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 Danny Boyes on November 13, 2014 at 5:13am

You can swap the shortcuts around by going to Preferences>Interface>Shortcuts

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 13, 2014 at 7:03am

I suppose it would be more useful than 'paste in centre', so it can be replaced. If the mouse isn't on the canvas then I can fall back to 'paste in centre'.

Permalink Reply by nikos tzar on November 18, 2014 at 4:16am

Could Autocad's paste logic be used instead?

When Ctrl+V is pressed the clipboard objects appear floating around the mouse pointer and a click is required to place them on the canvas.

Then again this might be contradictory to Grasshopper's UX design and end up confusing instead of helping the user.

Permalink Reply by IBRAHIM IBRAHIM on November 30, 2014 at 12:33pm

Hello All,

I am pleased if someone can guide me on how can I make such waffling surface.

I have the surface read and it is almost similar to the attached photo.

Thank you so much for your kind assistance!

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on November 30, 2014 at 2:29pm

Hi Ibrahim,

please start a new thread for a question rather than appending to a (wholly unrelated) one.

Permalink Reply by mark zirinsky on November 30, 2014 at 1:30pm

an idea for 'trees' and tree structures:

Put an graphical interface onto the tree logic. start with the 'tree mapper" and then use graphical arrows and lines to show where the structure should wind up on the revised tree. already have the logic in place, put a graphic front end onto it to show the logical transformations.

Permalink Reply by IBRAHIM IBRAHIM on November 30, 2014 at 1:42pm

Thank you Mark Zirinsky, I could not find the tree mapper command.

Besides, I am still new to using grasshopper, so your assistance is highly appreciated.

I attached the surface I want to waffle.

Thank you for your kind assiatance.

Attachments:

Waffling.3dm, 186 KB

Permalink Reply by Jun Wang on December 2, 2014 at 7:16pm

Hi Marc and David,

Does it perhaps make more sense to be able to let parameter objects to inherit names from the source its coming from, a little bit like how the slider can inherit names from the component input port it's going into but in reverse?

For example I want my definition to work a little bit more like a clean code where I can define global or class based variables, I created sliders for once and put them all at the origin of the canvas so I have central control and the sliders can go into receiver-like parameter components located near every specific "function" cluster. I hope I will be able to name a slider once and every parameter components (number, integer, crv, etc.) that it plugs into to inherits that name so I know where it is coming from. I mean I know where it is coming from based on the hidden wire but that requires zooming in and out and just takes a lot of time and effort.

An alternative way is to able to define a global variables based on any existing parameter component into a document-specific database so I can pull them out later when needed. This will mostly increase the readability of the canvas can also work well with the remote control panel and the data viewer, when for example every defined global variable is automatically added to the remote control panel. I think it will also make naming faster so I can more easily use the search function to find where a defined variable is used on the canvas.

Just a thought that has been bugging me for a while. I mean I know how to do that in a code but for example two code component cannot share one global variable (or can they?), and I'm a little bit less fluent in coding.

Thank you so much!

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on December 3, 2014 at 4:05am

The latter is my plan. It would be good if any source of data (not just sliders) could be designated as "global", and then accessed by name. This should work for input parameters, inside expressions and probably even inside scripts.

Permalink Reply by Jun Wang on December 3, 2014 at 4:07am

Good Morning!

Awesome!

Any rough estimation of when that would come out will be nice too, not rushing tho.

Best,

Permalink Reply by dim gimi on December 9, 2014 at 8:15am

Good evening everyone,

My question today is how can i make a repeatable action with every input being the output of the previous action. Fex offseting a curve 10 times, but every new offset uses the previous curve. I am not sure if that logic is implemented in Grasshopper, but i would require some help if there exists such thing.

I make a small diagramm of what i need:

ActionCluster is a specific action that repeats N times.

input1 -> ActionCluster -> output1

output1(as a new input) -> ActionCluster -> output2

output2(as a new input) -> ActionCluster -> output3

outputN-1(as a new input) -> ActionCluster -> outputN

So i want every output to be the result of the previous output processed with the ActionCluster.

Permalink Reply by Michael Pryor on December 9, 2014 at 8:19am