don’t worry, Grasshoppers old name was “Explicit History”. The idea is to actually safe what you do in a node based editor. However by having no mouse input, modelling in grasshopper makes only sense for very repetitive tasks, like doing some complex patterns, which would be a pain by doing them manually. I try to add some surfacing tools in it, because grasshopper cannot fully mirror Rhinos Tools.
I’m very interested in what I could do with that combination. I’m not into automotive, but I’m working on a project (an old car from the sixties with challenging shapes) as to learn class A modelling.
I tend to read posts by @Stratosfear extra carefully as to learn from a “surface genius”. I haven’t seen many posts from him recently, but I look forward to posts which reveals such level of insight. One can see that the resulting surface patches didn’t just happen by accident, instead careful analysis lays behind.
Why don’t you (@TomTom) and @Stratosfear write a “Class A Surface Essentials” (e-)handbook together? With simple example files including step for step models side by side (if there are more class A professionals in this group which I’ve failed to mention, please accept my sincere apology).
In any case, I’d be first to pre-order a copy. Promise.
// Rolf
If you are interessed I could send you a current build end of the week. However coding surface tools is obviously very challenging, and therefore don’t expect any great magic. Grasshopper is also hard to master, and having no mouse input is problematic as well
Class A is very complex and I’m still learning it. I have only two years in experience of pure class A, which is nothing compared to people in my company having up to 20 years. That’s actually the downside. Good surface modelling tools are important, but people being able to use them are really rare, especially those who are willing to write a manual or even coding some tools. And some basic concepts of class A cannot be fully achieved with pure Rhino, so everyone doing class A, will tell you that using Rhino (even with VSR) would be problematic. However if I find some time I could write down some basic concepts. There are actually no books about this topic, as far as I know. Some rare hints can be found in german literature.
On the other hand many surface tools developers are no experts in modelling tasks, which is making it really difficult to define “good”. As you may already noticed, its not always about mathematical correctness or making it robust even for unexperienced user. Practical applications can only be made in combination of both. Icem for instance was made this way, in a really close way to class a industry, making it to special for the average user and its price nearly unaffordable.
i am interested. Can you send me acctual build ? (its problem with grasshopper for mac ? )
I’ll send you end of the week. I only need an email? The best Is to send a short request to AdvancedSurfaceTools@outlook.com
However, I haven’t tested it for Mac. One component uses a winform, but the others should work without.
So not sure, you gonna have to test. If not there might be a possiblility by referencing the core library and writing short scriptcomponents. We will see.