connect grasshopper to a website

Hi everyone,

Would it be possible to make a parametric design that people can change on a website?

So the idea is that the visitor of the website can change the design.

And eventually take it a step further and send the design to a 3d printer.

Would something like that be possible with grasshopper?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Luis Fraguada on June 14, 2012 at 8:05am

In theory, yes, it is possible. In practice, there would be several ways to go about it...

Permalink Reply by SEED on June 14, 2012 at 9:24am

Check http://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/index.php, Nervous System I believe are doing exactly that.

Permalink Reply by Luis Fraguada on June 14, 2012 at 9:33am

The nervous apps are made in Processing / ProcessingJS.

Permalink Reply by Luis Fraguada on June 14, 2012 at 2:20pm

I am not an expert web developer by any means, but the concept proposed by the original poster would probably best be done in another manner. Rhino and Grasshopper were developed with the idea that ONE person is using it at a time one one computer. This is radically different that thinking about web development where hundreds of people are using the site at the same time from various machines. Of course, web servers handle most of the tough part, but again, Rhino and Grasshopper were not designed to run as server applications. Even publishing a Processing sketch to the web has big issues. ProcessingJS largely alleviates these issues, at some cost of not necessarily being able to use all of the libraries available.

I've made web apps that necessitated geometric functions like trims and splits, and I really wish I would just be able to use Rhino to do it. If one wants to do this sort of thing today there are better options like combining WebGL with HTML5 and some Java / Javascript.

As you can see, Chrysalis is interpreting the Grasshopper file into processing sketch. It is cool in that you can design the processing sketch with your Grasshopper file, but it is not actually running grasshopper from the internet. But maybe Chris can chime in and explain more and why he uses this particular chain...

Just my $0.02

Permalink Reply by Ethan on June 14, 2012 at 10:28am

I'd also like to learn more about this concept.

I know Chris Chalmers is working on this idea:

http://fabripod.com/applet/

http://biosarch.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/fabripod-configurator-mock...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1419987702/chrysalis-grasshoppe...

Permalink Reply by Ethan on June 14, 2012 at 10:51am

just found this online http://fucture.org/merging-processing-with-grasshopper/

looks like a good place to start...

Permalink Reply by Chris Chalmers on June 14, 2012 at 1:56pm

Hi, I've been working on this for some time and I have an alpha version up and running. Please enter your info at www.fabripod.com/webstore/chrysalis to participate

Permalink Reply by machinehistories on June 14, 2012 at 5:26pm

A couple of my friends and I worked on some mass customization lighting concepts and came up with this solution - http://files.machinehistories.com/radial.html
We used flash at the time, this was 2005 and so much has changed. My problem is we hired a programmer back then (Steven Schkolne) to help us create the interface cause I don't know how to program. Unfortunately, I am still incompetent when it comes to that particular skillset but now with grasshopper I can make all kinds of practical and open ended systems for making. I would love to revisit these mass customizable, web based, workflows and just take the grasshopper definitions and get them online. I teach at the ArtCenter in Pasadena and I am working with 4 students on mass customized lighting and we have built decent interfaces where everything including interactive sliders exist solely in Rhino. When all of the toolbars are hidden it looks pretty legit and you never have to know grasshopper is running. It would be so nice to just get it online. I will upload our solutions in a few days and it would be great to get some feedback. By the way, I am going to back the CHRYSALIS project because if that tool existed right now my life would be complete. Chris, I can't wait until your project is developed and for people like me it sounds like a perfect fit.

Permalink Reply by biglint on June 15, 2012 at 4:14am

Wow great project. I entered my info.

Permalink Reply by machinehistories on June 15, 2012 at 3:00pm

There is also this project - openigloo - which seams to offer a few ways grasshopper can be used in the pipeline.

http://openigloo.org/about/project/

Permalink Reply by Aysu Aysoy on November 28, 2016 at 4:25am

I am searching exactly the same thing, but noone haven't been spoken about it since 2012.

Hope there is some developments has been made on this matter.

I really don't need the model to be sent to a 3d printer, but an interactive web interface which allows my design to be changed by sliders and shows the user that the possible versions of the design. Something like Wolfram CDF https://reference.wolfram.com/language/howto/CreateAComputableDocum...

So, please help!

Permalink Reply by Monica Copaja Alegre on December 14, 2016 at 6:46pm