Below is a classical Truchet Patterns example we used to discuss in design computing class. Now, we can create a much faster and cleaner definition using the newly added Array component. The new version of Grasshopper brings several important features: Patch surfaces and date/time components. We used to implement a VB component to create simple clocks that measure temporal operations in Grasshopper. Parsing and executing MusicXML and related applications were […]

The story of Atatürk Cultural Center (in Turkish: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi – AKM) dates back to the 1930s. Auguste Perret designed the first version of the project and started the construction in the late ’30s. However, war and financial problems halted the construction. The project continued in the early 1950s with major updates and extensions. Faruk Akçer and Rüknettin Güney were responsible for this second version. Hayati Tabanlıoğlu designed the […]

I finally installed Firefly, it immediately powers Grasshopper up with beautifully smart components, even if you don’t have Arduino it is still very useful. If you want to give it a try, first you have to install a small tool free from www.reactivision.com in order to send data to Firefly. After that, you may download and install firefly from their website, www.fireflyexperiments.com. It was the real-time inputs, my first interest. […]

In Turkish, there is a strange word “baklava” that has many uses. According to Wikipedia: Baklava is a rich, sweet pastry made of layers of filo pastry filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup or honey. It is characteristic of the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire and those of Central and Southwest Asia. However, we should add that 150 gr. of baklava is 413 calories. Here is it […]

It all started with my new passion for origami tessellations, not much of origami, but the tessellation part. I was too lazy to fold it physically, nor model them using an engine such as Kangaroo. That would also be very unnecessary (and yes, very boring) to simulate a folding effort on the computer unless we lose our connection with the real world. Instead, I tried to look at a much […]

In this exercise, we asked students to develop a method to produce custom tessellations. This is based on the analysis of what is called “Islamic patterns”. We have discussed Eric Brough‘s famous book “Islamic Geometric Patterns”, regarding geometric relationships and linear connectivities via underlying tessellations (such as regular square and hexagonal). Thus, this geometry and drawing exercise is called “Seamless Patterns” in the Design Geometry course at İstanbul Bilgi University. […]

This is a late update for my 2012 study on Cairo Pentagonal Tiling (or Cairo Tessellation). Originally, it was an exercise of dual tessellations. Because this tiling is the dual of the famous semi-regular tessellation of Snub Square. After coding the Snub Square tiling, I attempted to generate the dual of it. However, that created an inefficient result. This latest version generates the original Snub Square and Cario Pentagonal Tilings. […]

Here is the step-by-step generation of the old Snub Square Tiling. Frankly, this is the first step in the generation of Cairo Pentagonal Tiling I generated with Grasshopper earlier. Because Cairo pentagonal is the dual of a snub square. The first step was easy. Just dispatch cells of a square grid, then evaluate them according to the ratio of 0.366 approx. which is derived from the bisector of an equilateral […]

Creating and handling new types of grid configurations might be an important topic, as Grasshopper is not supporting them natively (yet). I tried to create some semi-regular tessellations based on regular grids. It is actually truncated versions of regular grids, but it slowly becomes interesting as I realized that I may further truncate emerging grids to create Level 2 and Level 3 grids with more complex tessellations. Here are two […]

Trying to further improve my experience in parametric modeling, I’m mixing and joining old definitions to reveal different potentials. I’m experiencing spatial mapping or morphing in Grasshopper. This is an equivalent form of the “flow along surface” command in Rhinoceros. It re-builds a geometric composition over another space (from world XY coordinates onto a surface with UV coordinates here) This is especially useful in creating surface compositions from famous tessellations […]

After Puzzling, I tried to establish more of Escher’s basic grid transformations using Grasshopper’s native components. This definition simulates Escher’s transformation of four-cornered grids. The postulate is based on the fact that every quadrilateral (or triangular) planar shape can create regular tessellations without gaps or overlaps. In the traditional method, this tessellation is achieved by rotating the shape 180 degrees and copying afterward. However, in Grasshopper we simply define the […]

I am learning Grasshopper. In this Circle Crossing definition, I tried to create the above pattern (also described in Sunflower Spiral) as simply as possible, this definition creates not only spirals but is also capable of more tessellations I guess. Maybe a three-dimensional equivalent might be studied in the future. As you can see from the definition, I started with a large circle. Then, I divided it into segments and […]

Back in 2011, one of the first posts on designcoding explored how to divide a surface in alternative ways. I called this Grasshopper definition a semi-regular surface tessellation. Although the term isn’t entirely accurate -since the pattern is neither planar nor made of equilateral shapes- it still reflects what I had in mind. Dividing surfaces into fabricable parts remains a key concept in learning parametric modeling, so I decided to […]