Grasshopper 0.8.0051 available for download

Version 0.8.0051 is now available for download from the usual location.

Note that you need the most recent Microsoft Runtimes to be able to load Grasshopper in Rhino4. You can download the latest runtimes from the Microsoft Website, and be sure to get the 32-bit ones (vcredist_x86.EXE).

This release mainly features bug fixes and small tune-ups. The only major addition is a second solver for Galapagos, modelled on the Simulated Annealing stochastics/meta-heuristics approach.

Here's a full list of new features since 0.8.0050:

2000+ LolCats.
Added Toggle Enable menu item to the Solution menu.
Toggle Preview shortcut is now Ctrl+Q, shortcuts for Preview On and Preview Off have been removed.
Toggle Enabled shortcut is now Ctrl+E, shortcuts for Enabled On and Enabled Off have been removed.
Added a Description output to the Null Item component that provides additional information regarding invalidness.
Show All Components menu item has been renamed to Show Obscure Components.
Obscure components are now always stacked along the right edges of panels and groups.
When the Grasshopper tool panels are too narrow to show all icons, obscure components are now hidden first.
Re-organized the Mesh Tab.
Added Mesh Face Circles component (Mesh.Analysis panel).
Added Mesh Face Normals component (Mesh.Analysis panel).
Added Mesh Cull Faces component (Mesh.Util panel).
Added Mesh Delete Faces component (Mesh.Util panel).
Added Triangulate Mesh component (Mesh.Util panel).
Added Quadrangulate Mesh component (Mesh.Util panel).
Added Stack Data component (Sets.Sequence dropdown).
Added Contour component (Intersect.Mathematical dropdown).
Added Contour (Ex) component (Intersect.Mathematical dropdown).
Added Curve Contour component (Curve.Division dropdown).
Added Curve Contour (Ex) component (Curve.Division dropdown).
Added Rectangle 2-Point component (Curve.Primitive dropdown).
Added Shift Path component as per Studio Mode request (Sets.Tree dropdown).
The Mesh Face Parameter is now available on the Params.Geometry dropdown.
The Mesh Face Parameter can now hold persistent data.
Added persistent targeting mode to the Data Viewer window (this is the default).
It is now possible to open more than one Data Viewer window.
Selected Data Viewers now draw pink cones around their targets.
Pressing MMB for the Radial menu now always selects the object underneath the cursor.
Radial menu and Legacy menu are now both active all the time.
Radial menu no longer closes when the MMB is released within the bounds.
Radial menu now also pops up on SpaceBar, provided the cursor is above the canvas.
Galapagos no longer has a Maximum Iteration Limit for the Evolutionary Solver.
Galapagos now has optional time-based limits for all solvers.
Galapagos now has a second solver, modeled on Simulated Annealing stochastics.
Galapagos options UI has been redesigned, Mutation editor is gone for now.
Galapagos numeric settings now change colour to indicate sensible value ranges.
Galapagos numeric settings now have presets (in pop-up menus) for most scrollers.
Galapagos Genome Parameter menu has been beefed up.
Cursor wrapping during panning drags now takes both the Canvas and the Screen edges into account.
Groups now have an Ungroup menu item.
Groups now have an Add To Group menu item.
Groups now have a Remove From Group menu item.
Operator and Function components now try to do a better job of handling Text inputs.
Added AssignDataToParameter() method to the Grasshopper RhinoScript object.
Added BakeDataInObject() method to the Grasshopper RhinoScript object.
Added RunSolver() method to the Grasshopper RhinoScript object.
Volume components now have warnings for non-solid geometry.
When a Grasshopper group is baked, the resulting objects are also grouped in Rhino.
Radial menu now always selects only the object under the cursor.
Version History windows now uses HTML formatted text.
Added Zoom to Preview button to Canvas toolbar zoom icon.
Timers now have a 'Remove Target' menu item.
Timers should now only fire when their own schedule expires.

And a list of bug fixes:

Galapagos object tooltips did not reflect newest features, this is fixed.
Expressions that contained string literals starting with operator symbols would fail, this is fixed.
Data viewer automatic targeting was very fragile, this is fixed.
Output Parameter names were drawn too close to the Component, this is fixed.
Expressions were missing from output parameters, this is fixed.
Toggle Preview menu item didn't do anything, this is fixed.
Ribbon Layout Editor would not include components that were on the dropdown only, this is fixed.
Curve output parameters did not have the Normalise menu item, this is fixed.
Surface output parameters did not have the Normalise menu item, this is fixed.
Value Tracker object did not display correctly, this is fixed.
Legend Object layout was totally hosed, this is fixed.
Script inputs that used a System.Guid type hint would not convert from referenced geometry, this is fixed.
Path Wrapping with the Relative Tree item components did not work correctly, this is fixed (fingers crossed).
Extreme tags in the Quick Graph were drawn in the wrong rectangle, this is fixed.
Digit Scrollers would not repaint on MouseUp, this is fixed.
Restoring states would recompute for every slider, this is fixed.

And as always, let's be careful out there.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Victor Leung on September 7, 2011 at 4:47am

Hi all,

Does anyone have (or compiled) a zip package of 0.8.0051 for installation without admin rights?

Cheers

Victor

Permalink Reply by Mirco Bianchini on September 8, 2011 at 2:16pm

shift paths is legendary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRnpn4cJCLc

Permalink Reply by John Dolci on September 11, 2011 at 9:34am

Hi David,

Another great update, but a couple bugs:

- Something is causing the tooltips to stop showing up when floating over a component.

- Data coming out of an F2 component with a path of {} (is that normal?)

- Something preventing esc and spacebar from canceling and executing Rhino commands (persistent from previous releases of GH)

- As stated before, the default selected preview color is now red.

Thanks,

John

Permalink Reply by Manuel on September 11, 2011 at 4:09pm

Thanks for the shift paths component.

David, It is posible to add a boolean option (true/false) to the shift path component, like the "wraps values" on the shift list but in these case eliminate all the paths that got "shift" if you set it in "false"?

Thanks.

Permalink Reply by Martin Dembski on September 12, 2011 at 10:40am

Hi David,

I've just recognized this, when I was working on a definition.

I thought this was possible in some earlier releases, or am I wrong?

Maybe this is a bug.

If not, would it be possible to add the "Type Hint" functionality to the function components for the next release? ;)

Best,

Martin.

Permalink Reply by John Dolci on September 12, 2011 at 10:58am

I'm pretty sure this has never worked as long as I've been using GH (almost 3 years). I've always found it a bit frustrating. I do the same thing you did, just put the panel through a number or integer parameter.

Permalink Reply by Martin Dembski on September 12, 2011 at 1:15pm

Then I was wrong. :)

But it would be still nice to have the possibility to set the input typ.

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on September 14, 2011 at 2:49am

I added more auto-conversions to the evaluator, so now whenever a string is supplied and a string is not valid, I try to evaluate that string as an expression.

This required quite a few changes deep down in the code, please be on the lookout for new weird behaviour.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Barcelona, Spain

Permalink Reply by Martin Dembski on September 14, 2011 at 3:08am

Hi David,

the changes with the points and vectors I noticed but how you can differ between numbers and strings? Maybe also a number sometimes is to be handled like a string.

Therefore I thought the easiest way to do this would be by typing a hint, like in the scripting components inputs.

Best,

Martin.

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on September 14, 2011 at 9:03am

If a function supports both strings and numbers, no conversion takes place. But until now if string weren't supported (like with the + operator, or the Round() function) you'd get an exception, now it tries to parse the string first.

The difference between numbers and strings is hard to see when you render them to the screen, but internally strings and numbers are stored in different types so there's absolutely no confusion.

Everything you type in a panel is a string. "Hello world", "5", "5.00" or "2.5 * 2.0". The first cannot be evaluated to a number, but the last three can.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Barcelona, Spain

Permalink Reply by Martin Dembski on September 14, 2011 at 10:10am

Ah ok!

So you have for example a "if-case" implemented where you proof if the content is a number (True) or if not (False) (in the easiest case).

And then you just take a concerning case for each.

Don't know why I didn't think of this ;)

Best,

Martin.

Permalink Reply by Arthur Mamou-Mani on September 13, 2011 at 4:39am