AntFarm - data management for Rhino and GH - Pre-Release out now

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65

Glad to see that this is still being developed. What are the plans for the future? Is this open source or are there plans to commercialize this? I’m curious if this is something we could fork and continue development on. I’m looking to bring similar functionality into Rhino to manage some of the data we are writing into blocks for our construction documentation workflows.

66

It is not open source and most likely never will be. Commercialization is on the table yes. There is a very rough API that can be used to interact with the base system, the Grasshopper Plugin is built from this.

67

Doesn’t seem to work in RIR. IT says plugin failed to load. I’m using Rhino 8 and Revit 2024.

68

The grasshopper plugin crashes rhino when inside Revit. See error below. Grasshopper will crash Revit and Rhino.

Object: AF_GH_PropertyTypeDeconstruct (level 1)
{
Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
TargetInvocationException
}

Object: AF_GH_PropertyTypeDeconstruct (level 2)
{
The type initializer for ‘AntFarm.AntFarm’ threw an exception.
TypeInitializationException
}

Object: AF_GH_PropertyTypeDeconstruct (level 3)
{
Could not load file or assembly ‘System.Collections.Concurrent, Version=7.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a’ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
FileNotFoundException
}

Object: AF_GH_AttributeTypeConstruct (level 1)
{
Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
TargetInvocationException
}

Object: AF_GH_AttributeTypeConstruct (level 2)
{
The type initializer for ‘AntFarm.AntFarm’ threw an exception.
TypeInitializationException
}

Object: AF_GH_AttributeTypeConstruct (level 3)
{
Could not load file or assembly ‘System.Collections.Concurrent, Version=7.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a’ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
FileNotFoundException
}

69

hello @Christian_Hartz , would it be possible to add a feature where one can add objects to data sets by layer? I think this would greatly extend the capabilities of AntFarm wherein the user could basically create almost a custom command. For example, let’s say I’m in a BIM setting, I intend to create a wall element from layers; I can create a layer called Walls, then filter out for curve geometry and then AntFarm references the layer, hence applies the preexisting properties one creates. In this case, I almost have my own BIM UI.

70

Hey,

sorry for the late reply. There is a workflow for this.

  1. Create a dataset. At the bottom of each dataset you find a statusbar (colour, name, Track Objects [Toggle], Object Filter [Default is ‘None’, but you can set it when creating the dataset], Attached Layer [this is what you want - default is ‘None’], UserString).
  2. Click on either one of the ‘None’ and a Rhino command line is showing.
  3. Toggle ‘IsTracking’ and you get additional options in the command line.
  4. Set option ‘Layer’ to a layer of choice.
  5. Press ‘Enter’ to commit the command.

Any object created in that layer will show up in this specific dataset. You can have several dataset tracking the same layer or any dataset tracking different layers. If you want to stop the tracking just toggle the ‘Track Objects’ toggle button (bold when turn on - normal font when off).

Hope this helps.
Kindest
Christian

71

Thanks, Christian. I’ll check that out.

1 Like
72

Hi Christian, I tried to do your instructions but there is no “Layer” in the options.

image
image2559×103 8.7 KB

73

Hey @attheeast18 ,

hope this helps. You get two options after setting ‘IsTracking’ to ‘Yes’. Please select ‘Layer’ instead of ‘RhinoObjectFilter’.

image
image1143×294 29.8 KB

Let me know and any feedback is welcome.

Kindest
Christian

74

Hi , Christian

Sorry, but I’m still not getting it. There is no “Layer” option when I turn on Tracking. I downloaded beta version 0.64.

image
image1702×157 19.7 KB

75

Hi, Christian. Any update on this issue?

1 Like
76

Hi,
Thank you very much for developing this tool.
It’s very useful.

I have a small problem with the dataset.
When I change the size of a brep, the area of my dataset doesn’t change.
The update is not automatic.
Before :

image
image1920×1003 113 KB

After :
image
image1920×1001 114 KB

Does anyone else have the same problem?
Is this normal behavior with the latest version?
Thank you for your help.

Mathilde

77

I thought that a work around to not being able to update through the SQL query component would be to create a c# script that uses:

object pluginObject = RhinoApp.GetPlugInObject(“707c7d18-f664-4880-80d2-3bf03401087c”);

object antFarm = pluginObject as AntFarm.API.AntFarmAPI;

I can can then access any methods in the api. I’m trying to figure out how to set a value on a record. I can’t see to find it. Class APIRecord

I assume that there are basic CRUD operations on the records exposed through the API?