Grasshopper: Data/Path Management

(i - image sampling)

(ii - data management + facade panels)

(iii - data manipulation!)

Understanding the 'stream' of information within Grasshopper is critical. Without it, you're stuck in the realm of blobby forms that look cool, but are fairly random. Layering additional complexity is quite difficult... these are the limits that all my work until this point have been created with.

This weekend I was lucky enough to attend a workshop @ modeLab. Ronnie + Gil have a good thing going, run a great workshop and were more than helpful and informative. I walked away with a better understanding of data/path structure and manipulation.

Tracking: My day looks like this.

Quick exercise:
Find a macro that tracks mouse movement, clicks, etc. Let it run over the course of one working day, superimpose over a 'typical' screenshot and presto(!), a doctored image of my day appears.

It would be fantastic if each item was somehow timestamped, opening up further understanding of the meaning behind each emphasized area. Coffee break? Perplexing design problem? Checking e-mail? You get the idea.

(Props to IO Graph - http://iographica.com/)

Grasshopper: Paneling Study

Recently I haven't had the time that I'd like for parametric studies. Perhaps I've been working, training or otherwise slacking too much. They're all excuses, so I'll stop there.

Between work (9pm) and sleep (ten minutes from now) I put together a quick paneling study in Grasshopper. Not a single item is drawn or modeled. Happiness. I hope to build a small library of ready-made panel types for insertion/editing should the need or application every arise at work or elsewhere. It's part of an effort to become better versed in Rhino+Grasshopper.

Bed in <2>

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Processing: Professional Dev Review

Tis the season for 'Professional Development Review'. A moment to sit down with the design leadership of my studio and talk about what I've done, what hasn't been acheived and what I'm looking for in both the near and distant future.

Like visiting Santa.

Occupational Santa. Without elves. At any rate, I reviewed the 'official' paperwork and decided to script my response instead of spending time in M$Word. :)

Here's to not getting a lump of professional coal.

Grasshopper: Paneling

I haven't had time, of any sort, for what seems to be months.

Today I found a little, and jumped on the opportunity to do a paneling study. I'm not sure that I'll be able to key it into my current project, but it's an interesting area of study for me none-the-less.

Processing: Boxes

I needed a new background at work.

So I scripted one. Over lunch.

:)

Grasshopper: For the (office) Masses!

I've been asked to prepare a short 'inspirational' presentation for my office. The topic, not surprisingly, is Grasshopper and I've put together the above study for this purpose. More than anything, I hope to use it as a platform for launching 'variable design' as a conceptual platform to further (our) use of parametric design... A quick narative on how I've worked concept(s) into a system and relationship of variables within Grasshopper.

Generative Sketch below. It happened to be sitting on my (virtual) desktop.

Grasshopper: Between Skins

This weekend? Skinning studies.

Lofting (parametric) curves, then dividing these equally into # segments. Each common point is linked between the two skins with a generic beam connecting the two... next up? Study of how these connecting elements should logically vary in thickness, per location, loading, etc.

Enough for one night.

Grasshopper: Output

It's about the process. There's nothing interesting nor innovative about this as a formal exercise, ribbed/lasercut models being several  years dated. The big difference here, for me and as a learning process, is how little time was spent setting up fabrication. In similar projects I've spent an enormous amount of time constructing logic(s) to inform jointing, layout,etc... but in this case I ran only a few simple scripts. Between semi-automated output and parametrically derived geometry, the time required for iterative design study is much more palatable. And that's good for everyone.

Enjoy the long weekend...

Grasshopper: Building, Learning

First off, big thanks to V. Soler from 'http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum' for helping me out with a component that I couldn't implement correctly. Secondly, more output. It's nothing exciting but it -does- represent my own progress with the Grasshopper.

The second image represents my most comprehensive study to date. It began with a series of (3) catenary curves, deformed toward a common, editable point. Each defining curve is anchored to vertices of an equilateral triangle. A mesh is finally applied, defined by each catenary. Theoretically, it's the first output with basis in structure, gravity, etc.

Grasshopper: Now = Generative Components

I've been playing around with Grasshopper a bit more and while I don't 'understand' it in any significant way, I'm at least to the same level with it as a program/tool as I ever reached with Generative Components. It would be a dis-service to call my faculty with either as 'functional', but I'm fine with 'experimental'. I'll continue my early-morning / post-work studies...

Grasshopper: <3 the GUI.

I'm taking a little time to learn Grasshopper. I hear, see, and realize that it's what all the cool kids are up to. And I've always wanted to be one of the cool kids, despite never quite having pulled it off. Just the same, incomparison to Generative Components, I'm a huge fan of the interface. This isn't to say that Grasshopper is necessarily better (or worse!) than GC, just that it's much, much prettier. Pop culture seems to indicate that 'pretty' can carry something a good, long way.

100% spirals + sine waves for now.
Architecture later. Hopefully.

Weekend Project: Floral Smoothie

Creatively, one of my roommates used the glass upper of our blender as a vase. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to assemble the whole thing and shoot a few images pre-work, post-coffee earlier this week. Were I into video, blending & recording may have been an option.

 A quick little graphic exercise for Saturday morning... Enjoy.

In the spirit of Spring.

Despite the rain.

EVENT: Cut & Paste 2009

This past weekend (21.03.2009) I stopped in on "Cut & Paste 2009", an annual worldwide design competition. 4 designers are pre-selected, given a theme and 15 minutes to produce work.  2D, 3D and Video competitions were held.

Some great work was produced. As an audience member, the most interesting aspects where the individual workflows and directions taken by each artist. Some designs were very similar, begging the question of how a 'theme' also implies a given resolution... but in other cases the end results were wildly different. 

If nothing else, I can safely say that I am much, MUCH slower in CS4/Max than any of the contestants. Perhaps my office should start giving us restricted 'clock time' for our projects: "Design the vertical circulation in 15 minutes!" "Egress diagrams, go!"... every working day becomes a series of 32 15min design charrettes. 

Script: Old pattern, new colors

A B+W version of this had been my background for some time. Needing some time away from monocromatic themes, I added a few bits of code for random color values and re-ran the script.

int R = int(random(100,255));

int G = int(random(100,255));

int B = int(random(100,255));

fill(R,G,B,90);

10000x itterations shown above.

Script: It's been a long week.

A colleague of mine spent some time really, really trying to get a certain facade pattern into a project some months back. The studies were great, but the concept didn't end up impacting the design. Apparently it impacted me, and I've oft thought about how to replicate/study/iterate upon the idea.

Frames #00000001, #00001000, #00359000 follow.

Script: Triangles Generated in 3D

Frame #1300000.

One bounding corner of a much larger object.

Randomly located triangles, each connected to the last.

My first implementation of perspective within processing...

Texture

Old pattern, New use: Perforation study w/backlit screen.

Generative Components: 3

GC Sample. 

Basic output, but interesting nonetheless.

The surface below is built from a field of lines, each of which has a variable length based on the location of a single control point. Translating the location of this point alters relationship to the field, each line then changing in response. The variables driving each line are similar, yet result in a surface that neither rises nor falls uniformly, but undulates in a seemingly random manner.  This has been simplified to a series of polygons, easily output to a Fabrication file.

All I need is a little time on the lasercutter.