Create conveyor belt in Kangaroo2

Grasshopper Kangaroo
1

Hi everyone,

I want to create a conveyor belt behaviour in Kangaroo2. Is that possible? Basically, objects that are in contact with a surface (conveyor) will move in a vector direction. The surface stay in place, just in the objects that are in contact with it move.

Thanks!

Sam

2

Hi Sam,
What else do the objects need to do besides move with the conveyor?
(Is the conveyor accelerating and making them deform or tumble? or are they colliding with other obstacles not moving with the conveyor? Do they fall onto or off the ends?)
I’m guessing there’s more to it than just objects staying on a belt moving at constant speed, because then there’d be no need for simulation, just a simple translation.

3

Hi Daniel,

Yeah, the objects on the conveyor are rigid bodies and move at a constant speed, and just fall off at the end of the conveyor. It’s a simulation because as they fall off the end, they follow a trajectory and hit/interact a chute/geometry. Basically, I want to model a transfer chute. Objects feeding in from one conveyor, hit a chute, and land on another conveyor.

Sam

4

I’m trying to do something similar and working on the approach, thought-experiment time while updates are installing. Constructing the belt geometry itself first is what makes sense to me. A pair of displaced closed guide curves exploded into segments then line connected between should work to help create a mesh or surface, maybe ruled surface.

Apply unit z constant force field for gravity, make the geometry into a solid object and check for collision with other objects. The rotation vector on the ends is tricky but ignoring the bottom may simplify things and allow use of constant field along the travel path between the conveyor ends. This approach doesn’t solve the problem of moving geometry but may work for animations and gives a basis for comparison, basically showing a sliding box on a surface that looks like a conveyor.

My updates are installed, time to go work through this more; moving geometry is my goal.
Has there been progress on other approaches?
MCB

5


conveyorbelt2.gh (40.0 KB)
Sorry it’s taken me a while to get back to you both @martinb @wsw.sims.
Here’s a first go at a custom goal for this. Surely needs some refinement, but seems to work in principle.
It uses a nurbs surface as a belt, and moves points in the v direction of that surface.
16 Likes
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The blue geometry is your missing luggage.

9 Likes
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That is pretty cool, thanks Daniel!

8

This definition is great! To be completely honest, this project got lost behind several other tasks and just now resurfaced. I’m happy to see how you did things, definitely a jump start!
Thank you,
MCB