GH for the mathmatically impaired

Grasshopper
1

Hi,
I’m wondering if I should invest any time in learning GH. I am the type of guy that barely made it through high school math and has no idea what calculus is.
I design jewelry in Rhino and would eventually like to automate some tasks…but it seems like GH may be more than I can handle. Anyone else like me finally understand how to use this?
Thanks,
Chris

2

It really depends on how well you know rhinoceros.
Grasshopper do the same “functions” of rhinoceros.
If you know rhino well, gh shouldn’t be a problem to understand.

Keep in mind that you should NOT replace rhino with grasshopper, but just a step of your working process (this is the simplest situation, for a starter).
Like you do “Step 1” and “Step 2” in rhinoceros, then “Step 3” in grasshopper, then again “Step 4” in rhino to ultimate your design.
Try with small operations initially, so you can start learning gh with small steps.

2019-03-04%2015_51_19-Window
small_example.gh (6.3 KB)
With this example you can make rounded pipe of “odd” segments of the edges of a polysurface (“brep” in gh)
See how few components are used.
Doing it in rhino would take much more time and you would have to do it again completely if you want to change some value.

Try to find a situation where one of your “step” is simple enough and could be done with grasshopper. Then come back here, in the forum, to get more help. (if you do so, please explain well your situation so others can help you better)

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3

Maybe have quick look through this primer:

https://www.rhino3d.com/download/rhino/5.0/essentialmathematicsthirdedition/

It provides a great introduction to most of the core concepts and how they relate to Rhino/Grasshopper/RhinoCommon.

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4

the problem with high school math is that its quite often pretty useless for real life. Every math related to geometry is fun, useful and very different in the same place. Its also not about calculating something, its just about knowing what it does and why. The calculation is done by the computer. Just learn basics about vectors. Learning math by grasshopper is great and should be tought in school instead. Anders already linked to a great beginner-tutorial regarding math.

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