Help with lattice on surface definition challenge.

Hey grasshopper experts, I have a challenge for you...

I'm new to grasshopper but i know some Rhino and I need some help. I need to build a definition for a lattice structure that can be applied to any surface, and or geometrical shape. If this question has already been answered before I apologize in advance. This is what i'm looking to achieve...

It would also be extremely useful if this definition could be applied to simple geometry such as tables and chairs to achieve the same lattice structure in the form of a table or chair. I'm pretty sure this is possible but I don't know where to begin.

I appreciate any help guys

thanks

Attachments:

lattice.jpeg, 130 KB

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jissi Choi on March 7, 2016 at 5:57pm

How about starting with Intralattice..

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/group/intralattice

Permalink Reply by 3dObjex on March 8, 2016 at 4:12am

Thanks Jissi! Intralattice seems like it will be extreemly helpful

Permalink Reply by 3dObjex on March 13, 2016 at 6:50pm

I downloaded intralattice as you suggested but im having trouble generating the mesh. I posted below if you could take a look.

Permalink Reply by Nik Willmore on March 8, 2016 at 1:08am

(1) Use MeshMachine to create uniform triangular meshes from most any model.

(2) Create a flat version of the truss system you want on an ideal equilateral triangular grid/mesh. Use only lines or curves not fat beams.

(3) Extract the triangular "unit cell" from one of the faces.

(4) Simply move/scale them into place onto each 3D mesh face using box morph or equivalent transformation.

(5) Flesh out the truss lines with various plug-ins, especially Cocoon marching cubes.

Now looking at Intralattice, I see nearly the exact same workflow!:

"1. We first begin with a cell component, which will generate a unit cell. This unit cell is the basis for the lattice topology.

2. The next stage involves a frame component, which will populate a design space with the unit cell, based on various parameters.

3. The final stage involves a mesh component, which will convert the lattice wireframe (a list of curves) to a solid mesh, which can be 3D printed."

Distinction: my definition is for thick surfaces that enclose empty space. Intralattice is more fully filling 3D based on a 3D unit cell. Mine is for what may be called a 2 1/2D or 2.5D cell since its completely reliant on the pseudo 2D form of a mesh surface despite it's 3d curvature.

Permalink Reply by Nik Willmore on March 8, 2016 at 2:21am

Glitch: my method neglects so far 3D mesh dihedral angles causing curves to pull away from each other or plunge through each other compared to meeting right up between triangular unit cells. So I need step (4.5) of "fix connections." Nor can I cheat by using a fixed width shell since an adaptive mesh can have huge faces and little adjacent ones and that would mean super thick shell where the mesh is very fine and I don't think that makes much sense.

My method is deeply flawed due to dihedral angles adding and subtracting space between triangular prisms placed on each triangular mesh tile, especially in the concave case where instead of a smoothly linkable gap there is nasty overlap of existing curves.

Permalink Reply by 3dObjex on March 13, 2016 at 6:47pm

Thanks for your input on this, but this seems to be a little advanced for me as I'm not understanding all your steps.

Permalink Reply by 3dObjex on March 13, 2016 at 6:44pm

So I downloaded Intralattice and I'm trying to generate a lattice between two surfaces but im having some issues... Im getting an error message saying invalid mesh? Anybody know whats going on here?