Interface question - connection graphics

Hi folks,

Please forgive this newbie question if it's something that should be obvious.

On the Grasshopper canvas I see my connections rendered in a few different ways, and I haven't seen an explanation for what the differences mean.

- Some connections are drawn with a single line, like all but one of the diagrams in the Grasshopper Primer.

- Some connections are drawn with a double line, like the one between the Ln and Pipe components in the attached screen shot.

- In the same screen shot, I see a dashed/double connection between the Pipe and the Mesh. It is graphically different from the dashed connection line shown in the Grasshopper Primer example of a wireless receiver.

Is there a newer version of documentation I should be reading that would have explained the meaning of these graphics? If not, does anyone know?

Thanks very much!

-Karen

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gh-temp.tiff, 45 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Shawn Fernandez on November 30, 2010 at 9:27am

The type of line shows you in a general sense the structure of the data that is flowing through it.

- The thin line means that there is one value being passed through the wire.
- A thicker line means that multiple values are being passed that exist in the same branch level.
- A thick dashed line means that multiple values are being passed through multiple branch levels.

For more information on tree data structures, the tutorials give a basic overview. I then recommend doing a search of the Discussions on Data Trees to further your understanding, (or possibly completely confuse you at the outset)

The attached file shows how multiple data branches can form. Create two curves in Rhino and link each to one of the two curve components at the start of the definition. The Panel component (the yellow box) and the Param Viewer are your best friends for seeing how your data is structured.

The definition starts with two curves and divides the curves into equal number of segments. The Divide component creates a set of point data at {0;0}. The definition then draws lines between the points on each curve and then divides each of those lines into 3 segments with 4 points on each line. GH organizes the data so that each point is associated with all the points generated from the same line.

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