I want to retrieve shipping distance and CO2 from Google Maps. How can I do that in ShapeDiver?
You don’t. Grasshopper is not really capable of interacting with other APIs. Or rather, it is technically capable, but it would be a plugin and that would need to be supported by Shapediver, which is unlikely. Since you will use Javascript to load the Shapediver viewer you might as well use Javascript to get the information from the Google Maps API and then pass it on to the Shapediver API.
I think for Grasshopper to have easy access to APIs would be great though, especially in the context of Shapediver.
Maybe its possible to hack something together, but there is no easy way I am aware of.
ShapeDiver supports the Swiftlet plugin, which lets you make requests to REST APIs directly from within Grasshopper. As a matter of fact, we have been thinking of putting together an example using Google APIs, but in any case you can read all the documentation and examples provided with Swiftlet which give a good introduction.
2 Likes
Also check those links:
- A course on web requests from inside Grasshopper, including materials about ShapeDiver: Arpan Bakshi on LinkedIn: Web requests in Grasshopper are here! A new course on calling into Web…
- A post by Edwin, which describes how he used Swiftlet to easily interact with ChatGPT and DALL-E from inside Grasshopper and uploaded the results to ShapeDiver: Edwin Hernandez on LinkedIn: #chatgpt #dalle #grasshopper3d #artificialintelligence | 26 comments
Thank you Swiftlet works
Get this error:
Library Swiftlet, Version 0.1.8.0, AssemblyVersion 0.1.8.0 by Sergey Pigach may not be used yet.
Component Data Output may not be used.
Model uuid: 994273e9-ebaf-4b34-8574-ed992e884bf3
Model guid: eab5effb-c037-4e4a-b44d-241748777b22
Fair enough. Who knew.
@mathieu1 I notice now that it says Swiftlet is only supported on systems running Rhino 7:
Where do I switch to Rhino 7? We have a Pro account and I don’t see way to switch to Rhino 7. Shouldn’t it be here:
You can only use the versions that are stated here: Supported third-party Grasshopper plugins
If you go to the Package Manager you can also chose different versions and then install that one.
Just select a different version here and then press Install again.
Hi Armin, PRO plans only have the option of using a Rhino 6 system. You’ll need to upgrade to one of our newer plans to get the option of both Rhino 6 and Rhino 7 backend systems.
@alexander.gilje You are using a PRO account as well, which does not give you access to Rhino 7. My apologies for forgetting to mention that Swiftlet is only available on Rhino 7 systems.
@ezequiel and @mathieu1 Oh, I see that you have new pricing plans. I did not even realize that.
So our 99 Euros/month Pro plan does not even have the same features as the 49 Euros/month Designer plan?
Old pro plan:
New designer plan:
Can you explain the difference between the two that would justify the double price, but not having some of those nice features?
Correction: I see that using the viewer API and direct embedding is now only possible with the 199 Euros/month designer plus plan.
Hm, so its either double the price than the PRO to get to switch systems or stay at the current price, but be stuck with Rhino 6.
Shouldn’t Rhino 7 be standard now that Rhino 7 has been out for ages and Rhino 8 is coming out soon?
I don’t want to tell you how to do your pricing, but I find it a bit odd. Basically if you are a company like us that want to use this for just 1 product/use case, you are now paying depending on which features you want. Say we need the backend API, we now have to get the 500Euros/month plan, even though we have just 1 model we are actually using. But a enterprise that might have hundreds of models might pay the same.
So I think there should be more feature parity between the plans, but a distinction of how many models you can have, because they are the ones that really use up your resources.
Now you basically have feature lockout and unless you are a very large company might never consider using the Backend API, because its simply too expensive.
Big companies probably would still have to get the largest plan because of some niche features or because they want to use a lot of models, but small companies/individuals could use your advanced features. In the end, that’s what you want, right!?
Hi Armin, we phased out PRO plans already 2 years ago (June 2021) and introduced new plans with newer features, including R7. Our PRO clients were welcome to keep the plan for as long as they wanted.
This was just a business decision. We can discuss some alternatives for your company over a video call, in case you’re interested in upgrading.
Quick question regarding this: I noticed that the Swiftlet plugin is also available for Rhino 6. So how come we can only use it with Rhino 7? It’s the only plugin on your list, which has that limitation. Is it an artificial limitation, so free users can’t use it?
The deployment of third-party plugins on our various systems requires time and effort both for the initial installation, ongoing maintenance and versioning, as well as plugin-specific support for all users. This work is distinct for each system and plugin. For these reasons, we are now sticking to a core list of plugins on the shared Rhino 6 system, which we keep maintaining and updating frequently. We keep adding new plugins occasionally for free users when they cover widely common use cases and fit the needs of a majority of Grashopper users. Plugins such as Swiftlet, which involve more advanced use cases, are considered premium features.
I understand. Leaving the more advanced plugins for advanced and paying customers is fine and understandable. But us Pro users are paying customers and are advanced users. Therefore it would make sense and would enable us to utilize advanced functionality more if we had access to Swiftlet. Since we are paying double that of the Designer users, which DO have access to it, I believe the effort it takes is payed for.
I guess it comes down to whether the distinction between Rhino 6 and Rhino 7 is the only way you can distinguish between free and advanced users. Are the Pro accounts using the same Rhino 6 system as the free users? So if you were to enable Swiftlet for Rhino 6 would it automatically be enabled for both free and pro users? If that is the case, then I believe it would only be fair to enable Rhino 7 for the Pro users.
Hi Armin,
We appreciate your feedback and ideas. Nonetheless, as I mentioned in a previous post, these were all strategic decisions. Our PRO plans were phased out 2 years ago. PRO clients pay double than Designers because they have 10X more credits and access to both APIs. If you need access to our R7 system and/or any other new feature included in our newer plans, we can gladly discuss some alternatives for your company over a video call.
1 Like