Hope for Help: object with balls and holes/Hoffe auf Hilfe: Gebilde mit Kugeln und Löchern

Hello Everybody!

I have a problem and hope for help.

I want to construct (Rhino & Grasshopper) an object, which consists of different sized balls, who shall merge with each other. Ensuing I want to “drill” holes to the surface, similar to the picture above.

Can anybody help me?

Perhaps it is totally simple, but I’m a terrible amateur, so please help me! :)

Thank you in advance!

Regards

Hallo alle zusammen!

Ich habe Problem und hoffe auf Hilfe.

Ich möchte (mit Rhino+Grasshopper) ein Objekt/Gebilde erstellen, dass aus verschieden großen hohlen Kugeln besteht, die miteinander verschmolzen sein sollen. Und dann hätte ich gern ein paar Öffnungen auf der Oberfläche, ähnlich wie das Bild oben. Kann mir jemand helfen?

Möglicherweise geht es auch ganz einfach, aber ich bin der totale Anfänger auf diesem Gebiet, also bitte helft mir! :)

Danke schon mal im Voraus!

Liebe Grüße

Other Examples, also possible:

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Hannes Löschke on April 25, 2012 at 2:10am

Just to get you started: the merged balls can be created with metaballs. After you have a mesh there are numerous ways to punch holes into it. You can search for "voronoi on surface" or "weaverbird".

Permalink Reply by Susanne Steinert on April 25, 2012 at 2:20am

Thank you for answering!

I know, I tried a lot with metaballs, aber at the end the balls had not really a surface to edit.

As I said - I'm a amateur, so maybe my way to construct a curcuit was not the best one.

So can you show me how to construct a simple curcuit? And I have no idea how to make these holes in it...

Permalink Reply by Hannes Löschke on April 25, 2012 at 2:37am

I'm not a pro in metaballs so I have to rely on the forum myself. Looks like there is no easy way to get a mesh from the metaball component.

Solid Metaball

Metaballs the naughty way

As for the holes: once you have the mesh, you could punch holes for each mesh triangle with weaverbirds Frame component.

Permalink Reply by Susanne Steinert on April 25, 2012 at 2:49am

Thats what I tried. The first one I tried a view days ago, but at the end there is no surface, only curves. I cannot drill holes in curves. And at the second example I couldn't find a curcuit, so it doesn't help me...

Therefore I look for another way to construct my object...

Permalink Reply by Susanne Steinert on April 25, 2012 at 7:54am

Is there anyone else who can help me? I saw a lot of nice objects, but with almost no curcuits.
As I said, I have very few experience with rhino and grasshopper, so unfortunately I'm not able to create the curcuit after reading some texts... Often I don't know how to connect some compoments...
So If anyone has an idea how to realize this, PLEASE help me!!!

Permalink Reply by Hannes Löschke on April 25, 2012 at 8:48am

The links I posted both stated, that you would eventually need to bake points or lines to rhino and create a mesh there. Then reimport this mesh to a GH def. Which is probably why there are no defs for metaballs.

I'd reccommend you work through some of the tutorials before you start into complex stuff such as metaballs. I know it is tedious but since you're a beginner and

Often [...] don't know how to connect some compoments...

...

And on a side note, as one of my Professors once put it: "Grasshopper is for when you're sick of doing it all manually in Rhino". Which is to say: most things you will do in GH are possble to do in Rhino. If you have no clue about how to do it (at least in principle) in Rhino, forget about GH. This isn't meant do discourage you, but learn how to hold a hammer before you try to drive a screw with it.

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on April 25, 2012 at 8:59am

I like the play on George Santayana's concept which gave rise to the paraphrase:

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

When altered slightly becomes:

Those who cannot learn from (Explicit) History are doomed to repeat it repetition.

Of course this only works when you remember that Grasshopper used to be called Explicit History :)

Permalink Reply by Susanne Steinert on April 25, 2012 at 8:59am

Yes, your right. But i don't have enough time at the moment to deal with this programm. In this initial I hoped for help in this way.

If I have someday enough time to deal with the programm, I will not start with metaballs... :-)

Thanks anyway.

Permalink Reply by Susanne Steinert on May 1, 2012 at 1:20pm

Is there somethere an expert in metaballs...? At least a little bit?

Permalink Reply by Susanne Steinert on May 2, 2012 at 6:10am

This is the current status of my object.

Now I want to "drill" holes into the surface.

Does anyone know how to make it?

Permalink Reply by Susanne Steinert on May 2, 2012 at 6:16am

By the way, It does not matter how I wanted to look like. If anyone has a good idea how to make it like the picture above, please help me. It is so difficult to work with this programm, if you have no idea of it...