Grasshopper 2009 Gold Edition available for download

Grasshopper 0.6.0055 is available for download:

EXE Installer

ZIP Installer

This is BETA software. Use at your own risk!

This release fixes a number of reasonably serious bugs:
- VB and C# components would have problems loading referenced assemblies from unexpected folders. This is (at least somewhat) fixed.
- Enabling objects would fail to properly enable input parameters for components, this is fixed.
- Probably some other ones too, my bookkeeping skills leave something to be desired.

It also offers some new functionality:
- A new Group object has been added. Groups allow you to visually link several components. Group colour cannot yet be changed, but by double clicking the group, the outline mode can be toggled.

- A new Markov widget has been added. This widget uses Markov chains to 'guess' which component you want to use next based on your behaviour in the past. It takes a while for it to get accustomed to you as a special and unique and lovable individual, so don't expect miracles right away.

- A new Profiler widget has been added (off by default). The profiler lists worst-case runtimes for parameters and components, allowing you to track down bottlenecks in networks and to compare different components in terms of performance.

- All widgets now have proper tooltips.

- Mouse picking has been improved. Different actions are now handled better and especially making new wires should be somewhat easier.

- Toolbars now draw separators between different groups of objects. Separators can be disabled via the View menu.

- Fuzzy searching has been improved.

- Scribbles now allow font sizes up to 100pt.

- All Complex Number components have been moved into their own Tab.

- Tabs are now scrollable when the width of all tabs exceeds the width of the window.

And of course a couple of new components (to be honest, I have no idea which ones are new since the last release):

- Repeat Data
- Random Reduce
- Domain Inclusion
- String Concatenation
- Sinc (Sinus Cardinalis) trigonometry function
- Spherical Cloud
- Sort Points
- Vector Rotate and Vector Mass Addition (are these really new? ... I forgot)
- Curve Dash pattern
- Nurbs Curve Control Points
- Metaball with custom charge overrides
- Curve self-intersections

Enjoy, and have a happy 2010!

--
David Rutten
david@mcneel.com
Poprad, Slovakia

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Björn Förstberg on January 5, 2010 at 10:02am

Hi David,

thank you very much for the new gold version, the grouping and the new components seem awesome.

I just have a small wish. I'm mostly working on a 15" laptop, meaning that I don't have that much of screen real estate. As the normal laptop screen is in the 16:10 format there is often a shortage of space vertically but more space horizontally. Therefore, it would be a great feature to be able to dock the tabs with the components on the side of the grasshopper window rather than on the top. This would leave much more space for the definition itself.

Cheers

Björn

Permalink Reply by diego on January 5, 2010 at 12:31pm

It is very nice that this is my first read discussion after my two week vacation (yes, i'm kind of bragging), excellent news, thanks again David, Merry Christmas and happy new year to everyone by the way, hope that everybody took a very well earned break.

Cheers
DIego

Permalink Reply by Andrei Raducanu on January 5, 2010 at 5:58pm

a variable type that might come in useful quite often would be a line equation variable.
this would define an infinite line that has a stable position in space (unlike vectors which have length and no origin).
a point-on-line component could work like this: you input one of the 3 coordinates, and get the point as output. let me know what do you think about this idea..
all the best!

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on January 6, 2010 at 1:28am

Hi Andei,

do you want a new data type in Grasshopper, or do you want components that deal with infinite segments?

--
David Rutten
david@mcneel.com
Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Andrei Raducanu on January 6, 2010 at 7:06am

i was thinking at a new data type.
the component is just an example of how this type could be used.
thanks for answering

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on January 6, 2010 at 7:36am

Well it seems to me components like these can function perfectly well on good old finite line segments. They just need to be told that -for the time it takes to solve a problem- a line segment should be treated as infinite.

This already happens in the Mathematical intersection components...

--
David Rutten
david@mcneel.com
Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Andrei Raducanu on January 6, 2010 at 7:47am

i was thinking that it takes less resources to determine points analytically then using intersections of geometry.
nevertheless, please lt me know how i can make a component consider a line as infinite (for the Line|Plane intersection for example, couldn't figure it out...)
thanks!

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on January 6, 2010 at 8:14am

It does, but finite line segments are just as analytical as infinite line segments.

Line|Plane intersection already operates on infinite lines (and infinite planes).

Evaluate Curve is also capable of sampling the infinite segment beyond the domain of the physical segment.

--
David Rutten
david@mcneel.com
Poprad, Slovakia