Getting a continuous surface “drape” like, bridging gaps between different adjacent meshes to be covered

Grasshopper
1

Hi, I am a beginner with GH and it is my first time here, so please be patient.

Attached you can find some meshes that are disconnected from each other. I am looking for a way to get a continuous surface/ mesh lying over the existing meshes while kind of “drape”/ bridge such disconnected edges using grasshopper, something like the sketch:

image
image1405×711 68.1 KB

The idea of the request would be to design a plate able to perfectly fit and overlap such meshes while bridging the edges gaps, allowing to literally connect them with a designed plate with screws.

I am not sure if I would need to use some kangaroo2 definitions like the one presented by Daniel Piker here: Kangaroo "drape" collision between two Meshes? - #4 by RIL) which I tried to use but, maybe because my proficiency is quite limited, I couldn’t manage to make it work for me. I have also thought that maybe some components from Mesh+ could help, namely the Span&Bridge (Span & Bridge - MeshPlus - Component for Grasshopper | Grasshopper Docs). I gave it a try with the existing sample but I was not successful.

The attached meshes result from a longer GH definition, after trimming some geometry. I am using GH with WIP but saved the file in Rhino 6 format.
2020.05.18 meshes to bridge.3dm (315.6 KB)
Thank you.

Filipe

2

try this

image
image755×384 43.6 KB

covergaps.gh (21.0 KB)
and it uses this extra component:
Topologizer.gha (19 KB)

1 Like
3

Daniel Piker, I am truly impressed with your prompt reply and definition itself, really thank you!

May I ask you if you think it is possible to force that the new surface to goes over (above) the existing mesh all the time and never goes behind it like is now happening close the vertices yellow circled below? It would ideally behave similarly to a adhesive tape covering the front of the existing surface?

picture 1
picture 11309×763 50.2 KB

I tried to change definition to address that but without significant success.

Here is what I tried to do:

  • Played with the angle in SplitAtCorners component
  • In the Topologizer component, after reading the explanation here Topologizer/Network CleanUp - Grasshopper I tried to:
    • Include the vertices close to the yellow circles but I am not sure I know how to select/ list them correctly.
    • Adjust the tolerance for a value distance threshold.

The closest I got was after directly connect the Vertices from the Explode component to the FixPoints from Topologizer (trying to work around my limitation how to properly select the vertices close to the yellow circles) and set the Tolerance lower than the distance of such vertices:

picture 2
picture 21389×719 74.8 KB

The other edges/ vertices marked with a yellow circle in the picture above still have the new surface going behind the initial group of meshes. I tried to play a bit more with Tolerance reducing it but I was not sure how it works and the results were not as expected.
Thank you once again.
Filipe