#ice-ray

Further studying iteration in Grasshopper, this time, inspired by George Stiny’s “Chinese Ice-Ray Lattice” subdivisions with Aneome, instead of the Hoopsnake add-on I tried in the previous work. As you know, loops add various ways of usage to Grasshopper. In future versions, loops may cease to be just an add-on and become native components of Grasshopper. Until then, loop plugins like Anemone take on this task. In the example here, we create an application by throwing random lines to divide…

One of the cult texts in Shape Grammars theory is Stiny‘s Chinese Ice-ray Lattices Grammars. Although it is full of technical terms, it represents an analysis of a working algorithm. We can directly transfer that from the behavior of an artist. One can imagine a Chinese artisan, summoned to a building site. He brings tools and implements and a collection of finely finished sticks. Then, he begins his design by selecting a stick of the appropriate length and carefully attaching…

The design of Chinese window lattices named “ice-ray” is one of the classic studies of Shape Grammars. It is an old and good example of algorithmic design. George Stiny explained their geometric construction based on the parametric Shape Grammars approach. He explained shape rules and the abstract machine that produces the subdivisions. I was especially interested in Shape Grammars when I was a graduate student. I even made a prototype tool for Shape Grammars in MaxScript. Here is another post…