For a 1-week workshop @ TheWhyFactory on CopyPaste we developed a system for defining the genes of architectural geometry and creating new genepools. The result is 13000 “designs” generated in under 30 minutes!

MVRDV / The Why Factory, Bas Kalmeyer
[DAP]3, Sander Mulders

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Recently I found myself needing a component for displaying data in the viewport like a camera Heads-Up-Display (HUD). It is important that this data remains connected to whatever position the camera takes. After some trail and error I created this component.

In the download you will find an example of this component showing the distance from camera to an object.

Distance from camera displayed in the HUD

Download the component and place it in your libraries folder.

Tested with version 0.9.0014 and above.

Important: Do not turn off the preview (unnecessary!) and make sure there is some geometry created on your canvas!

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For a few step-by-step animations for the VillageMaker and the Copy-Paste workshop I needed a simple component capable of saving screenshots from a grasshopper definition.

Screenshot Functionality

• Specifify filename (use double backslashes!)
• Specifiy viewport to caputure
• Set width and height of the screenshot
• Add text to the image (automatically placed top left)
• Select font and fontsize for text (rightclick on the component)
• Toggle to activate

Download the component and place it in your libraries folder.

Tested with version 0.9.0010 and above.

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Found myself doing this over and over again: what are the lowest and highest values in any given list of numbers? To save some time I’ve made a simple component that outputs the minimum, maximum and domain of a list of values.

Download the List Extremes component and place it in your libraries folder.

Tested with version 0.9.0010 and above.

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In addition to the already existing tutorial for using touchOSC to control a grasshopper model you can also use this technique to control a camera, or even combine them as seen in the Dancing Towers Workshop.

The file below contains a basic Interface that can be uploaded to an iPhone and a grasshopper definition showing the basic working.

The interface uses three sliders:

• The rotation linked to a point on a circle in grasshopper. This is the path the camera is attached to. You can replace this circle by any other path to create a more elaborate camera movement (for instance a walk through)
• The Tilt is linked to the height of the path described above in relation to the focuspoint (in this case a point at the origin)
• The Zoom is linked to the focal length of the camera. Change this from wide angle to zoom.

Download Definition

Requirements:

Grasshopper version 0.9.0014

Horster Camera Control

TouchOSCReader

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Hoopwalk is an explanatory video showing the possibilities of combining hoopsnake and shortestwalk in Grasshopper.

It is build around a basic setup that will show you the power of these two components: Hoopsnake and Shortest Walk. In the defintion you will find two setups. The first is the most simple version explaining the power of the shortest walk component. With the shortest walk component you can, hence the name, find the shortest path between two point given a network of curves.

In the second example we introduce Hoopsnake. Hoopsnake allows the user to loop a grasshopper definition, something which normally is not possible. With the use of Hoopsnake it is possible to have the first example repeat for however long necessary (yes this could be indefinitely!). In this case that would be for as long as there are random pairs available without using the same point twice.

Download Definition

This definition is tested in Grasshopper 0.9.0012

You will also need Hoopsnake and Shortest Walk

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Smartphones and tablets become more and more integrated into our way of living. For this tutorial I will explain how to take this one step further and use your smartphone and/or tablet as an input device for grasshopper. In the earlier versions of grasshopper (< 0.6.XXXX) we had the control panel, now we can use an external device as controller.  An example of this is the dancing towers workshop done in collaboration with TheWhyFactory (TUDelft). In this tutorial I will explain how to set up an iPad to control a set of 9 towers.

One of the nice capabilites of grasshopper is the ability to extend its use with plugins. For this tutorial we will combine several plugins: Firefly (for oscRead), DataRecorders and an OSCReader. Make sure you have all three plugins installed and working in Grasshopper (version 0.9.0010 or later). Furthermore you will need TouchOSC installed on your device. This works on both iOS and Android phones. For this tutorial I will use an iPad as example.

You can download the definition that I have setup. In this tutorial I will explain how this is set up and how to get it working.

1. Setting up the iPad interface

Once touchOSC is installed on your device you can start building your own interfaces using the touchOSCEditor (available @ download section). For this tutorial I have prepared an interface (included in the ZIP file). Load this into the editor and take a look at the various tools. You will see that I have set names and ranges for the controls that we will use later to link them in grasshopper. Press the “Sync” button and open touchOSC on your device. In the settings select the layouts and add a new one. If both devices are on the same network you should see your computer popup as device. Select this and the sync will proceed.

When the interface is loaded onto your device select it and it should look like the above setup. The next step is to let the tablet know where to send the data. This communication is done via Wifi using the IP address of the target machine and a designated port. Check your computers IP address and add this to the settings on your device.

2. Grasshopper

The next step is to open grasshopper and load the definition from the tutorial files. In this definition you will see a number of grouped areas which I will explain in the next sections of this tutorials. The general idea of the grasshopper definition is to load the data from the iPad, sort this based on the control names, records this, transform the towers and display them.

Set Base

The first step in the model is setting the geometric base. This consists of 9 squares on the XY plane (the grid). The squares are ordered in 3 set of each 3 squares to match the output of TouchOSC. This might require some experimentation to get it right since you want the order of the 9 squares the be the same as it is on your interface.

Read Data

Now we can start reading the data from our TouchOSC controls. If all previous steps are working the iPad should be transmitting information to our computer. Now it is a matter of setting up the receiving end.

For this we use the OSCListener component from firefly. We use the same port as defined as”Outgoing” port on our iPad. Usually this is port 8000. We also add a button to be able to reset the input. A very important component is the Timer. The timer is set to an interval at which the attached component, in this case the OSC Listener, is updated. Without this component is will only read the start values from the iPad and not update on change. You can set the interval, usually a interval of 50ms works fine for updating the definition. Be careful not to set this to rediculous low values (< 40ms) since this will also trigger a recompute of all attached components which in this case is almost our whole definition. You can check the workings by attaching a panel to the D output and change the sliders on your iPad. The values should be visible in grasshopper.

Selecting Data

Now that we have established the link we can start selecting the right controls. Every control outputs data in the same structured way: a list with the tab and name of the control and the value. Note that the will only be visible once the value is changed.

To make selecting the right data easier use the TouchOSCReader component. Specify the right tab (1 in this case) and the name of the control. The component will output the data if any found.

Record Data

In this particular example we want to be able to control each of the 9 towers by selecting it and modify its height and rotation. This results in a model where data “disappears” when deselecting the tower on the iPad. There we want to record the last value of the controls so the tower is still make correctly.

Both the Height and the Rotation controls are recorded with the recorder set to “Last” value.

Set Default Values

As mentioned in the “Read Data” the data only shows when the control is used. This results in errors when starting the setup. Therefor we setup a default set of values for the towers: All deselected, 0 height and 0 rotation. The script will always select the latest value (those which come from the iPad) if any available, if not it used the default values allowing from the definition to be resolved.

Apply Transformations

Now that all data is available we can start transforming our towers. For this we use some basic grasshopper components as show in the image above. The result is a nicely capped cubic shape.

Display active towers

Finally we want to change to color of the active towers (the ones you select on the ipad) green for active and white for non-active.

The Result

download the definition

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Reading data from controls in touchOSC can sometimes be a daunting task. Especially when reading 1D (equalizer) or 2D (grids) controls. This components makes life a lot easier. You only need to supply the data from the FireFly OSC reader, the number of the tab your control is on and the  name of the control. The component will output the found data as single value, list of values (for 1D controls) or a tree of values (2D controls).

Download the component and an example file

Place the GHA in your Components folder (File>Special Folders>Components Folder)

It is tested in version 0.9.0006

Firefly is required to run

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Since the last version of the Data Recorder I have build a newer/better version which ships as a custom component. It works significantly faster compared to existing component since it not records all values but rather only performs the neccessary action selected, ie: take the input, add it to the already stored value and return the result. It also allows for complete data trees to be recorded. Just supply the right branchpath to the values you want to update.

It comes as an single component that allows for different modes to be selected:

• Add  - add the value to all previous recorded values, starting from 0.0.
• Subtract – subtract all values from 0.0
• Highest – returns the highest value recorded
• Lowest – returns the lowest value recorded
• Average – returns the average value of the recorded values

And of course a reset toggle to put it back to 0.0. You can use a Toggle or the new (and way better) button component.

Download the definition

Place the file in your Components folder (File>Special Folders>Components Folder)

It is tested in version 0.9.0006

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A simple parametric model to design a large number of alternatives within a fixed family of designs. Modeled for Kastwerk.

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