Hi Anis, yes the problem I see with Grasshopper is that it is not really integrated into the main Rhino workflow at all.

It's kind of a duplication of every command in an alternative way to set things up.

That's quite a lot of stuff to duplicate...

Something for example where you could just model as normal and then have the option to see that sequence in a history list where you could alter parameters seems like it would be much more streamlined and easy to use since the setup would then just be the exact same thing as regular modeling operations rather than something completely different.

- Michael

Hi isaac,

> I was hoping grasshopper did not have to be heavily modified
> so maybe we( moi users) can bug them to give us a moi version.
> Darn! Plans foiled heh! :)

Well, even if it was feasible I don't think you would get very far in convincing them - grasshopper is not a 3rd party plug-in for Rhino, it is developed directly by McNeel.

- Michael

I think it really depends on what you are modeling. The point of parametric/ procedural modeling
is to make for a model which is really flexible when it comes to changes or revisions and also to acomplish repetitive modeling tasks that will be a nightmare to model the traditional way. After using houdini for a while I have come to really enjoy the node based workflow.
For things like product design etc history is great. But for other tasks like architectural design a parametric based approach is awesome

Hi isaac,

> and also to acomplish repetitive modeling tasks that will
> be a nightmare to model the traditional way.

For this part, it seems like being able to just do the repetitive task one time and then be able to go to some "history view" and see a record of what you just did and then possibly copy that to a Macro would be a much easier overall way.

Something more integrated like that would probably be more approachable for more people to make use of instead of having to go to a completely different workspace, find the same commands that you would want to use but in a different UI... It seems like just a generally higher learning curve when there is no integration.

From what I have seen, Houdini has more of an integrated approach similar to this, is that correct? Not like Grasshopper where the entire setup is completely disconnected from the command UI that you would use when doing normal modeling.

- Michael

>For this part, it seems like being able to just do the repetitive task one time and then be able to go to some "history view" and see a >record of what you just did and then possibly copy that to a Macro would be a much easier overall way.

Correct but what if that macro creates a pattern which you intended to copy to every point in an existing point cloud. ..Thats when the fun begins.

You are right! houdini's approach is way more integrated and has a lot more power. The only sad thing is houdini has limited nurbs/solids functionality.

Check out this video It shows the strength of true parametric/procedural modeling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOLhnwllpgs

Please note i was not trying to request a change in the way moi's history works. It was just a question. seems it makes for quite an interesting discussion.

cheers!

LOL i did not realise GH was developed my mcneal and associates.

Hi isaac,

> Correct but what if that macro creates a pattern which
> you intended to copy to every point in an existing point
> cloud. ..Thats when the fun begins.

Yeah but that's also when it starts to become more of a "programming-ish" like tool, which certainly works well if you are able to think like a programmer but there are a lot of people that find that a foreign mindset.

Also don't get me wrong, Grasshopper looks like it has a cool UI, it's just that it behaves in general more as if it was a completely separate program in a parallel universe to Rhino rather than something that works like an extension of the regular program.

Maybe that can even be an advantage in some cases when you want to do a totally different approach, like something more like directly programming steps rather than modifying modeling workflow. But the negative aspect is that it means learning a much different UI than the regular modeling UI, and in the long run potentially having a lot of repeated stuff between these 2 parallel universes...

> Check out this video It shows the strength of true
> parametric/procedural modeling.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOLhnwllpgs

Wow, that is an amazing result. At first I was just like "ok", but then when the tunnels and bridges pop in that is way cool.

Of course it probably took a considerable effort to get that all set up...

- Michael

Whoa, cool video!!! That caught me off guard too when the bridge and tunnel elements just sprang up like that...

As Michael said, the GH developer has basically coded a parallel version of Rhino commands and script functions. But Houdini was built as a nodal system from the ground up, where everything can be accessed by procedures. So GH functions do not go as deep as that yet. It may never reach that kind of depth... But this video is only showing procedural geometry and not using any special deformers or animation effects, so I think the entire project could be duplicated in GH. GH can also reference standard Rhino objects. So a curve could be used to define the road, then move the curve's points and GH will redraw all the geometry based on that curve. And then account for where the curve intersects the ground mesh, it's height relative to the ground, the length of spans for each elevated section, etc... It must be a tremendous amount of work using either GH or Houdini. I wonder really how much time was spent to set this up...

I've used GH to model a few parametric objects, and you almost have to forget what you know about modeling. Then start to think what is really happening within the program which allows you to model each element? How does an object get replicated along a curve and maintain orientation related to the curve? then you have to start dealing with planes, vectors, frames, domains, lists, etc... and the list seems never-ending. Even something simple like extruding an edge by a specified length requires a lot of steps to set up... It will give you a whole new respect for programmers and those GUI's which they create to do all the heavy lifting for you...

Generally speaking the time spent modeling something like that in video is pretty much the same as modeling it the traditional way(in houdini not grasshopper)
for some things you can actually do a lot faster than the traditional way.
It does require a different thought process and like Michael said it is practically "visual programming" which most people do not like. It takes getting used to.. I did not like that process as well when i started using hodini but have grown to like it a lot just wish it had better more nurbs surface operators...though it is actually possible to make those operators within hodini as well if you have the patience for it
GH is not gona get close to houdini for a long time. It is not as flexible and as integrated as Michael pointed out. For certain architectural concept modeling however it works great.

http://www.paraclouding.com/GEM/
GEM Another 3D toy ;)

Yup and so is bentley systems generative components. Been meaning to try out gem. just haven had the chance

http://www.braid.com/groboto-site/
Groboto is also some parametric! ;)

> It does require a different thought process and like Michael
> said it is practically "visual programming" which most people
> do not like.

Another possibility is that since a system like that is so similar to programming already that it could be good to actually emphasize that aspect even more so...

Some things are probably just easier and more compact overall when they are directly written as code instead of every single thing having to be a visual node with connector lines.

Things like loops, conditional statements, stuff like that can add up to a big soup of nodes and connectors while in text form them are just one line statements.

- Michael

Folks, just a note if anyone still reads this thread: you can now use Grasshopper with Rhino and Archicad and have your work seamlessly transferred from one application to the other via the (beta) Connection tool. You can test it here: https://www.graphisoft.com/rhino-grasshopper

Hi;

This is an intersting discussion. There is another node base visual programing called Dynamo. This is an open source and currently works
as stand alone ( you can export your model in STL format) or with Revit integration. Someone also has created the integration between Dynamo and Rhino called Rhynamo.

See links for Dynamo info:

https://github.com/DynamoDS/Dynamo

http://dynamobim.com/

There are possibility to integrate this progoram with other software, see Link

https://github.com/DynamoDS/Dynamo/wiki/Integration-Guide

It might be difficult, but may be there is possibility for an integration between Dynamo and MOI.

-sharif

You have a sort of GrassHopper for make Surfaces!
Can be used for Moi as you can export as OBJ file! ;)


http://www.world-machine.com/ (the free version is sufficient for some crazzy things! )

For export you must "draw" a node "Mesh OutPut" (seems only OBJ ? )

There are some Voronoi, Perlin etc... functions! The Manual is a model!



and this guy has made some many tutorials! Vladimir Chopine http://www.youtube.com/user/GeekatplayStudio/playlists




You must decimate your model with free MeshLab by example ! http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/ (525 000 Faces --> 25 0000 faces 5 seconds)
before use the _ImportOBJ by Max Smirnov!

Here 15 seconds for import / resize result of 25 000 surfaces!
http://moiscript.weebly.com/uploads/3/9/3/8/3938813/25000_faces.zip (12 Megs)
(Waiting the max Polygon Converter for nice Nurbs surfaces :)

Today I wrote a test-script which can create and manipulate objects by using html5 graphics interface.
Everything works great. Html5 canvas, window and mouse events e.t.c.
So it is technically possible to write the grasshopper clone for MoI.

It looks cool :)
.

Amazing!!

It's just a gadget or you will want really code this sort of nodes process ?

PS
One Elephant = 100 000 Grashoppers! ;)

Sweet.

Years ago I wrote a simple 2D tool which would generate "aesthetically pleasing" designs based upon a set of rules and a genetic algorithm. Using a simple neural net and GA, it would generate lots of 'base level' designs, then allow the user to select the ones they liked and the program would 'learn' preferences and try and generate more.

The rules were basically very simple. Things like golden mean, circles (few), 3 levels of details, symmetry and some other basic layout principles, like edge detail are all used in constructing a simple graphic representation.

I could see how you could do something very similar, but in 3D (2 1/2 D) and create interesting forms like this:

Frenchy Pilou
>> It's just a gadget or you will want really code this sort of nodes process ?
I would like to write such a script, but it will take a lot of time.
The work can be splitted in three parts:
1. Main core ( I can write it )
2. Design ( I need a help of someone skilled in html5/css )
3. Modules ( There will be hundreds of modules. I have not time to write them all, so I need a help of our community )
If I find someone who can help me I will start the work.

chippwalters
>>I could see how you could do something very similar, but in 3D (2 1/2 D) and create interesting forms like this
Yes, it's very interesting, maybe someday I'll write this script, but not now.