Grasshopper 0.8.0050 developer pre-release

Dear GHA developers,

hopefully very soon I'll release Grasshopper 0.8.0050 to the public. I'm pre-releasing 0.8.0050 on the VB/C# forum first so developers can take a look at it. This release contains many breaking changes to the SDK and has utterly lost file-format forwards compatibility. The binary gh file format is now saved with standard Deflate compression and it has become the default format.

Do not overwrite your old files! There are possibly serious bugs in the new IO code.

The most serious breakages have occured in the IGH_Attributes interface and subclasses, so if you have objects that override the default attributes they will most likely need to be fixed and recompiled.

The installer is available for download from our servers. I've also updated the SDK help file and added a few more topics, most notably how to implement IGH_Attributes under the new SDK. I'll try and answer any questions about compiler errors and SDK changes as quickly as possible.

Here's a complete list of changes and fixes since 0.8.0013:

File format forwards compatibility has been broken. You will not be able to open files saved with 0.8.0050 on earlier versions.
This release contains many breaking changes and GHA libraries compiled for older version may not work anymore.
Grasshopper Binary files (*.gh) are now saved as compressed data.
Grasshopper Binary files (*.gh) are now the default format.
Support for ancient versions of the Text Panel (still called Post-It from back then) has been removed.
Support for ancient versions of the Path Mapper (still called Path Lexer from back then) has been removed.
Placeholders for ancient versions of the Graph Mapper have been removed.
Galapagos wires are drawn much fainter when the Galapagos object is unselected.
Gradient input parameters now show state tag icons (Reversed, Flatten etc.).
Geometry Cache name changes are now updated on every key press.
Geometry Cache name changes can now be cancelled with Escape.
Geometry Cache name changes can now be undone.
Mesh|Mesh intersection component now uses a different algorithm. The old behaviour is still available from the component menu.
Warning and Error balloons are now drawn as part of a Canvas Widget and will no longer show up in the Hi-Res image export.
Galapagos now accepts multiple fitness values. The true fitness will be the average of the collection.
Medium fast redraw mode in Galapagos now immediately redraws instead of solving the fittest genome again at the end of each generation. This should result in fewer redraws altogether (though potentially several redraws in the same generation) and definitely fewer computations.
Redesigned all grasshopper file format icons and added larger size icons for high-dpi explorer views.
Redesigned the Most Recently Used files menu, it should now display much quicker.
Compass widget has been rewritten in an attempt to increase display performance.
Added preferences section for Compass widget.
Added preferences section for Align widget.
Added preferences section for Default Preview colours (fairly clunky UI so far).
Added preferences section for the Most Recently Used files menu.
The Area component now accepts Breps, Meshes and Planar Closed Curves.
The Area Centroid component now accepts Breps, Meshes and Planar Closed Curves.
The Volume component now accepts Breps and Meshes.
The Volume Centroid component now accepts Breps and Meshes.
Added Merge Faces component (Surface.Util panel).
Added a Mesh Smooth component (Mesh.Util panel).
Added a Curve Seam component (Curve.Util panel).
The Canvas would remain black upon maximizing the Rhino window, this is fixed.
Sliders would cause multiple updates under certain conditions, this is fixed.
Pipes were inside out. This is fixed.
The curve component would not adjust invalid nurbs degrees, this is fixed.
Curves referencing Brep edges failed to load, this is fixed.
Points referencing Brep edges failed to load, this is fixed.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Lucas Issey Yoshinaga on July 21, 2011 at 6:14pm

ow!! great changes!!

I'll check that out!!

thx again and again!

Permalink Reply by Michael Iskandar on July 21, 2011 at 7:46pm

So I am in the process of installing Grasshopper for the first time... but can't seem to figure out why an error message keeps popping up when I do:

1. I installed the Grasshopper installer

2. I went into the plug-in manager in Rhino and tried to install the "grasshopperplugin.rhp" file.

3. a Rhinoceros 4.0 Rhino.NET Error window pop ups: "Exception occured in plug-in Grasshopper. Unable to load DLL 'rhcommon_c": The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect"

Any ideas??

Thanks,

Mike

Permalink Reply by Dieter Toews on July 21, 2011 at 9:03pm

I wouldn't recommend this build of grasshopper if your new to the whole thing. This version is not intended for general release yet. Search "8.0013" on this forum for the next-most-latest-and-greatest.

Permalink Reply by Michael Iskandar on July 21, 2011 at 11:31pm

Thank you! I had the same error with combining GH 8.0013 and Rhino 4 SR9, however figured the problem out: simply had to download Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Service Pack 1.

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on July 22, 2011 at 2:43am

Hi Michael,

I'm not sure what that error means. I indeed only recommend this release if you are a developer, but it shouldn't have failed to load despite that. Let's wait to see if it pops up more often, it would be good to solve this before the 'real' release.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on July 22, 2011 at 12:23am

Geometry Gym plugins will all be affected by this update, but I've been able to implement the new GH_Attributes overrides successfully so I'm fine to post new builds when the new release is official.

Do you think the Galapagos issue I emailed yesterday can be considered before this release?

Thanks for all the improvements.

Jon

Permalink Reply by Peter Mehrtens on July 22, 2011 at 1:47am

personal comment: Jon is always so quick with updates. Great service!

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on July 22, 2011 at 2:44am

Hi Jon,

great work, thanks for letting me know. And yes, I'll probably have some time on my hands between now and the public release (I really shouldn't muck about in core code until then).

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Nathan Miller on July 22, 2011 at 2:08am

Thanks, David! Many improvements...

but one quick note... "Sliders would cause multiple updates under certain conditions, this is fixed."

If you are referring to my observation from the previous release... Yes, the issue has been corrected when you manually set a number.

However, I still encounter multiple updates under the following three conditions (most easily observed when recording slider behavior...)

1. When sliding to a value, the last number is always set twice.

2. When manually setting a value from within the slider pop-up menu, the value is set twice after OK.

3. When manually setting a value from the right-click drop down menu multiple updates occur:

a. when selecting the current value, the current value is recorded twice.

b. when confirming a new value, the new value is set twice.

I should also note that the digit scroller component also has some strange update behavior...most notably, any click-drag event will cause a value to update...duplicate values are constantly being reset until the scroller clearly arrives at a new value.

(I hope I'm not known as 'that slider guy'... I just have an idea I want to test that is being hindered by unwanted duplicate records as a result of strange slider behavior.)

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on July 22, 2011 at 2:47am

Blast. I'll try and fix these cases as well. Thanks for the comprehensive list :)

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on July 22, 2011 at 3:44am

Well, I think/hope I've fixed them all now.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Nathan Miller on July 22, 2011 at 9:20am

Thanks, David! You are a gentleman and a scholar.