#grasshopper

This is a Cycloid-like family of curves, generated by its classical description: a rolling circle. I had several other studies on similar topics before. In this cycloid experiment, I used Grasshopper in which, we don’t need to roll the circle. Instead, we can divide a parametric curve, utilizing data lists to simply rotate a circle around it. Finally, evaluating the circle repeatedly creates a Cycloid-like result. I found this as the most simplistic way of showing and studying these special…

While testing Anemone components for Grasshopper, I accidentally generated these branches by looping. In fact, I was trying to develop the definition that mimics the well-known “Arch SED” component method. This method uses the tangent vectors for the endpoints of the arcs. Then, it iterates the process in a random fashion so that the branches (arcs) join nicely. Anyway, this definition develops new branches from a previous one. It does this by using three graph mappers for the position, rotation,…

Here is the simple Grasshopper definition that activates Rhinoceros’ camera by given parameters. Camera position is determined by the “point-oriented” method here. This means that you have to have a target point for the camera first. In fact, I was trying to find a suitable command for getting the actual camera position of the Rhinoceros but I think it is impossible (for now). I couldn’t track the camera object by its ID number also. There are some Grasshopper components that deal with…

I’ve been searching for a way to implement edge bundling on Grasshopper. It is an effective visualization technique that you can use in connectivity diagrams. There are a couple of different approaches to this problem. It is a nice way to analyze common paths within crowded graphs. I’ve found several entries in the Grasshopper blog about this subject, but only implementing Kangaroo seemed to be a complete solution. My approach is of course not a scientific one, but after the…

Anemone is a simple but effective plug-in for Grasshopper that enables loops. It has been a while since Hoopsnake succeeded in extending the dataflow capacities of Grasshopper with recursion. However, Anemone is much more user-friendly and easy to use. Below is my first test, yes it works! Here is the group page on Grasshopper. I hope this plug-in would be advanced more. I’ll try to return to my old studies which ceased because of the lack of this functionality. This…

Here is a test of the optical flow component of Firefly. You can check the Firefly add-on to Grasshopper here. As an ongoing research project, I’ve been searching for a suitable platform to study responsive geometric patterns. This initial study focuses on one particular effect of Firefly, the optical flow that outputs the direction vectors on a given webcam input. I developed traces of it by joining endpoints of these vectors together, creating strings. Then, recorded them to provide better…

Currently, Rhinoceros does not offer the capability for an aligned text onto a curve, to the best of my knowledge. However, Grasshopper, with its latest version, provides a solution for such tasks by offering a range of text components. For my current project, I am studying an installation. It incorporates various typographic effects, and Grasshopper has become an invaluable tool in this regard. Nevertheless, it is important to note that Grasshopper’s native text components do not yet include a comprehensive…

In this fun experiment, points rock and roll! It should be based on a sound input of course but this is only a test to see if I can handle a timer and graph input at the same time. I’ll modify this definition to actuate with sound.  The use of the timer component gives a certain degree of randomness to the overall formation. To run this definition we need a VB script to update a certain value. The code inside of…

Bending is an easy operation in Rhino and Rhinoscript, however, Grasshopper did not include that particular transformation (along with cage editing) yet. I tried to simulate the bending transformation by using native Grasshopper components. First, surface projections and pulls did not work at all, because I wanted to simulate a real bending effect without changing the surface area or edge lengths. Then, the Surface Morph component seemed to handle this issue, but it became an interesting challenge to put the…

In today’s drawing class, we taught methods of drawing basic transformations by hand. Mirror was one interesting subject of that. However, then I opened Grasshopper and Rhino to test the effects of curved mirror planes. Unfortunately, I realized that there is already a curved mirror component in Grasshopper :( This might be one of the simplest ways of introducing generative deformations for design geometry.