Kangaroo

Information

THIS FORUM IS NO LONGER ACTIVE. PLEASE POST ANY NEW QUESTIONS OR DISCUSSION ON:

https://discourse.mcneel.com/c/grasshopper/kangaroo

The discussions here are preserved for reference, but new questions posted here are likely to go unanswered.

Kangaroo is a Live Physics engine for interactive simulation, optimization and form-finding directly within Grasshopper.

Website: http://kangaroo3d.com
Members: 3024
Latest Activity: on Friday

You can read an introduction to the ideas behind Kangaroo here:

http://spacesymmetrystructure.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/kangaroo/

Kangaroo2 is now available for testing (see full announcement here). Please bear in mind this is still a work-in-progress, and features are still subject to change.

Kangaroo2 is now included with Rhino6, you do not need to install it separately.

You can download it for Rhino5 from here:

http://www.food4rhino.com/project/kangaroo

This thread contains some troubleshooting tips if you have problems getting it installed and working:

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/kangaroo/forum/topics/kangaroo-2

The main source of example files for the latest version is here:

https://github.com/Dan-Piker/Kangaroo-examples

Some further example files for version 2.0 can be found here:

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/kangaroo/page/kangaroo2-additional-examples

with more to follow - if there is some particular feature you would like more examples of information on please ask there.

The Kangaroo2 solver library is now separate from the Grasshopper components, and can also be referenced and used in scripts, either in the GH VB/C#/Python components, or in RhinoScript/PythonScript in Rhino. Questions about these can also be posted on:

http://discourse.mcneel.com/c/scripting

Kangaroo2 is a complete rewrite, and the main solver/goal/force components are not cross-compatible with the previous version. However, you can keep both versions installed together allowing older definitions to be opened, and for now this is recommended, as there are also several utility and mesh processing functions relevant to both versions.

While v2 introduces many new features and improvements, not all the features from the old version currently have equivalents in the new version, but the plan is to add them all over time.

The links below are for the old version. More documentation and videos for the new version to appear soon.

example files(for version 0.099):

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/kangaroo/page/example-files

manual(for version 0.099):

http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddpv

getting started video:

http://vimeo.com/20308963

demo videos:

http://vimeo.com/album/199263

Some more tutorial videos from EXLAB:

http://vimeo.com/exlab/videos

Discussion Forum

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Started by rOFF. Last reply by Charlie Flint on Friday.

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News and Updates

Force polygons of equilibrium structures

I have recently been exploring some reciprocal force diagrams using Kangaroo. From the 1869 paper by James Clerk Maxwell On reciprocal figures, frames and diagrams of forces : …to construct the Polygon of Forces, by drawing in succession lines parallel and proportional to the different forces, each line beginning at the extremity of the last. If the forces acting at the […]

Minimal surface puzzle

The top row shows three different minimal surfaces from the same boundary curves. The bottom row shows the same 3 surfaces rotated and in a different order. Which number corresponds to which letter?

Orthogonal Clustering

I’ve always aimed to make Kangaroo a specifically architectural physics engine. While it shares many characteristics with similar engines used for other purposes, such as games and animation, it has some features that are uniquely suited to designing buildings. Form-finding and physics-based-modelling often result in curved shapes, with an elegant and natural appearance which is something […]

Variation from Uniformity

All of these triangles are identical and equilateral: In architectural geometry over the last few decades, a common topic of research has been how to build and clad doubly curved surfaces in an efficient way. While computer aided manufacturing has made it possible to make buildings where every panel has slightly different dimensions, there are […]

MeshMash!

As regular readers of this blog will know, I’m passionate about the use of relaxation and force-based methods for optimizing geometry in a very interactive way. There is a great variety of form-finding that can be done by assigning physical forces as interactions between sets of particles. However, in my investigations so […]

More…

Comment Wall

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Comment by Andrei Raducanu on November 17, 2013 at 5:11am: Hi, everyone!

Do You know why sometimes the geometry out results in 0 length curves?

Everything seems to be working fine for the particles, they do act as if they have springs between them, but the lines between them disappear at the first iteration (btw, i used the lines that form the springs as geometry input)

This is not the first time i encounter this and i guess it's kind of a newbie dilemma, so maybe someone can help... Thanks!

Comment by Danny Boyes on November 8, 2013 at 7:50am: Hi Matti,

Find the Kangaroo.dll file (easiest way is to use File > Special Folders > Components)

and right click on it, select Properties and the UNBLOCK

Comment by Matti Pirinen on November 8, 2013 at 7:45am: Getting this error message after installing kangaroo, while i'm starting grasshopper

Any suggestions?

Comment by William E Bodell III on October 18, 2013 at 2:41pm: Hello all,

I am trying to use Kangaroo to do a bit of sphere packing, using different sizes of spheres related to the required program areas. I have seen some examples of 2d circle packing, and I've tried to translate this into 3d spheres, but I can't figure out how to set the desired sizes and prevent overlapping. Any advice?

Thanks,

Bill

131018%20Spheres.gh

Sphere%20Packing%202.3dm

Comment by Fereshteh Shahmiri on October 14, 2013 at 1:17am: I was wondering if you could help me about an issue.

I have a surface and I am trying to achieve water flow trail upon it. I don't why but the particles don't have any reaction in response to the surface.

Thank you.

Fereshteh

waterflow-surf1.3dm

waterflow-surf1.gh

Comment by bruno di vito on September 12, 2013 at 4:21pm: Hello,

I was trying to make this simple boat flotating but I don' t figure out how, I did it with a sphere just adding some springs inside the shape to avoid the geometry collapse..(I didn't find similar examples posted)

Thanks in advance

flotation.gh

boat%20for%20flotation.3dm

Comment by Miguel Villegas on August 29, 2013 at 12:32am: Hi. I'm having the exact same problem Jimmz stated just below. Files are placed and unlocked. Any guesses on the solution? Thanks in advance.

Comment by Miguel Vidal on August 23, 2013 at 1:47am: Hello everybody,

Could anyone please recommend some (accessible) bibliography on the geometric and physical notions of Dynamic Relaxation?

Many thanks in advance!

Comment by Jimmz on August 22, 2013 at 9:39pm: It seems Rhino5 SR5 64bit,grasshopper 0.9.0056 could not run the kangaroo 0085,I can't see the icon of the kangaroo,and always a loading error bufore access in the grasshopper window.But I'm sure I had copy the .gha and .dll into the libraries folder,So I wanna know the reason

Comment by Michel Cassagnes on July 11, 2013 at 6:39pm: Hello,

I begin with Kangaroo. I am trying to model a movable roof made with mesh articulated at some edges (I used hinges). roof is moving on a plane, so I constrained some points to remain at z=0. I have turned around for hours, studied examples that I found here, but I cannot make my model run. I need some help.

Best regards,

Michelamphi.gh