Hi guys,
I’m trying to create a regular grid onto the purple surface that I can then turn into a beam structure. I’ve tried to do this before by tween curves, projecting onto the surface and using these lines as sweep rails for the beam cross section but this takes ages and I was just wondering if anyone could think of a quicker way to do this. I thought a panelling grid might work but I always struggle to get these to work. I need the beams to be a specific x sectional size so if anybody can think of a reasonably precise way to do this it’d really helppanelling possible.3dm (7.2 MB)
The first image is the result of my previous work but I’m open to something more like the structure in the second image
Hi @danjarvis8,
The triangulated diamond grid structure shown in your second example is pretty easy to produce in Grasshopper. Since your base surface is a polysurface - not a single, untrimmed surface - the diagrid cells are not optimally distributed.
There are many ways to optimise the structure further in Grasshopper (e.g. Kangaroo). You could for instance relax the base mesh and/or re-evaluate the cells to get a distribution of cells with more equal areas.
Furthermore, you need to explode your base polysurface in Rhino for the script to work. And you have to install the popular LunchBox, as well as the Weaverbird plugins for Grasshopper!
GH file: diagrid_surface_01.gh (10.7 KB)
To be honest I’ve never used grasshopper before so I think it might take me too much time to learn a new program from scratch. This might be pushing it but is there any way I could get that triangle form flowed along the bottom of the surface with 600x600mm cross sections. It’s totally understand if not it’s just I have no idea where to start
It’s not really a separate program, but rather a Rhino add-on, but I understand that it can be intimidating. The Grasshopper definition should now do, what your after. You can play around with the highlighted sliders to alter/optimise results.
The cross-section size of the structural framing can now be controlled with two sliders and currently is set to 60 x 60 cm. The glazing sits flush with the top of the frame, like in the previous example.
diagrid_surface_02.gh (18.1 KB)
Please note that I won’t be able to see if you post in this discussion, if you don’t tag me with “@p1r4t3b0y”, or reply directly to my concerned post.
Thank you so much for the help, I’ll have a look at that first thing in the morning, hopefully I’ll be able to get my head around grasshopper but that looks fantastic
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sorry last question, I really am very new to grasshopper and was just wondering if there was quick command that merges the grasshopper data tree with the existing rhino file
Do you mean exporting the geometry from a Grasshopper component to Rhino?
If so, you can simply right-click the desired component and bake your geometry (sunny-side-up egg icon) to a selected Rhino layer!
I’ve just tried but I can’t seem to get any of the components to bake but when I open the grasshopper file it seems like the rhino model is missing. I’ve tried copy and pasting in another version of the surface but that doesn’t seem to work either. I’m sorry to bug you but I just really want to get this to work and I feel like I’m about a keyboard click away
No worries, just open your Rhino file and explode the purple base polysurface, then launch Grasshopper and open the diagrid_surface_02.gh file from above.
If the components at the beginning of the file look like this, it means that you need to reload your surfaces from Rhino into Grasshopper!
Simply right-click the Srf (Surface) component and select “Set Multiple Surfaces”. Next select all the surfaces of your violet, exploded polysurface in the Rhino viewport and confirm your selection with ENTER, when you’re done.
This is basically how you import Rhino geometry into Grasshopper!
Now, depending on your computer Grasshopper might take a couple of seconds to show the result.
You can bake the frames and windows from both Ext (Extrude) components at the end of the file!
@diff-arch thank you for all the help. The roof looks absolutely wonderful I’ll try and start getting to grips with grasshopper
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@danjarvis8, you’re welcome! 