Planar Quad Mesh

Done my fair share of googling on this and found all sorts of stuff, but still can't get through.

I want to panelise/tesselate/tile (whatever the right term) a surface into planar segments.

I can do it with triangles because they're always planar. But polygons with higher vertex count would be nicer. Especially since some faces need to be removed to create doors (this is for a fair stand wall).

The only answer I've found is that Kangaroo's "Planarise" component is the only solution. I can't get Kangaroo to work though as it's reporting missing files although I've copied everything to where the instructions.txt said.

Is there any other way?

Lastly, I would need to have some control over the mesh, so as to be able to choose where the door openings will go in my surface. I would also need control over the size of the faces. Preferably they would be large on the ground and then become smaller with increased z-value.

Thanks for your help.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by toast on April 9, 2014 at 5:55am

have you tried the panneling tool plugin for rhino?

Permalink Reply by Adrià Bassaganyes on April 9, 2014 at 6:19am

We work a lot in Planar Quad Meshes and kangaroo fulfills all our needs.

1- Generate a wire connectivity

2- Apply the "planarising" force and any other forces that you need to control (stiffness, gravity...)

I would insist in installing kangaroo properly

Permalink Reply by Polyvios Nicolaou on April 9, 2014 at 6:24am

watch the first and second video from this link, it explains how to install kangaroo properly. I had a similar problem to you when I first tried to install it.

http://lab.modecollective.nu/lab/introduction-to-simulation/

Permalink Reply by Duncan W on April 12, 2014 at 4:45am

Thanks, this helped. I was able to planarise some stuff but only thanks to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsbyfC2usUk

Kangaroo totally escapes me at this point. I hope I will find more recent videos on it as although amazing, it just seems like a super complex tool.

Permalink Reply by Adrià Bassaganyes on April 14, 2014 at 12:39am

If you need it you can upload the definition and I'll have a look

Permalink Reply by Duncan W on April 14, 2014 at 1:03pm

Thank you. I think it's fine for now.

Having used the planarize force on polygons instead of quads, I assume some geometry is simply un-planarizable, like dense Voronoi cells on a doubly-curved surface with curve pull from surface outlines. No matter, kangaroo is still really intriguing. It's just hard for me to get an idea what force slider values are reasonable and will help find your desired solution.

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