What is the easiest AI integration for a beginner to Rhino/Grasshopper?

Hi everyone,
I’m curious about simple AI workflows that could help with designing models in Rhino — or ideally working with objects coming from Archicad.

I’m not very experienced in Rhino/Grasshopper, so I’m looking for something beginner-friendly. ChatGPT suggested using it together with Grasshopper scripting, but I’m open to any other tools, plugins, or workflows.

Do you have recommendations, and maybe a tutorial or setup guide you can share?

Thanks in advance!

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What are you looking to do? AI rendering plugins are by far the best ai gh integrated apps right now.

If you are looking for general scripting AI can help explain a workflow and what components to use. That combined with searching the forum for the same topic will save you some time.

Example:

In grasshopper 1 Rhino 8 explain how to create a attractor point that has a gradient color.

Ai answer

I’ll explain how to create an attractor point with gradient color in Grasshopper 1 (Rhino 8).

The basic concept is to measure distances from your geometry to an attractor point, then remap those distances to colors. Here’s the workflow:

Basic Setup:

  1. Create your base geometry - typically a grid of points or surfaces you want to colorize
  2. Set an attractor point - use a Point parameter (double-click canvas, type “Point”)
  3. Measure distances - use the Distance component (Vector > Point > Distance) to calculate the distance from each point in your grid to the attractor point
  4. Remap the distances - use Remap Numbers (Math > Domain > Remap) to normalize your distance values to a 0-1 range, which is what the gradient component expects
  5. Apply gradient - use the Gradient component (Display > Colour > Gradient) to convert those remapped values into colors
  6. Preview with color - use Custom Preview (Display > Preview > Custom Preview) to display your geometry with the gradient colors

Key Tips:

The Remap Numbers component is crucial - you’ll need to set its source domain to match your actual distance range. You can use Bounds (Math > Domain > Bounds) on your distance values to automatically get the min/max, then construct a domain from those values using Construct Domain (Math > Domain > Construct Domain).

The Gradient component has preset color schemes you can right-click to change, or you can create custom gradients by using multiple colors as input.

If you want interactive control, set your attractor point parameter to reference a Rhino point that you can move around - the colors will update in real-time as you move the point.

Would you like me to walk through a specific example with particular geometry?

Forum results..

https://discourse.mcneel.com/search?q=attractor%20gradient%20order%3Alatest

Thank you very much!

Actually I would like to design a roof like this with full guidance from AI. Not sure if that is even possible :slight_smile:

What do you mean by design and full guidance?

AI can certainly help you understand the materials and processes that go into such a project. It can also visualize the concept for you as well as provide steps to help you design certain aspects.

The best designers understand the processes, materials and costs involved. AI can help formulate each of these workflows to make you a better designer. Is that full guidance?

Yes, that would be enough! May I ask which AI plugin, do you use for it?

I am at the moment simply developing things myself on Grasshoper and use chat gpt to guide me when I have issues

Like i said, Rendering is the strongest use case at the moment, its becoming a very competitive.

New integration products are being released weekly, there is also progress in AI technologies.

Something like xfigura stands out because it quickly adds in the latest coming from the Ai producers.

runchat is similar

There are a number of plugins on the package manager (food4Rhino too). I don’t have any personal recommendations. What Ai do you pay for will be a factor.

https://www.food4rhino.com/en/browse?searchText=chatgpt&sort_by=fs_field_rating&items_per_page=10

https://www.food4rhino.com/en/browse?searchText=Claude&sort_by=fs_field_rating&items_per_page=10

Amazing thank you!
I am checking now all your links. But when you say renderings plugin, which one exactly do you mean? I would test it out also

The xfigura and runchat are AI rendering tools.

Ok, got you! Thank you for everything! I ll check and test all you sent, i have enough homewor for now.
I ll also try RAVEN plugin in Rhino.

I might come back tomorrow with new questions :slight_smile:

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