Pain Points in Grasshopper

(Edit. David sez: Please append your (well explained) ideas/suggestions/wishes. I don't care much for what you want, I care why you want it.)

Perhaps this topic has been covered recently, but I don't see any active threads. We're looking for a plugin project and I'd like to get some feedback from the power users before choosing something.

So...

What is missing from grasshopper?

What would you like to connect to that you can't already connect to?

What kind of bottlenecks do you run into?

What secret wish do you have for Grasshopper that doesn't even seem possible?

What project have you been meaning to undertake but haven't had/won't have the time?

Just trying to brainstorm a few ideas here. There are so many great and useful plugins out there, it's hard to discover the gaps anymore.

Looking forward to your thoughts!

Cheers,

Marc

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ethan on May 20, 2014 at 7:12am

you are AWESOME! thank you.

Permalink Reply by Marco Traverso on May 20, 2014 at 7:27am

For the moment you could use a custom component. The attached file includes a cluster that takes as inputs the geometry, the scaling direction and the new absolute size.

It scales the object from the center of its bounding box, but you cound easily add an optional origin point.

Attachments:

Scale1DAbsolute.gh, 8 KB
Scale1DAbsolute.3dm, 36 KB

Permalink Reply by Ethan on May 20, 2014 at 9:23am

you are also awesome thank you!!!

Permalink Reply by Matt Gaydon on May 20, 2014 at 7:07am

Couple of the top of my head that maybe in the pipeline and I have missed them..

Would be more arc Tangent tools, like: Arc Tangent/Tangent/Tangent with the option to set t value of first tangent would be great. Maybe this is now possible in RhinoCommon?

Fillet Curve option without having to extend and join curves first same as in rhino

On major pain point is not getting Error MSG if fillet is greater than distance between end points, as have had it before it just returns largest possible fillet not an error saying it can't compute it that radius for the corner.

Option to set Sub-layer in Geometry Pipeline.

Option to Group by Name of Geo in Geometry Pipeline.

As for new Plug-in's will have to think about that more.

Thanks matt

Permalink Reply by Matt Gaydon on May 22, 2014 at 2:10pm

Hi David,

Another little GH wish would be if a integer is input into a component then an integer comes out such as with Series, Sort, etc. Not a double where possible.

If its not possible with the series component would it be possible that the expression editor on the output works for Int(x) as currently does nothing. and just returns the double.

Thanks for all your work so far.

Matt

Permalink Reply by Marco Traverso on May 20, 2014 at 7:36am

Speaking of pain points, for me the most missed feature in GH is the set of Rhino's advanced surfacing tools.

It would be really great to have functions such as BlendSrf, MatchSrf, FilleEdge, and so on, translated to GH components, as this would enable to create complex freeform models from within GH.

I'm pretty sure this is a limit of McNeel's SDK - and it's been there for years, so I'm not holding my breath to see these native commands made available to scripts and plugins.

So maybe there is some space for a third party developer, even if it feels a bit like re-inventing the wheel.

Permalink Reply by Michael Pryor on May 20, 2014 at 11:26am

domain inputs on graph mapper & image sampler. Similar to the way the gradient component works.

Thanks

Permalink Reply by ng5 Alex on May 20, 2014 at 11:43am

''domain inputs on graph mapper & image sampler. Similar to the way the gradient component works''

that would be awesome

also the 3rd dimension of the mdslider.

Permalink Reply by patric guenther on June 15, 2014 at 11:43am

would be awesome!

Permalink Reply by Erick Vásquez on May 20, 2014 at 11:56am

yes Michael, also a File Path input for the image sampler. thanks

Permalink Reply by Diego on May 20, 2014 at 4:39pm

Okey... didn't have time to read everything so I hope I'm not repeating myself.

Wish?: avoid the need for doble clicking in the background everytime we have to look for a component.
Why?: Sometimes (mostly starting a new project) where you know almost all you need, and you feel the need for putting everything there, fast (15 components?). It would be nice to have both hands writting down all the components needed.
How?: enter key (it does nothing!) writing command in the searcher... found it! enter to put it. enter again to open the component searcher again, and so on...