Plugging a new open surface into an existing grasshopper equation

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by peter fotiadis on October 28, 2015 at 6:12am

First things first (BTW: Indeed the terminology used ... er ... is a bit "unfortunate", he, he):

You mean that you want to contour a collection of Breps (or meshes) , extract the contours and then do some curtain wall (i.e. some sort of "paneling") having in mind anchor points related with these contours/"floors"? (i.e. some panel "nodes" lay in the floor perimeter).

If so this is not exactly a task for a novice not to mention planarity issues IF the "panels" are not triangles.

Anyway ... with regard the contour part ... see attached

PS: Load R file first.

Attachments:

• Coontour_Brep_V1.3dm, 850 KB
• Coontour_Brep_V1.gh, 15 KB

Permalink Reply by david mousa on October 28, 2015 at 6:47am

Firstly, thanks for the reply... i greatly appreciate it. I realize how up against the odds I am however I'm extremely willing to learn and am doing all I can.

I was not lying when I said 'newbie' ... i only started using both Rhino and Grasshopper about a week ago and am desperately racing against the clock to learn it for a Masters university assignment I am doing. 

What I very poorly explained but have found some images which could assist is this. I want to use the contoured floor plates in the background of my original image as my levels, then use the mesh I based those contours on the create two things;

1. a glazed panel facade that wraps around the entire building.

2. an exterior feature panel made from a more solid material that highlights the buildings shapes and has a cut out in it.

I am guessing this is what you were saying though? Or did you have a different intention.

 

Permalink Reply by peter fotiadis on October 28, 2015 at 6:51am

Hmm ... OK I'll prepare something but be warned: THIS is a giant pile of worms (*) IF we go from the Academic into some reality "approximation" (a Master is not a high-school lab exercise eh? he he).

In the mean time > forget contour > get this attached.

(*) in fact is a colossal pile of worms (WHY I'm responding to this thread? You tell me, he he).

Attachments:

• Coontour_Brep_V2.gh, 18 KB

Permalink Reply by david mousa on October 28, 2015 at 6:53am

Don't worry about the worms... I don't take university that seriously. I just try and learn new things, design some cool shit and get that silly piece of paper that tells me I am worth something. 

Do I take what you have given me and reapply the Brep to the mesh of my building facade?

Permalink Reply by peter fotiadis on October 28, 2015 at 7:32am

OK, let's start the trip into a rabbit hole that has many entries and NO exit, he he.

1. The latest def (skips contour: very odd behavior) it just works with the demo brep as found in the first Rhino file. A TSpline made thing in fact.

2. This atroci ... er ... hmm ... I mean unspeakable beauty uses an exo-skeletal load bearing structure hence is THAT big (BTW: Apparently nobody knows what thermal bridge is nor thermal expansion nor vapor condensation ... but these are "minor" details these holly blob days, he he).

3. 2 means that some nodes of that "grid"  MUST "meet" floors in order to support them and (hopefully) withstand some seismic forces. BTW: A Richter scale 9 (for an hour) is all what this building actually needs (that's acid "humor").

4. The "smarter" way to do this is to spread "some" (i.e a lot) random points (Note: David's algo yields  "evenly-spaced-points" within the limits of the possible) on the guide blob (a polysurface in fact).

5. Then ... you need some algo that tests proximity AND "adjusts" the Z in order to have some node points "co-planar" (Z) with the floors.

6. Then you triangulate all that stuff (the points, that is) using some decent Ball Pivot Algorithm (NOT Delauney) and you get a triangulated mesh that "engulfs" the guide blob. If you want some quads (as shown) this is also possible.

7. So you have edges ... i.e poly lines (per mesh face) and if you offset them ... you have "drilling" profiles that you must use against a second guide "thickened" blob for creating a continuously smooth exo-skeletal LBS (as shown). Of course Rhino (being a surface modeller) could require years to do this solid difference opp (or an eternity).

8. Rounding the "lips" of that LBS Brep is out of question with Rhino or GH (but it can been done very easily using other apps). Then you must "split" the Brep (in modules? in nodes + "rodes"? you tell me) in order to make it in real-life (what about forgetting all that?, he he).

9. Then, there's the glazing thingy that is made via quads meaning planarity. This is achievable with Kangaroo2 but is a bit tricky.

Moral: WHAT a gigantic pile of worms is this thread of yours...

more soon. 

Permalink Reply by peter fotiadis on October 28, 2015 at 8:25am

Plan B: MeshMachine in order to skip the BPA .More soon

Permalink Reply by peter fotiadis on October 28, 2015 at 8:06am

Here's a 1 minute test (up to Ball Pivoting phase).

Now ... the bad news: Ball Pivoting (developed by IBM) is a tricky thing: depending on the "quality" of the code may (or may not) yield results thus may (or may not) steer you into happiness. I have 2 such algorithms (by means of C# and C++) that work with very large "point-cloud" sets - that's the reason that IBM did that ... but unfortunately are for internal use only. However there's a component available in GH doing this (but I forgot the name).

 

Permalink Reply by peter fotiadis on October 28, 2015 at 9:27am

And here's an "alternative" using MeshMachine as an attempt for an "evenly spaced" mesh (Kangaroo can been used as well for "relaxing" the mesh  ... BUT the big thing is that the mesh edges should lay between a desired min/max [ for obvious construction limitations] - thus relaxing the wrong thing means garbage in > garbage out).

Results with MeshMachine are not ideal, mind.

I do hope that you understand that successfully addressing this puzzle  of yours means: solving that "even" (within bounds) constrain/goal  ... the rest are doable the hard or the easy way.

PS: Also try the mesh reduce option.

Attachments:

• Coontour_Brep_V2A.gh, 146 KB

Permalink Reply by david mousa on October 28, 2015 at 1:56pm

What a time to be alive hey... I am trying to wrap my head around all that and will eventually figure it out.

Is it possible to send you my rhino file and for you to help set up some of those things you spoke about. At this point I am very happy to pay

Permalink Reply by david mousa on October 28, 2015 at 2:20pm

also, just to add, when I import this into grasshopper it states I am missing mesh machine V 0.099 and I cannot seem to find a way to update this

Permalink Reply by david mousa on October 29, 2015 at 12:52am

I fixed the mesh machine issue, now im just working out how to make it work with my brep...

thanks for all this help by the way. I imagine people like me ruin people like yours days

Permalink Reply by peter fotiadis on October 29, 2015 at 1:09am

Pay? are you kidding me? I'm the Lord of Darkness man (far and away from trivial matters, he he).

Ruin? Er...well...hmm...in a way, he he.

Back to topic:

I've added a few lines of C# (just for testing, not for you at present time) that scans the mesh vertices VS the floor contours and finds prox points (ACCORDING  some user defined "search distance") for that critical requirement: SOME vertices MUST be co-planar with the floors. NOTE: DO NOT instruct MeshMachine to use the floor perimeters as a constraining factor (for obvious reasons).

Then the cyan points are re positioned and the mesh is reconstructed (that's rather peanuts with C#).

The problem is that we need "even" distribution of the "anchor" nodes (CYAN points). Spot the left top collection: rather unsuitable: this is the reason that for "similar" problems I use (a) a C# that does "even-random" points on Breps (within min-max distance "bounds") AND (b) BPA instead of Meshmachine.

I can very easily address this puzzle with C# ... but not that easily with components (if at all).

Moral: life sucks.

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