would give the opportunity to provide a "design dashboard" that pairs data with form. 

I'd also like to be able to stream data between different rhino files. I want to have one computer generating geometry, another analyzing the geometry and then streaming the results back to the first computer.

Would it be possible to remotely enable the platypus component after it automatically disables? In the above scenario I imagine two people working at different times, but both still able to stream geometry and data back and forth. Thanks.

Hi Luc,

The idea of streaming data and not just geometry is definitely noted and we will keep that in mind as we think about how this project will expand.

As for remotely enabling, at this point that isn't an option.  Currently when you stream data to the 3dplatyp.us website it bounces off of our cloud server which racks up a bill based on data usage.  The time limit was put in place to keep someone from essentially 'hosting' a model on our server.  However, your question is right in line with where we see this project headed. 

Hi Ben,

Platypus is great, but it was days i didn't use it (more than one month) and today i received an error message (Time's up partner!). You can see it in the attached file. I already updated the tool to Alpha 003 version.

Best

Stefano

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Thanks Stefano,

I just published an updated release onfood4rhino this afternoon.  No new functionality, but we've extended the cutoff date for the Alpha components through the end of 2014.  Enjoy!

Is it possible to stream the data to other websites/servers other than 3dplatyp.us ? 

For example, I want to display the geometry on my site, hosted on heroku, how can I do that ?

Chintan,

at the moment, no, it isn't possible.  Thanks for the question though - you aren't the only one who has requested something like this.  Something for us to consider...

Hi ben,

after several test I managed to run platypus .

But this not "real time", for my exemple (simple sphere)
regération time can be very long after the connection. I 'm testing with fiber but I did not notice a marked improvement .

there is there a way to speed ? in your video you go through the Internet or a local network ?

Best,
 

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