Let’s start with the fact that I’ve already brought up this topic years ago. This time, however, my request is formulated really concisely and the requested improvement is really minimal. I’m sure it would improve Grasshopper Element Styles significantly.
Now, when our VA Element is inserted anywhere in the scene and we want to add some geometry to it (per Object Geometry input), the indicated geometry is added to the element as if it was inserted in its default position (most often world XY origin). This is very troublesome, because our element instances are of course in different places in the project. If we want to put a cushion on the seat of one chair, for example, we have to do this operation as if the chair was standing at point 0,0,0…
I propose a simple option added to the command for adding geometry to Element. Absolute and Relative.
Relative - takes the current position of the Element and adds geometry relative to the position. That is: If the chair is on the 3rd floor of the building, and exactly in this place, on this chair I model a cushion and decide to add it to this specific chair, then the cushion will be added to it and will be visible in the same place.
Absolute - This is how it works now… If I add geometry to an element placed anywhere in the scene, its position will refer to the Grasshopper Style Definition and its initial position.
This is really very important. Element Styles in this form make the simplest thing extremely complicated and inconvenient.
PLEASE add a command option here to toggle between absolute/relative position of an object that we want to add to the edited Element
Brep Style Input.3dm (2.7 MB)
I hope this video shows it
I have Visual ARQ, but I can’t really use it, things like that make it too cumbersome.
Generally I would like to heavily use per Object inputs in the Elements, I can’t fight with it every time.
I really look at VisualARQ as two things:
- an architectural tool
- dynamic/parametric blocks tool.
This request is about the latter part of the program’s functionality. Improving it could be useful for broader audience than just architects. So many request have been made about parametric blocks… but when sold for not so cheap, the must be without limiting factors like this.
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