Hello People,
I am trying to replicate the windows in the drawing attached parametrically in Grasshopper. But I am stuck at how can I make the outside walls to fit the windows in them. Can anyone please help me with this?
I am also a new user of grasshopper so please don’t mind if the workflow is not upto the standard as I have just used the basic knowledge that I have at the moment to analyse and design.
Window drawing|690x435 window try.gh (13.2 KB)
I will try and look at this properly later but have a search on this forum because there has been similar questions for windows and / or doors.
I’ve done a window and a door before so I will dig out the definition.
I always end up with very messy definitions because you end up with wires running everywhere representing relationships between mullions and panes and frames etc. Software like Solid Works is much better for this kind of design (IMO) because the relationships between parts of the model are handled neatly within the 2d sketches behind each 3d component but I think there is probably some good practices to adopt when doing something like this in GH such as managing points of reference and relationships between components in a way that is easy to understand… On the model I did, it was great until I needed to modify it and then it became really hard to remember how all the components were interconnected.
Another thing to think about is what do you want to output ? Do you just want a graphical representation of the window or do you want a manufacturing list of timber parts that will assemble to make the window?
If the timber is to have a different profile made by a spindle moulder for example, should your GH definition allow you to easily change that profile according to the spindle moulder tooling you have?
Window seal gaps and pane dimensions should be easy to select.
I started my definition and then had to keep changing it as I thought about all these things so my definition became very messy!
Hopefully I will be able to look properly at your GH file later when I’m at my pc.
So now that I have actually looked at your files, it looks like you are trying to replicate the 2d drawing?
To make rectangles fit within, or relative to, other rectangles you can create reference points from, for example, your main outer wall rectangle or reference points that all your rectangles are referenced to.
You almost do this here…
…where you use the Vec component plugged into the Origin (O) input of the XZ Plane component. It should actually be a Point XYZ not a Vector XYZ and instead of a Point XYZ that you set with sliders it could be a point that you have extracted from somewhere else (like the bottom left hand corner of the outside walls)
I’ve added a simple example of how to have 2 rectangles inside the outer wall rectangle that are all related…
window try mjh.gh (16.5 KB)
You can see that the more you develop this to add more components all referencing different things then the definition gets really complicated and hard to change…
Mine ended up looking like this…
WINDOW_MJH_EXAMPLE.gh (82.1 KB)
My outer frame is separate components but I left the actual windows as simple solids as I haven’t decided how I will manufacture those yet. It is easier to model simple solids than have each and every timber component modelled and related to each other so if you tweak one parameter, all related dimensions change.
I think the key to doing this sort of definition in GH is to have good terminology for all the parts of the model… for example, I have a window frame and then window frames within that outer frame. I kept getting frames confused when I tried to make changes.
Sometimes you can use an offset to put a pane within a frame, for example, but sometimes you might have a different offset in X than Z so it is better to move the reference plane.
Anyway, hope this helps rather than confuses further!
Hi mate,
You’re legend. Just solved the issue so conveninetly!! I will look at the script and see what I can extract from it and will keep in mind your tips 
Thanks alot for the info.
My first project using the new Geometry Nodes from Blender.
– Felipe Del Rio
