Using wind to simulate a floating balloon

Grasshopper Kangaroo
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sky_lantern.3dm (2.6 MB) hoppity_hop.gh (13.2 KB)
Hi all, I am trying to simulate a balloon (sky_lantern.3dm) ‘floating’ due to the code in the GH file. As of right now, the base of the balloon is anchored so that the structure does not fly away due to wind… Obviously this structure is not floating/ not behaving how I would like it to…
In my understanding, all that would need to be changed is:

  • meld the mesh together with some solid so that the structure of the balloon is not deformed by the wind
  • add a weight vector to the new balloon so that the wind vector doesn’t send it flying away into oblivion

Because I am new to this I have no clue how to accomplish these objectives. If anyone could please point me to some similar work that has been done that would be extremely helpful.
I was also wondering if the wind vector could be ‘focused’ only on the bottom opening (if that’s even a valid thing to do)
note: all of this is being done on MacOS so I do not have access to some GH plugins.

2

You can use a Rigid Point Set component to keep the balloon from deforming due to wind.

Instead of your anchor points close to the bottom edge, I’ve used 4 lines and divided those into 10 segments. These lines can be used to tie the balloon to the origin. For the screenshot, I’ve used only one line as an attachment.

image
image1370×729 132 KB

hoppity_hop.gh (121.5 KB)
Mesh and lines internalized

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3

I’ve added a line goal for the balloon and a diagonal wind vector.

image
image1340×745 152 KB

hoppity_hop.gh (130.5 KB)

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