Creating an envelope that adapts to an existing geometry

[juliapfeifer8]

Hi everyone,

for my project on the adaptive reuse of an offshore drilling platform, I am trying to create an envelope / shell around an existing structure, similar to the attached reference example.

So far, I managed to generate a mesh in Grasshopper that is fixed to user-defined anchor points at the ground level and develops upwards from there. While this approach works in principle, the resulting geometry is still quite generic.

My question is:
How could I make the envelope adapt more closely to the existing platform geometry, so that it “wraps” or “hugs” the underlying forms?
Are there recommended workflows or components (e.g. attractors, distance fields, mesh or surface relaxation, ShrinkWrap, collision-based methods, etc.) that allow the platform geometry to influence the shape of the mesh more directly?

Attached you will find:

• a reference image,

• and my current Grasshopper definition.

Thank you very much for any advice or suggestions!

20260106_kangaroo mesh.gh (23.9 KB)

[Eef_Weenink]

today I learned a lot about ShrinkWrap. Search for that on the forum. Could be helpful for you too. Regards, Eef

[DanielPiker]

Some of the examples in this thread might be useful:

Shrink Wrap with Kangaroo

Here’s an updated version of the approach using the convex hull like I posted further up this thread. The outermost spikes are the ones that tend most to slide through the mesh, so here it anchors all the points which lie on the hull. [image] shrinkwrap_branches.gh (80.8 KB) There’s still the possibility that other spikes which are internal to the original hull end up poking through as the fabric shrinks, but it’s a start.

[Eef_Weenink]

This is the one I studied today: Rhino - Mold Making Tools