Grasshopper 0.8.0005 available for download

Hello Everybody,

it's been a while, but here we are at last. The next version of Grasshopper is available for download from the usual place. Alternatively, I've uploaded an installer-less zip archive here, which you can use in case you have problems downloading or running exe files.

There are several known issues that have not yet been fixed, among these are the Cluster Data Output Layout discrepancies and the lack of flatten and graft state icons on several objects such as Gradients.

Here's a list of changes since 0.8.0004, and you can see the full update history using the 'Version History' entry in the Grasshopper help menu.

Additions:

• 1500+ Lolcats!
• The deep-down-display-plumbing has been rewritten.     The Grasshopper canvas is now drawn on the screen in a completely different fashion,  be on the lookout for weird behaviour and novel crashes.
• Added customizable display threshold to profiler widget.
• Added a Reverse option on all parameters in addition to Flatten and Graft.
• Added constant info to the PathMapper mask dialog.
• Added 'Copy Content' and 'Copy Data Only' menu items to the text panel.
• Improved add-on icon placement on the banner.
• Rewrote Colour Picker control from scratch.
• Rewrote Number Slider control from scratch.
• Added a new Digit Scroller control to replace all standard windows numeric up/down controls.
• Added a new Digit Scroller control as a special object.
• Added a new data type for groups of geometric objects.
• Added Create Group component (Transform tab).
• Added Destroy Group component (Transform tab).
• Added Merge Group component (Transform tab).
• Added Split Group component (Transform tab).
• Added a Transform Matrix type and parameter.
• Added Compound Transform component (Transform tab).
• Added Split Transform component (Transform tab).
• Added generic Transform component (Transform tab).
• Added Transform Matrix display object (Transform tab).
• All Transform components now output Transformation data.
• All Transform components geometry inputs are now optional.
• Double clicking on the trackbar portion of a slider now pops up an input textbox.
• Added a Settings browser window (File menu). Note that this is not supposed to be a true Settings interface.
• Solution states can now be deleted as well as created.
• Changes to solution states are now recorded in the undo stack.
• When toolbar icon panels are fully collapsed, they are now wide enough to read the panel name.
• Added FilletCurve component for individual fillets.
• Sliders with expressions now show the processed value.
• Added a Value List object to the Params.Special panel.
• Added System.Linq and System.Xml.Linq namespaces to the VB/C# references.
• The Image Sampler can now save the image data in the ghx file.
• Added an image gallery object (Params.Special tab, dropdown portion only).

Fixes:

• Fixed a problem with the popup search box not showing up sometimes.
• Floating parameter icons now center themselves in the space left over by the state tags.
• 'Export Hi-Res' menu item is now disabled if no document is loaded.
• Fixed a problem with tooltips on the Grasshopper banner assembly icons.
• Parameter flatten settings were not recorded in the undo-stack, this is fixed.
• Parameter graft settings were not recorded in the undo-stack, this is fixed.
• Fixed a bug with Curve|Line intersection and degenerate curve boundingboxes.
• Fixed a bug in the Shatter Curve component (thank you to])
• Scribble drags were not recorded by Undo, this is fixed.
• Scribble property changes were not recorded by Undo, this is fixed.

Some general notes about the new stuff:

• The Group data type basically allows you to bundle together geometry during transforms. It's a lot like Blocks in Rhino (except there are no reduced memory benefits). Groups will work with Transform components but not with most other Geometry components.
• The Transform data type is for geeks only. Rhino internally uses a 4x4 matrix to transform geometry. Unless you understand what all the numbers in the matrix mean, this is probably of no use to you.
• There were a lot of problems in the past with the particular flavour of GDI blitting I used. Compared to the number of times a Grasshopper canvas was redrawn in the world at large this was still a very rare event which made it difficult to catch. Hopefully the new system will not suffer from these old problems, but be aware there may be new problems as well as performance hits. If you find something odd, please let me know.
• All windows numeric up-down controls have been replaced with a custom digit scroller control. This is only the first stab at getting it right. If you have constructive criticism please do not hesitate to post it.
• Storing images inside the ghx document is now possible both via the Image Sampler and the Image Gallery objects. Note that images are currently always stored as 32-bit-per-pixel png files, even if you supply them as downgraded jpegs. This means that the file-size might explode if you decide to store embedded images.
• A pre-release version of this build was posted on the Grasshopper VB/C# forum a few days ago, since there are quite a lot of SDK breakages. If you find some of your additional GHA libraries fail to load, please post a screen-shot of the error either here or on the VB/C# forum.

Enjoy,

David

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David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia