Tensile Membrane

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on March 15, 2010 at 1:22pm

There are lots of Tensile plug-ins http://www.rhino3d.com/resources/ Forten, RhinoMembrane, MPanel are the first that caught by eye under Architecture.

I've never tried them, and I think some do demos.

Kangaroo is still under development, lots of people waiting for this one.

If of interest I have some basic mesh relaxation commands for finding minimal surfaces in my tools, as well as some form finding capability. Although less powerful, I hope they allow quick, easy calculations for initial assessments. This can be exposed into Grasshopper if that is something of value.

Cheers,

Jon

Permalink Reply by Arthur Mamou-Mani on March 16, 2010 at 5:29am

Thanks a lot Jon,

I have been trying to use Rhino Membrane but after doing what is being shown in the video tutorial i had a message saying: no degree of freedom in current model.
Would you know what i could do?

Many thanks,

Arthur

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on March 16, 2010 at 5:49am

Hi Arthur

I'm only guessing, but the way my solver works is that all perimeter (or boundary) mesh vertices are considered constrained. The blue dots I assume are where the column props support the membrane and are also considered restrained (or unmoveable). To add degrees of freedom, maybe you need a finer mesh, with lots of inner vertices. But I don't know if Rhino membrane does it's on mesh refinement as part of the solution process. They must offer a support desk?

Is the result for appearance or exact calculation? If it's appearance, feel free to send me a mesh (you can send a part model as a trial if you prefer) and I'll take a look.

Cheers,

Jon

Permalink Reply by Arthur Mamou-Mani on March 16, 2010 at 6:38am

Thanks a lot Jon,

I actualy got a reply from the people at Rhino Membrane:
Rhino Membrane relaxes a mesh into a tensioned structure.

> To relax your mesh there should be a number of free nodes to move and so find
> the relaxed shape.
>
> Your model is fixed on the top rings
> and fixed on the bottom edge and there are no internal nodes to move
> so the software has nothing to do.
> This is the message reported "No Degrees of Freedom"
> means exactely this

i am going to try to increase the amount of mesh to relax

Permalink Reply by Arthur Mamou-Mani on March 16, 2010 at 8:10am

Hi Jon,

Rhino membrane is limited to 3000nodes so for such a large mesh it s kind of unprecise: here s my attempt

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on March 25, 2010 at 3:04am

Hi Arthur,

I'm sorry if I'm too late for your roof, but the problem looked interesting so I thought I'd try it out in principle using some of the new improvements to the mesh relaxation tool in StructDrawRhino. Grasshopper definition for the above image can be downloaded from http://geometrygym.blogspot.com If you wish to try applying it to your roof, I'll help you out if you need it. There's no node limitation (other than your patience and computing power).

Cheers,

Jon

Permalink Reply by Moritz Fleischmann on March 26, 2010 at 1:43am

Hi Arthur,
we use RhinoMembrane at the the University of Stuttgart as well.
The algorithms are powerful (FEM-based), but you have to know a bit of how to prep a mesh (ideally quads, with tri's at the seams) and about the correct pre-stressing.
After a bit of trying, I am sure you will figure it out. The examples on their website are helpful (remember to use the right model units as well).

Permalink Reply by Jon Mirtschin on March 26, 2010 at 2:20am

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting for a moment that my mesh relaxation method is a substitute for Rhino Membrane. It is not intended and never will be.

But there are many designers out there (and I have no idea about Arthur's education or training, but this about designers in general) without technical training in form finding and finite element analysis that would like to be able to "sketch" or model for appearance a stressed roof or similar. My routine is attempting to provide this capability, particularly for competitions or scheme assessments. I don't know the cost of a license of a capable tensile plug-in, but designers without technical training would not use half the features.

When you need to get into detailed design, of course I'd advocate seeking a more capable software. Also, Arthur mentioned a 3000 node limitation which I'm assuming because it was a trial version. Fair enough, but apparently not adequate to get realistic results for his model.

Permalink Reply by Eugene popov on January 28, 2013 at 3:19am

The best software for the tensile membrane geometry finding is K3-Tent system. It is very easy to model any cumbersom structure with it. Besides it has free trial version with full functionality

Permalink Reply by Eugene popov on February 18, 2013 at 7:10am

The new version of K3-Tent system has been laid-open on the page http://tent.k3-cottage.com/ so previous installation should be substituted for the newer one.

Permalink Reply by Nilton on January 22, 2014 at 9:06am

Hi i am working with rhino membrane now, i have the lastest version for Rhino5 with the plugin for Grasshopper, but i dont know what does mean this parameter...

someone know how to use that input? what i have to link?

Greetings

Nilton D.R.

Permalink Reply by shehzad irani on April 17, 2014 at 7:42am

Hi,

I don't think i have the same version, 

but my guess is that applies to restraints. Try the node, and applying some restraint to that component, and plugging it into the ff module. I am sure you might get a sol.

let me know..

cheers!