Extruding along Rhino curves

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on October 1, 2009 at 11:12am

You really need to sweep, rather than extrude. Are your curves lines, planar curves or non planar curves? What defines the orientation, are you trying to keep the webs vertical?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=816FHyHCHfQ

You might be quite interested in the structural plug-in I've been working on. There's still lots of features/ideas to implement, but you mind find it very useful already. I did a quick screen capture of applying it to lines generated for a hypar in Grasshopper. You can apply the properties to a layers, so that any curve added to the layer is swept, however the event watcher doesn't recognize the completion of the Grasshopper bake command (if you read this David, can you comment?) If this looks appealing, download it and try for yourself. Don't hesitate to get in contact if you need assistance with getting started etc. http://ssi.wikidot.com

Cheers,

Jon

Permalink Reply by Benjamin Thomas on October 1, 2009 at 5:46pm

Cheers for the reply Jon, the video looks great. The form I'm trying to create is of a series of I beams (parallel in plan) hinged from a line (x-axis). They vary in length and angle (z-axis). They should not twist or distort... I would like to use the control lines I have created in Rhino. Thanks for your help. Ben

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on October 1, 2009 at 11:49pm

There are some controls for orientation for the plug-in, but it's not exhaustive yet. You can manually apply an orientation angle, or more effectively have the plug-in calculate the orientation to align with a surface normal that the curves/lines align with.

Updating the help for the plug-in is high on the priority, so feel free to email me if you get confused or can't get the result your looking for. I uploaded the hypar grasshopper definition to the blog (http://geometrygym.blogspot.com ) if you wish to emulate the video.

With sweep, you shouldn't see any twisting or distorting if your string line is planar. (Easiest way to check this is if intersect the swept profile with a plane nomal to the curve). Lines definitely wll not twist or distort.

If you do need help, an image or part model might help a lot in checking what you're goal is and how best to achieve it. Note the downloaded plug-in will only sweep a handful of curves each command, but you can activate full functionality by requesting a trial license.

Cheers, Jon

Permalink Reply by Benjamin Thomas on October 2, 2009 at 4:45am

Cheers for the reply, I have attached an image of my control curves.
The blue rectangle is flat to the x-y-axis. The red line is a control curve. The white lines act as structural orientation guides for the I-beams. Basically I'd like to know how to set this up in Grasshopper so I can control the curves in Rhino and Grasshopper will construct the I-beams along the white lines.

Is this possible? Or do I need to set up the entire form, subdivisons and lines in Grasshopper?

Attachments:

• Diagram.jpg, 648 KB

Permalink Reply by Sahara on September 8, 2010 at 7:12am

hi,

I am new to grasshopper and the rhino plug in...I've just downloaded your plug in and I can open it in rhino,but i have this problem at the moment which is when I press the save to profile button,nothing happens I mean it suppose to open up another window so I can choose my line to make them into solid but it won't happen the new window as you demonstrated in your video won't open for me...is it something with the license thing??because I think i haven't got the license report or anything....I mean when I type the dsrzzlicense in rhino it says unknown command...
thanks ,
sahara

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on September 8, 2010 at 8:13am

Hi Sahara,

If you have non-English windows or 64 bit windows you'll have to "translate" the path, but here's how to get started.

You should find a file at C:\Program Files\Rhinoceros 4.0\Plug-ins\SSI\ssiStructDrawRhino.rhp

Drag it over Rhino Application and it should load the plug-in. The command for the license request is sdrZZLicneseRequest (not sure if you had the typo in Rhino). If the command still isn't recognized, then get in contact with me. My grasshopper components are inactive without the license file, but to date Students have been granted licenses for free and commercial users get a free evaluation period.

Hope that helps,

Jon

Permalink Reply by Sahara on September 8, 2010 at 9:44am

thanks for your reply,but I am still struggling to get this plug in to work...I am going to send an image of my rhino screen so you can see which stage I am in.....I can install the plug in and I can see the dialog box and open it but the rest doesn't work...I write the sdrZZlicense request and it says again unknown command......i am using the English version of rhino.

thanks,
sahar

Attachments:

• my rhino screen.jpg, 5.5 MB

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on September 8, 2010 at 10:24am

Hi Sahara,

Cut and paste the text of the command from here:

sdrZZLicenseRequest

You have a typo in your rhino screen capture, you had SsdrZZLicenseRequest

If you get the starting characters correct, it should autocomplete (Rhino v5 is smart enough to recognize many typos).

Note a couple of other things, if you don't have Windows Live Mail, Outlook, thunderbird or an email program installed, it will not automatically generate an email to me. It prompts you with an address and copies the data I need to Windows Clipboard. Paste it into an email to me.

Also, if you post images, it's good practice to reduce the size of them if possible (5.5MB is a bit big for a screencapture). Cropping to the relevant areas is also a good idea, although at least I can see the plug-in is installed and working fine.

Let me know if this still doesn't help.

Jon

Permalink Reply by Sahara on September 8, 2010 at 11:29am

thanks again,sorry for the size of the image.....thanks for your reply.....I tried and it work but I cannot get the server to send you the email and after I press cancel, it doesn't give me the detail of the license request on the clipboard.I think I have the email program installed,but unfortunately it fails every time I attempt to send and after it fails,it wont give me the detail of the license request.......any suggestion??? I am going to send you a new image of my screen again.....

thanks again,
sahara

Attachments:

• Untitled-1.jpg, 92 KB

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on September 8, 2010 at 2:47pm

Hi Sahara,

Much better image (I only said because at one stage there was a file size quota so better to use data efficiently, maybe that was the old google group).

Sorry you're having so many problems. I'll look to improve the user prompts if the email sending fails. I envisioned the license system to be used primarily on commercial computers where email software is installed.

I promise you this will work. If you don't click cancel, click ok regardless of the email generation failing. After clicking ok on the mapi failed dialog box the clipboard contents should contain text that looks like this (with your computer details):

< ?xml version="1.0" >
< License >
xxxxx
xxxx< /Domain>
000000000000< / MAC>
20100408< / Date>
A:20100510




(Above is not quite right, xml doesn't appear correctly on the ning posts).

If you paste, you're not seeing this text?

There are two other options to either give me the details I need, or for me to activate a floating license (ie internet checkout) for you. If you can email me on jonm@geometrygym.com I will advise.

Sorry for the problems,

Jon

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on September 9, 2010 at 2:26am

Hi Sahara,

I just uploaded a new build of StructDrawRhino, download from http://www.geometrgym.com/downloads and install (make sure Rhino is not running). Run the command sdrZZLicenseUpdate and hopefully the prompts are clearer as to when the data is in Windows Clipboard and what to do with it. Let me know if it still needs improving.

Cheers,

Jon