What have you tried and tested and atually use more than once a year )
There are a lot to choose from !
(but some of these food4rhino are not working, not freeware >$1000, or not supported any longer)
My favorite new grasshopper plugin is Wasp, both because of all it can do and because itâs developer is releasing a comprehensive set of video tutorials.
Too many plugins get released with a few very cool example files showing lots of potential but without explanation or tutorials.
Other than Wasp, there are a bunch of components in Pufferfish, Sasquatch and Kangaroo that do very simple things that should be part of GHâs standard components.
Examples:
-flip curve clockwise and surface border in sasquatch
-remove duplicate lines in kangaroo
-parameter plane on surface in pufferfish
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Hands down GHPython, Kangaroo2 - if those two can even be considered plugins anymore -, and Human. Pufferfish, Weaverbird, LunchBox, Anemone, MeshEdit and Wasp come in handy from time to time, but I rarely use more than one or two components from each.
Also itâs good to read comments and check ratings of plugins as well.
For me my must haves that I use frequently are:
Weaverbird, Mesh Edit, Mesh+, Anemone, Human, Metahopper, Lunchbox, Tree Sloth, Dendro, Heteroptera, Clipper, Riched Graph Mapper, Pufferfish (selfishly since I made it, but it highly reflects the way I like to work). All these I consider as things Grasshopper should already have.
Other cool ones that I only use for very specific things that are more niche in my usual workflows but awesome:
Millipede, Wasp, Owl, Wallacei, NGon, Starling, Nudibranch, Peacock, Parakeet, Paneling Tools, Atträctor.
Of course Kangaroo, but it is by default included with Grasshopper now.
Iâm sure there are many other great ones Iâve not personally used as well.
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Open nest and elefront are nearly the only ones I use in architectural practice.
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I would be just as interested in knowing what everyone actually does with this arsenal.
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It depends on what you are doing and in how deep is someoneâs understanding of Rhino and Grasshopper.
Basically for the work I did, me and my coworkers havenât installed any public plugins, because we could use only a tiny subset of all plugins for the work we did.
All mesh plugins were pointless, same as all the architectural and analytic plugins. Although many of them are technically seen great.
Wrapper libraries are especially great because they add valuable and mature functionality to the ecosystem (e.g. Clipper and Dendro).
Weaverbird is great because it basically adds a new type of geometry to gh -> sub-d meshes.But having realistic use cases is rather rare, its often more great to tinker around.
Workflow components, such as Pufferfish also are great because they donât require someone to reinvent the wheel again and again. They solve many problems, you had to care about, before they appeared. This makes it even easier for someone with little experience to create something great.
On the other hand, many plugins just provide only 2 or 3 useful feature for someones workflow and the rest basically spoils the workspace. So if I only need a component to bake, then I use my own scripted user component, because its simply more lightweight and helps me to modify things on demand much easier.
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Wow. I was expecting 4 or 5 each. My concern with using plugins is future compatability. A few models I have downloaded have required a plgin from a library that does not work with R6. That can leave you with the task of deducing the logic of and rewriting it. This is a common problem with software development where libraries can be invalidated overnight and the developer has moved on.
It reminds me of why I created Pancake. I invented a lot of wheels to smoothen my workflow and later to find itâs better if everyone can use itâŚ
Iâm also struggling with whether to add some features into Pancake. It might be related, but the plugin is already 953KB. Itâs one of the largest binary among Grasshopper plugins. (I know Pufferfish is far larger 
.)
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Would be cool if .ghaâs could let you pick and choose components to load from it.
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Iâd propose the ability to hide some components, as the not loaded components may be used in othersâ scripts. It would be frustrating if both of us have the same plugin but I cannot open your definiton because some components are not loaded.
Btw, I have tested on Pancake that not loading components wonât accerlate startup a little bit. So I believe itâs purely a UI thing.
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Show / hide / load, yes I mean from a UI standpoint, the same way obsolete components get hidden.
I remember it can be controlled by Layout feature in GH.
Itâd also be cool if there were just better ways for us to manage the components palette.
Also, on that note, itâd be cool if hotkeys matched rhinoâs by default.
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This is a great occasion for me to give a shout-out to your work, Keyu.
I recently took the time to understand your concept of âAssociative arraysâ from the âData organisationâ section and I must say that itâs really smart.
This has the potential to make definitions more structured in some cases where grouping data into one item makes sense.
The âInputâ and âOutputâ section and the âFlowâ sections have managed to get splinters out my toes a bunch of times already.
The âPerformance analyserâ, accessible from the menu is super fast and has a great UI.
More power to you Keyu !
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