designcoding
About Table of Contents Keywords Monthly Archive
Support designcoding!

Parametric Modeling Class: Subdivided Entities

March 14, 2012 | Studios
#data-flow #design-education #parametric-surface

Today, we’ve studied fundamentals of component-based design methods. Using curves and surfaces as starting points, we’ve experienced ways of translating those entities via design criteria based on our purposes. First, a curve is used to construct a leaf structure. We’ve experienced dispatching data lists and combining them back together. Subdividing curves into points created further entities such as vectors and planes. We used those entities as inputs of regular drawing and modeling commands such as rectangles, or planar surfaces. This in-class exercise can be studied here. Second exercise was the standard parametric truss with a triangular component. Some of the cliche methods on surface subdivision is studied. Required files can be found at this post. This time, a quadrilateral surface is designed as a component and applied on a subdivided target suface.

Both exercises were examples of thinking back and forth, adapting into design purposes, not memorizing the ready-made definitions. Important part of this week was to understand the exploratory nature of parametric modeling in general. Foresight is usually crucial for us. This forces us to put our design purposes into real action world of geometry, and try to find best way to construct that by utilizing both induction and deduction. Then, experience becomes important because generally, design intentions are also formulated by our past studies. Finally, a hard working heart with an emotional commitment to design computing is required to be experienced and to have foresights. This week’s homework is the design of a moving roof structure. Let’s see what’ll happen.

Cite this post

Yazar, T. (2012, March 14). Parametric Modeling Class: Subdivided Entities. designcoding. Retrieved August 24, 2026, from https://www.designcoding.net/week-05-subdivided-entities/

Related Posts

Data Structures in Grasshopper

June 8, 2023

Data structures and data matching principles are important to be able to design with Grasshopper. In this tutorial, I show data matching procedures with arithmetic operations. Then I repeat them in the production of geometric objects. I think it should be easier to use this programming language once the students understand the basic principles. Therefore it would be easier to design with it. Sometimes the design process of these diagrams proceeds from left to right (by induction) but sometimes it…

Rhino+Gh: Grasshopper for Beginners (7)

February 2, 2023

We continue with the Grasshopper for Beginners series by explaining Rhino+Gh workflow principles. What does GH add to Rhino‘s standard drawing and modeling functions? To put the question differently, what does GH do that conventional modeling programs, such as Rhino, can’t? What is the difference and relationship between Rhino+Gh? Let’s take an example to answer these questions. Our example is about parametrically describing a surface model and deriving its alternatives. First, we will try to create a surface using only…

Hello World! Grasshopper for Beginners (6)

January 17, 2023

Let’s continue the Grasshopper for Beginners series. We start with the traditional “Hello World!” displayed on the Rhino screen: Placing the Components In most CAD programs, the text creation function, which is the equivalent of the Text command, is performed by a component called Text Tag (Tag) in GH. The Text Tag (Tag) component is in the Dimension panel under the Display tab. If you’re not comfortable with tabs and panels yet, you can revisit this section from the beginning….

Design Exercise of Dataflow Diagrams

January 24, 2019

Here is a design exercise I’ve been giving to students. It aims to familiarize students with the concept of dataflow diagrams used in Grasshopper. Dataflow is a different concept than conventional computer programming. Here is a good comparison between control flow and dataflow languages. In most educational settings (such as courses and workshops) we concentrate on the fundamental issue of dataflow management via design projects. This requires us to think about a design exercise of dataflow diagrams. In the most…

ARCH362 Midterm

March 27, 2015

About to finish the well-defined section of this year’s Parametric Modeling course, here are the mid-term questions I’ve asked; First question checks if the curve < > point conversions are well understood in Grasshopper. Evaluating a parametric curve and generating the closest point from another curve. This also requires a basic understanding of the use of the Grasshopper interface. The second question was testing a basic and classical use of attractors on grids of objects. Students generated their own grids…

  • Chapters

    • Algorithms
    • Discourses
    • Fabrications
    • Studios
  • Explore

    • All Keywords
    • Table of Contents
    • Monthly Archive
    • #grasshopper
    • #tutorial
    • #rhinoceros
    • #interlocking
    • #rhino-python
    • #relief
    • #wave
    • #structure
    • #robot
    • #contouring
    • #linear-algebra
    • #terrain
    • #unity
    • #virtual-studio
    • #eps-foam
    • #boolean
    • #vector
    • #digital-design
    • #basic-design
    • #truchet
  • Search

  • Support designcoding!

  • Enjoying designcoding? Support me on Patreon to keep it growing. Thank you!

  • copyright 2026 designcoding.net | about | privacy policy | end user license agreement