Visualize GH files outside Rhino?

Hello everybody,

I was wondering if its possible to visualize/open/edit grasshopper files without having to open Rhino first.

I found this:

"GH_IO_Viewer.exe

A standalone file viewer application which can read and write both *.gh and *.ghx flavors. It displays the content of a Grasshopper dictionary archive as a standard tree-view."

On Mcneel's page, but the link takes me to download grasshopper.

http://wiki.mcneel.com/labs/grasshopper_fileformat

Not sure what the file does then... Its strange that both paragraphs on the page say different things but take you to the same download link.

Shynn

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on May 29, 2016 at 2:39am

GH_IO_Viewer.exe is installed along with Grasshopper, you can either find it in the Grasshopper install folder, or you can invoke it by dragging a GH file onto Grasshopper, then selecting the Examine option behind the curl and dropping the file onto it.

However the viewer is not a canvas, it just shows the data inside the file as a nested hierarchy. In order to actually display the GH file correctly it really needs to run inside Grasshopper and Rhino.

Permalink Reply by ShynnSup on May 29, 2016 at 8:40am

Alright, I see. Are there any plans in making Grasshopper more independent from Rhino? Like creating definitions outside Rhino but with no preview option, or simply opening the file but with no editing options?

I really dont know about the technicalities of the topic so maybe Rhino is essential for grasshopper to run correctly.

Anyways, thanks for your reply and keep up the good work!

Shynnn

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on May 29, 2016 at 9:04am

Alright, I see. Are there any plans in making Grasshopper more independent from Rhino?

No. Firstly GH relies on a lot of Rhino functionality (even for stuff like the GUI sometimes, having access to a geometry library is pretty useful when drawing pixels on the screen). Secondly GH development is paid for by Robert McNeel & Associates and I doubt they're clamouring for ways to make Rhino obsolete.

Like creating definitions outside Rhino but with no preview option, or simply opening the file but with no editing options?

Well, maybe when you put it like that. A node-markup language specification was started for GH1 but was never finished, it'll hopefully be added to GH2. However all the components are defined in .NET assemblies that in all likelihood reference RhinoCommon, so trying to load them without providing Rhino will never work.

Before GH can figure out how many inputs and outputs a component has and what its name and icon is it needs to allow the dll which contains that component to load, and that will fail in almost all circumstances. A better file viewer than GH_IO_Viewer.exe would be great, but I doubt it'll ever amount to a replacement of the UI.

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