Assembler 1.2 update

[ale2x72 (Alessio Erioli)]

Assembler 1.2 update

Assembler was announced here about 6 months ago:

Announcing Assembler - a plugin to construct and manage.... assemblages

[logo_1000] I am very excited to announce the release of Assembler! Assembler is a Grasshopper plugin that helps you construct and manage assemblages of parts, conceived with (but not limited to) the architectural scale in mind. [Sample assemblage (entirely criteria-driven and deterministic)] You can find all relevant links and detailed info (including documentation, example files, and GitHub page) here: https://www.co-de-it.com/assembler.html With Assembler, you can create assemblages f…

Here’s the first update with new features, implementations and bug fixes.

You can update via the PackageManager or grab it from https://www.food4rhino.com/en/app/assembler (where you’ll find a link to the updated example files).

---

New Features

Added

• Weights are now active: in case of equal computed value for two or more candidates, a factor consisting of the sum of AssemblyObject, Handle and Rule weight is compared, highest weight prevails. Examples files are provided in folder 04 - expert.

• The HeuristicsDisplay component now has proper rendered geometries when Rhino view is in Rendered mode;
  

  
  
  It can also bake Collision Meshes, rules texts and XData geometries in dedicated Layers:
  

• AssemblyObjects can now be cast directly into the following types (using this field/property):

  • Mesh (Collision Mesh)
  • Plane (Reference Plane)
  • Point (Reference Plane Origin)
  • Vector (Direction)
  • Number (Weight)
  • Integer (Type)
  • Boolean (World Z-lock status)

  NOTE: due to the Grasshopper default casting overhead, using the Post-Processing Extract components is faster than casting as the amount of AssemblyObjects grows
  

  

Changed

• ExtractHandles now exposes the following additional outputs:
  • Handle occupancy
  • neighbour Object index
  • neighbour Handle index
• DisplayAssemblage now exposes an additional output for values computed to generate colors in the following modes:
  • Z value
  • Connectedness
  • Local Density
• default weight for Rules is now 1 (previously was 0): this is for better coherence (it aligns with default weights for AssemblyObjects and Handles) and to implement weight-based strategies (see Added section)
• AssemblyObject preview now includes Handles (different color for each type) and Direction Vector
• baking an AssemblyObject will bake the Collision Mesh ad L polylines for its Reference Plane and each of its Handles

Fixed

• several minor (yet annoying) bugs in ExogenousSettings, DisplayAssemblage, and DeconstructField components
• improved error trapping messages on several components, especially in the AssemblerEngine

For a detailed list, see the changelog.

---

Examples

Updated example files include several new Post-Processing examples.

• One example automatically detects levels (including a margin for different heights, i.e. in the case of pedestals or pits) and extracts their horizontal faces (far from a perfect extraction, but it gives a good approximation):
  
  
• Another example can generate and export plans for all automatically detected levels of an assemblage:
  
• There is also a section that documents how to port and navigate your assemblages in real-time in Unity:
  
  
  
  
  

There are many more! Feel free to explore them all!

If you are doing something with Assembler, please use the #madewithassembler hashtag (and let me know if you want)!

[ale2x72 (Alessio Erioli)]

Of course I overlooked a small bug in the Heuristics Display baking and had to push a 1.2.1 release yesterday…