Grasshopper 0.6.0043 available for download

Hi All,

as I'm leaving tomorrow morning for SmartGeometry, this is the last chance for about 2 weeks to upload a new version. I don't think we're quite ready to release a new version, but I don't want to wait even longer.

The usual warnings:

1. DO NOT overwrite old files. Makes copies of old files first. Files written with the new version will not be readable by older versions.

2. DO NOT use this version on critical projects. If something is seriously wrong there won't be time to fix it until mid-december.

Download EXE installer

Download ZIP Installer

A brief overview of changes (not complete):
- Settings are no longer stored in the registry, but instead in xml files in a special folder. This makes it easier to delete them (in case you want to revert to factory defaults), copy them, edit them, share them etc. etc. The folder which contains the settings files can be opened via the [File->Open Settings] menu. Note that many settings files are written when grasshopper closes.

- Toolbar panels have been shrunk. Not all components are now visible on the panels, you have to open up the dropdown to see them all. Not sure yet if this is a good way to go...

- Buttons on toolbar panels are now more logically grouped together.

- New Save on Exit dialog for unsaved files.

- Autosave has been added. By default autosave kicks in just prior to a number of predefined 'risky' operations. You can alter the autosave behaviour via the [File->AutoSave] menu.

- Objects can now be fully disabled. There are new buttons on the Canvas toolbar for this as well as new menu items everywhere. Disabled objects will not collect data and they will not compute solutions. Usually Disabled objects are drawn in dark grey.

- New colour scheme for the GUI. If you're seriously unhappy with the new scheme and you don't mind messing around with xml, feel free to edit the grasshopper_colours.xml file in the Settings folder.

- Gradient object now has custom presets and a custom default. New options available in the Gradient Object Menu.

- Path Mapper object has been replaced. If you're using the old one it will still load correctly, but you'll no longer be able to create a new instance of the old version.

- Remote Control Panel is being reworked. This version contains a semi-functioning one, but I recommend you don't use it at all yet.

- Bunch of new components.

- Bunch of bug-fixes (unfortunately not all reported bugs have been fixed yet)

I probably won't be able to read the forum or my email for a while, so if you're running into serious problems, please revert to the 0.6.0019 build.

--
David Rutten
david@mcneel.com
Robert McNeel & Associates
Poprad, Slovakia

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andrea Graziano on November 23, 2009 at 2:29pm

Really Thx David!

Permalink Reply by Sameer Kumar on November 23, 2009 at 3:32pm

Thanks a lot, David.

I quite like the new design of the path mapper. Also appreciate the fact that while waiting for large definitions to open, an image of the definition becomes visible. It is all fantastic!

Permalink Reply by Marc Syp on November 23, 2009 at 10:44pm

David... great to get an update. Working really smoothly so far. First thoughts below.

FIRST, MANY THANKS:
. Override options for Icon display are GREAT! Exactly what I was hoping for.
. Undo and Autosave. YES! They make this a real classy operation.
. Concatenate strings, fixed display bugs, notepad errors, image mapper reference problems, etc.

Minor persistent Bugs:
. Vector preview still doesn't refresh (clear) when you disconnect components. You must delete the component or reconnect to refresh the vector previews.
. Fx components fail to convert numbers coming directly from a notepad, even when "Multiline Data" is OFF

MAJOR WISHES:

. Reveal wireless connections when input component is selected. Many times after working on a definition, orphan components get deleted in the clean-up process. Because you can only see wireless connections when the wireless receiver is highlighted, it is too easy to delete legitimate mid-stream components. If you could reveal the wire when either the wireless receiver or the source component is selected, this would be a god-send.
. Dynamic domain control for Image Sampler and Graph Mapper. Would make common workflows MUCH easier. Imagine using a Bounds 1D to set input domain, and a simple 0:1 interval as output domain. Boom. Quick remapping of values with graph functions built in. Just as an example. Eliminates Bounds -> Decompose -> Divide by Max -> Graph -> Multiplier routines. Image mapper should also benefit from dynamic bounds. Something where existing points -> Bounds 2d eliminates the need to generate a new point field between 0:1, 0:1 with matching path structure...
. Cancel solution recalculate (to avoid unrecoverable crashes) - simple Esc key?
. Add new behavior for Stream Filter and Stream Gate: Allow multiple index numbers. The Index number picks the value/object in the corresponding index position in the selected list. I attached a GHX/VB component to my last R19 wish list, you can find it there...
. More path components. Flatten One Level, Shift branch (like Shift List), Copy path structure (for a flattened list of equal length that needs to be reconstructed to the original path structure). All of these things can be done with GH logic and/or VB Script, but simple components would eliminate a lot of mess on the canvas and time consuming copy-paste operations.

Minor wishes:

. Add Image Mapper to State Manager
. Add a quick close button. It's kind of annoying to have to go to the File menu to close files all the time. I remember that in the beginning I always used to close the canvas toolbar because that little red X tempted me...
. Option to Flatten outputs (makes for more accurate rendering of Fancy Wires than flattening inputs)
. Visual feedback when an input or output has been modified with a "Flatten", "Reparameterize", or "Expression"... Perhaps a red asterisk by the output to indicate a non-default state.

Again... thank you! Enjoy the conference.

Marc

Permalink Reply by TiM on November 23, 2009 at 11:10pm

Thanks a lot, David!!!

Permalink Reply by WT4 on November 24, 2009 at 1:43am

Hi David

Thanks for this update.
The multiD slider and graph plotter are just two of the features that I have
been looking for.

Regards
William

Permalink Reply by Andrew Heumann on November 24, 2009 at 9:27am

First off, thanks for all the new features! Undo and autosave are godsends, love the new color scheme, and can't wait to play with the path mapper, metaballs, and all the new fun stuff. Off the bat I've noticed some strange/unexpected behavior though.

First, I'm noticing a strange path behavior in the new version:

Where before I would have expected the output to be 100 paths with 40 points each, in this version I'm getting 1000 paths with 4 points each - it seems to be producing different paths for the V divisions and not the U divisions. Is this intentional? I can get it back to the old structure by "flattening one branch" (a task I do often - this would be an extremely useful component - "flatten N branches"). This seems clunky though, I prefer the old behavior as a default for the divide component - it seems odd to have U and V divisions treated differently with respect to the data structure.

Second, in certain cases I'm simply losing all display preview regardless of setting. Not sure what the issue is, if I can reproduce it consistently I will post an update.

Thanks again for all the hard work on what continues to evolve into a really fabulous tool!

Permalink Reply by Marc Syp on November 24, 2009 at 12:27pm

Andrew -

Good observation. This is a case where I think the new behaviour is yet again pointing to the need for more path components. For instance, if we had a Flatten N Branch Levels component it would be a simple procedure to get the 40 points per surface.

Having this path behaviour in the component allows the most flexibility down the road (I can see reasons for wanting 1000 paths with 4 points each), but we need more path components to make working with the data easier.

Marc

Permalink Reply by Marc Syp on March 14, 2012 at 3:55pm

Hey, searching through some old posts and just saw this. Something that was requested in this thread that I think would still be useful:

"Flatten N branches" component

Would save a lot of path mapper heartache, particularly when dealing with definitions that are designed to accept a lot of different kinds of path structures. I have had to write quite a few workarounds because of this issue...

Permalink Reply by GIL AKOS on November 24, 2009 at 12:19pm

David,
As usual, this release is great. We love the Lexical Mapper, Enable Options, and Vector Mass Addition. Great Work!

We are also pleased to announce the release of ModeTools. More information can be found here. We hope you find this useful and we welcome any feedback from all the users out there.

-Studio Mode

Permalink Reply by Marc Syp on November 24, 2009 at 12:36pm

Gil-

Great idea to develop a custom toolbar. I'd love to do the same with my own components but I'm not sure I have the programming chops to pull off the GUI work. Any suggestion on how to get started with that? Programming resources, etc?

Anyway, I'd love to check out your toolbar but your "download here" link isn't pointing to a file at the moment. At least it's not coming up in Firefox 3.5.5, I'm just getting an info page... let me know where I can get the file.

Marc

Permalink Reply by GIL AKOS on November 25, 2009 at 6:18am

Marc,
Thanks! There are more tools to follow. The link is working now. Sorry for the mix-up.
-Gil

Permalink Reply by Andrew Heumann on November 24, 2009 at 1:48pm

Incidentally, as I've just figured out there's a much better approach to this problem with the new Path Mapper -

It took me a while to figure out that the path mapper needed curly brackets for its expressions... now that I get it I can see how useful it's going to be!