Very Cool GH Plug-in Here!

VisualARQ
1

Hi, all VA users.

I would like to introduce very exciting grsshopper plug-in. It’s Parakeet.
It’s originally created to make complicate patters quickly, but the reason I am interested in it is because you can track XYZ coordinate of mouse cursor.

You can create levels through “Edit Level” using VA, but it is has some limitation as follows

  1. You can work on your work only on the levels created in “Edit Level”. However, buildings will have many levels deviated from such base levels, but if you create every level on which every slab is located, your “Edit Level” will get messy and it will take you more time to find level you want to activate or eidt. On the contrary, if you don’t create such every level, you will have to create as many Named Cplanes as you need to work with such deviated level.

  2. VA slab offers just three options for alignment - Top, center, and bottom. It does not offer an option for “Top of Structure”. (I’ve requested this feature more than 4 years ago, but it’s not implemented yet) So If you place slabs with “Top” option and place beams and columns, they are not connected with structure of slabs. Because the number of beams and columns are super much more than that of slabs, if you place slabs with top alignment, you have to change Z level of columns and beams manually one by one hundreds times. This is crazy. So our office move Z level of slabs, because it’s much faster than moving hundreds of columns and beams. In this case, when you need work on annotation things on plans, your annotations will be hidden because they are below finish level. This also makes us crazy, because the number of annotation is not a few, either. It’s case by case, but It might be more that of columns and beams.

  3. Unfortunately, Rhino does not work as ArhiCAD or Reve does, Because it’s not ArchiCAD. It’s not Revit. Furniture, fixture, annotations, text can not be placed constrained to slabs or walls

We could solve this problem by creating only one Cplane thanks to Mouse component from Parakeet plug-in. It makes it possible to know not only finish level of slabs but also that of earth (surface) instantly. Whenever you click on the slab, Z level of the Named Cplane is automatically changed to be matched with slab finish level. You can work on annotation right away.

This is demonstration to show how Mouse component of Parakeet works.
Parakeet Plug-in

If you are interested Mouse component of Parakeet, go to here

If you are interested in how to create Named Cplane and update it automatically through Grasshopper, refer to this thread

Thanks.