Blocks vs Extrusions

I am developing a Grasshopper script that distributes many copies of a small object around the surface of a solid. These objects will then be Boolean Subtracted from that larger object leaving a patterned texture. While the objects to be distributed are not complex (6 to 12 simple surfaces) there will be hundreds to several thousand when distributed.

I’m thinking about performance during the design process in Grasshopper and then the sculpting after baking. Should these small objects be blocks or extrusions?

TIA
Robb

Hi Robb - I can imagine both of those might turn out to be helpful if you get up into thousands of copies.

-Pascal

Do you recommend one better than the other in this scenario?

Hi Robb - they would not be mutually exlusive - you can make an extrusion into a block. The advantage of extrusions is they are ‘lightweight’ - consume fewer resources compared to a polysurface of the same shape. A block of that, repeated many many times, would presumably ‘compound’ the savings by only having one definition of the extrusion geometry.
(However, the transforms applied to each block instance are slower again, display wise, so if might eat into any performace gain somewhat - I really do not know.)

-Pascal

Thanks Pascal - I’ll run some experiments when I get a chance.