Loop operation with baking

Hi, I want to perform a recursive operation on an object that will probably run through thousands of generations. There is no way that my computer will have enough RAM to support this using the standard grasshopper system which keeps track of every step. Is there a way for grasshopper to automatically do the following:

1) Select all polysurfaces on a specific layer in Rhino

2) Set selected polysurfaces as an intrinsic value in grasshopper

3) Delete all polysurfaces on the selected layer in Rhino

4) Perform an operation on the intrinsic object in grasshopper

5) Bake the resultant object in grasshopper into Rhino

6) Clear the previous intrinsic starting value in grasshopper

7) Repeat

I know that hoopsnake can do recursive operations, but it seems to run into the same problem of accumulating RAM. http://www.giuliopiacentino.com/grasshopper-tools/ has a nice component for automatically baking an object whenever an operation is performed, but that only fulfills step 5. It also had an animation component which automatically deletes an object, which is now outdated, but I know at least it's possible.

Thanks!

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andrew Heumann on July 1, 2014 at 9:08am

what you're talking about is a little challenging. Have you looked into anemone? In my experience it handles this kind of thing much better than hoopsnake.

Permalink Reply by An on July 5, 2014 at 2:15pm

I just tried anemone, it's just what I was looking for! The recursion does not cache each successive iteration, so the RAM usage is now controllable. I only wish that the Rhino autosaves would also apply to the current anemone generation, so that if the computer crashes, I wouldn't lose everything.

I'm using this to simulate the growth of mineral dendrites, by colliding mesh balls into mesh slabs and unifying them. There won't be direct control, but I would be able to manipulate the environment, such as direction that the balls are coming from, in order to see how it affects the overall form. Galapagos looks extremely interesting, since generative algorithms are on my list of things to explore, so thanks for the suggestion!

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