Karamba plug-in for Grasshopper

Hi everyone,

I am using Grasshopper for parametric structural design and therefore recently added the karamba plug-in since it gives the deflection of beams when forces are applied.

Since it give the deflection, I wonder if it's possible to show the bending moments, shear forces etc. as well? Mathematically they are all connected (you can derive one from another) so I suppose the information could be already there somewhere, but it isn't shown in the output...

... Can someone tell me how I could get this output from Karamba?

Thanks in advance!

Ruben

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Shook on May 22, 2011 at 3:44pm

I agree, it would be most interesting to see this level of information, even if the values are somewhat arbitrary (since there are no material or member type selection yet). It would be interesting if an additional GH block was made to output this information.

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on May 22, 2011 at 10:09pm

Have you checked the latest release of Karamba? The notes on food4rhino suggest now that you can nominate variable material and cross sections. I haven't been able to get it to load yet, 64 bit operating system (seems same bug as earlier release).

I've recently enabled result extraction of shears and moments for my GSA connector. I can do similar for Egret, which is in the form of numeric lists. Would a scaled curve output also be useful? How would you like these results presented and how would you utilize them?

Cheers,

Jon

Permalink Reply by Van Daele Ruben on May 23, 2011 at 5:46am

Ideally, the output should be similar to the deflection (a scaled curve and a numerical output of the maximal value).

The grasshopper file in general would be used to explain the "Morphologic Indicators" (developed by dr.ir. Philippe Samyn) to a group of students. When the input parameters are changed (span, height, beam properties, load,...) it should be possible to see the effects of the change graphically (deformation, variations in moment curves, etc). The maximal value would be useful to determine if the beams fail on strength.

The script works just fine, I just regret that you can 'only' see the corresponding deflection while the 'ideal' output is so close...

I don't know if I have the last version, a recent one in any case. I'll check it right away and download it if I don't have the very last one

thanks,

Ruben

Permalink Reply by Karamba3D on April 18, 2012 at 8:52am

Version 0.9.084 of Karamba now comes as 32/64-bit application and works with Rhino5 64bit.

Cheers,

Clemens

Permalink Reply by Karamba3D on May 23, 2011 at 10:01am

The current version of Karamba (0.9.05) outputs nodal translations only. In order to get section forces one would also need nodal rotations and reaction forces of the gravity-loads for fixed-fixed support conditions of the elements.

The next version of Karamba will contain an output of moments, normal and shear forces in graphical form.

As Jon has mentioned Karamba 0.9.05 can handle user defined materials: One can set 'E' and 'gamma' via the ModifyBeam-component. However there is not an option to define other cross sections than tubes yet.

We have tested Karamba on a 64 bit operationg system with SR9 and SR8 and could not reproduce the problems that some people have with installing Karamba 0.9.05. It could be that on some systems the installation of a new Karamba-version does not remove all traces of a previously installed old one. In order to verify that assumption we encourage everyone to send error-reports to 'karamba@bollinger-grohmann-schneider.at' so that we can get a grip on it.

Best,

Clemens

Permalink Reply by Van Daele Ruben on May 23, 2011 at 10:09am

Thanks for your response :)

I'm looking forward to the release of the next version!

Permalink Reply by Matt Gaydon on May 23, 2011 at 3:33pm

Hi Clemens

Is it ment to work with Rhino V5 yet as not been able to get it to load, Even if i move the files to either to their same location in Rhino V5 64bit Program Files folder or if i just move the Gha and dll file to the GH Libraries folder where all other plugins are stored.

This is the Error i get:

Path: C:\Users\Matt\AppData\Roaming\Grasshopper\Libraries\Karamba.gha
Exception System.IO.FileNotFoundException:
Message: Could not load file or assembly 'KDTreeDLL, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

Working on Windows Vista 64bit.

Thanks Matt

Permalink Reply by Karamba3D on May 24, 2011 at 1:56am

Hi Matt,

I have not upgraded to Rhino V5 yet, but maybe this helps you:

In order to make karamba 0.9.05 work you need the following files:

'Karamba.gha' in the '...\Rhinoceros 4.0\Plug-ins\Grasshopper\Components' folder. It provides the user interface. On start-up Grasshopper tries to load all gha-files provided in that folder. There must be a similar folder in Rhino 5.

'karamba.dll', 'KDTreeDLL.dll', 'libiomp5md.dll' these libraries do the calculations. They are located in '...\Rhinoceros 4.0\Plug-ins\Grasshopper' which is the default search path where Grasshopper expects them to be.

Maybe you did not copy the 'KDTreeDLL.dll' along with the other libraries or Rhino 5 uses a default search path different from that of Rhino 4.

Good luck,

Clemens

Permalink Reply by Matt Gaydon on May 24, 2011 at 5:51am

Hi Clemens

It seems i had not moved all the dll files, it now loads but both in Rhino V4 and V5 it not putting alot of the icons in the ribbon just leaves the spaces blank though thet are all in the drop down menu (i think).

Its also puting up errors in V5 when loading as written in older version noteing both input and output parameter chunk missing, archive is corrupt. When i load the examples from the Karamba website. This maybe beacuse the Analyze Component has the runtime Error: fem.KarambaPINVOKE as in previous discussions about running on 64bit windows.

Thanks Matt

Permalink Reply by Karamba3D on May 24, 2011 at 6:42am

For the icons: try to enable 'Show All Components' in the 'View'-menue of Grasshopper.

The different Versions of Karamba store the component information in slightly different format. Normally these error messages can be ignored. On some components (like e.g. Analysis, BoundaryCondition,..) the order of plugs changed. For repairing old definitions the old components have to be deleted and replaced by their new versions.

'fem.KarambaPINVOKE error': please have a look at http://www.grasshopper3d.com/profile/karamba. It seems as though the installation procedure of karamba does not work correctly under some circumstances. Try to delete all old karamba-files by hand prior to installation and try to move 'karamba.gha' from its location in '...\Rhinoceros 4.0\Plug-ins\Grasshopper\Components' one level up.

Best

Clemens

Permalink Reply by Michael Pelzer on April 2, 2012 at 2:22am

Same Problem here.

I've got all V4, V5x32, V5x64 installed.

Karamba runs on V4 just fine. However, I cannot get it to work on V5x32.

No matter where I copy the files, the Karamba icons just won't show in Grasshopper.

Even if I drag/drop karamba.gha onto GH's canvas nothing happens.

On GH's splashscreen, however, it says "loading karamba.gha".

Any solutions yet?

Thanks,

Mike

Permalink Reply by Hannes Löschke on April 2, 2012 at 7:55am

Karamba relies on additional DLL files. Somehow finding those files only seems to work if they are in the native Grasshopper programm directory (where the karamba installer places them if you just click trough) and you are running Rhino4.