Grasshopper bundled distribution?

Hello again everyone,

I have lately been through the arduous task of installing everything again. And even though I was using a backup computer remotely, and knew what I was doing, it was a bit of a drag to install all of Grasshopper's cool plug-ins. Moreover, many users aren't even aware that there exist such powerful plug-ins, or which one's to use. This is a bit of a shame since your basically getting a wash-out version of grasshopper.

Which got to thinking of Python(x,y), which is basically a python distribution for scientist. In there webpage they explain it pretty well:

Why a Python distribution for scientists?

Because testing all libraries, choosing the right one for the right usage, and grabbing all the free documentation on the internet takes time. Moreover, one needs some perspective to elaborate its own coherent development framework (i.e. Python libraries and development environment).

Python(x,y) was created for :

rapid prototyping, using the enhanced Python shell known as IPython ;
small/big projects (application-like) development, using Spyder - a powerful and interactive cross-platform Integrated Development Environment (IDE) ;
scientific purpose: scientific computing, numerical simulations, signal processing, image processing, physics (experiments and modeling), engineering, ...

It would be pretty cool if there existed a similar distribution/s of grasshopper that came bundled with many of it's plugins. I am not going to go into details, because well I have no idea on if any of this is even possible. I leave that to the experts.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 19, 2013 at 10:58am

I think it makes a lot more sense to make it easy to search for other plugins and install/uninstall them. I'm not quite sure to what extent that should be implemented, but these are some ideas that spring to mind:

Access to Food4Rhino (or any online repository really) from within the Grasshopper UI, exposed as native user interface. No login/registration required to just search and download GHA files.
When you double-click-search for components, then you'll be shown components you don't yet have but which are available for download.
If Grasshopper detects that someone uses a lot of mesh related components, perhaps point them towards 3rd party GHAs which also have lots of mesh tools.
When you open a file which requires a plug-in, automatically download and install this plugin so the file opens correctly.
Make it easy to uninstall plugins as well, otherwise that becomes a barrier to exploring the plugin universe.

Ideally it would work as seamlessly as Google Chrome Apps.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Permalink Reply by Jesus Galvez on November 19, 2013 at 1:35pm

That sounds pretty neat. Bundles and distributions do seem a bit like the old/classic way of shipping software...

This is not some disguised move to make a Rhino OS right? ;)

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 19, 2013 at 1:53pm

GHOS. Let's call it Gosh!™ (The Operating System inside Grasshopper)

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Permalink Reply by Daniel Eisinger on June 27, 2014 at 9:05am

Autodesk's Dynamo is really gaining traction along these lines. As of the last stable version there is a built in facility for finding and publishing user-developed component libraries. It's pretty slick. I would definitely like to see something like that for Grasshopper. Are there any plans to implement something like that or the app/plugin universe you described? It seems like SketchUp is starting to get this right too.

Permalink Reply by Jesus Galvez on June 27, 2014 at 9:32am

I had never before heard of Autodesk's Dynamo. Seems like a ripoff (chuckles); David must feel either flattered or annoyed.

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on June 27, 2014 at 9:44am