NEST_CIRCLES3.gh (17.0 KB)
…and here’s one that includes the curve containment in the same goal
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With the grab for rearrangement this makes a challenging puzzle.
circlenestpuzzle.gh (17.6 KB)
What’s the smallest square anyone can fit this set of circles inside?
I got it down to 1965, but surely lower is possible.
3 Likes
So the actual challenge, if you are interested, is to nest 3 sets of the circles into 5 sheets of 1220 x 2440mm.
I was thinking something like this but with 3 sets of the circles…
I wonder if this could be the basis of some AI nesting software… Current nesting software seems to be brute force, try every iteration or just start at bottom left and place parts in order of area into the corner.
This is just circles so simple in terms of rotating parts to fit better but I like the way you can shuffle parts by eye and then let the circle packing take over.
It was often quite easy to beat the nesting software by eye on one or 2 sheets worth of parts as the human eye is good at this sort of problem. Often the nesting software is used mostly for time saving or avoiding tedious operations but actual material efficiency is not always crucial.
Maybe the combinations needed to get a good nest are less here as it would be a few different strategies for how to drop the initial layout into the sheets rather than every possible combination?
It beats current nesting software for enjoyment anyway!
If anyone has one of the nesting plugins, please try Daniel’s puzzle above… can you nest all the parts onto the 1965x1965 square or smaller and how long does it take to do that?
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Hi Daniel,
Thanks for your sharing. Base on your gh file, I wonder if we can add 2D close curve acts like a “vaccum bag” to achieve a minimal 2D bounday for the circles (see my hand sketch)?
Thanks for any suggestion!
circlenestpuzzle.3dm (31.5 KB) circlenestpuzzle.gh (37.9 KB)
Here’s one tensioning a cable around the outside
wrapcircles.gh (16.6 KB)
This way the boundary will form a convex hull of the circles - if you want the boundary to also pull into the concave parts then you’ll need a version with 2d pressure.
11 Likes
There was a component called AlphaShape which would allow the concave boundary between shapes like a vacuum form but I can’t find it on Food4Rhino…
Also, I can’t get it to work on R7
It is out there on this forum if you search alpha shape…
that link from this discussion…
https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/alpha-shape-3d/60651
ah… it was on the Milkbox group on the old forum and by @MateuszZwierzycki I think
Here’s a version using 2d pressure to do a vacuum form which pulls the circles together
wrapcircles2.gh (23.2 KB)
21 Likes
Great, thanks Daniel!!
I have done a minor change to the GH, I want to predefine the circle radius and add a grab force to it. But don’t know why the whole bag tend to ‘flow’ to the y axis direction…How can I keep my bag not to flow to one direction, so I can manually adjust the circles and bag’s shape and location?
wrapcircles3.gh (21.1 KB)
It looks like this drifting issue is caused by something unbalanced in the Area goal.
Here’s a version that uses a simpler 2d pressure to avoid this.
There can still be small amount of drift from the collisions too, so I’ve also added a weak PlasticAnchor (which acts as a sort of static friction).
wrapcircles4.gh (26.5 KB)
13 Likes
Thanks Daniel, but for some reason I cannot get your script running…
Do I need to install any plug-ins?
When open your file, it shows this
You need to tell it where your copy of KangarooSolver.dll is installed.
Either when the error pops up on opening, or by right clicking the red script component and selecting Manage Assemblies.
This file is part of Rhino, and if you have multiple versions of Rhino installed, you need to reference the one from the version you are currently running.
I think this will usually be one of these directories:
C:\Program Files\Rhino 6\Plug-ins\Grasshopper\Components
C:\Program Files\Rhino WIP\Plug-ins\Grasshopper\Components
(if you first installed v7 when it was a WIP)
C:\Program Files\Rhino 7\Plug-ins\Grasshopper\Components
C:\Program Files\Rhino 8 WIP\Plug-ins\Grasshopper\Components
1 Like
Thanks, problem solved 
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Thanks Daniel for the impressive circle packing2
as Grasshopper newbie I’m having the same assembly reference issue in Rhino7 for Mac,
do you have a suggestion to run wrapcircles4?
top! works :-)>
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Hi folks,
Thanks this very usefull thread, I played with these definitions but always noticed there’s a C# component that make me feel like the last of the classroom…wait this remember something.
When it’s about packing like above examples is it the only way to do it?As I know nothing about C# this is a kind of prohibition for me, should I copy paste my schoolmate work, again?..
Circle packing is one of the most-used kangaroo applications, maybe it should become a stand-alone rhino command.
What a great thread!
I used the script you posted @DanielPiker [wrapcircles4.gh|attachment], and its been really fun playing with, but i somehow i am unable to ‘drag’ the circles the same way you do. It might just be a stupid ‘disable window selection’ but i am unable find any setting for that.
whats your magic touch? 