week//three

TASK ONE

unaware of the fact that the requirements for t-1 was to produce a simple solid, i had searched tutorials outlining the ability to produce and apply organic forms only to find that it is far too complex to achieve such scripts at this stage. the solution was to find out how to produce more simple parametric geometry and apply this to a surface which will form the boundary of the chosen letter.

what seemed to be a sound choice was a simple truss system - patterns to be made of triangles and hopefully easy to manipulate. the idea was to produce a portion of this component and simply apply it onto the surface of a the letter 'v' and hope for grasshopper to calculate the rest. the result should be similar to a tiling effect where the pattern backs onto each other creating a continuous form. 

Files Found here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/axt7wo996qcs0h0/virili_sean_task1.gh
https://www.dropbox.com/s/oflivfdf0gvymir/virili_sean_task1.3dm

fig1: producing a segment of a truss 

fig2: failed script

the initial attempt ended up failing due to forgetting to follow the simple workflow rule where inputs are followed by outputs and the reverse stream is not possible, or i simply have no idea as to solving the problem - moving on was a faster solution.
i begun by creating a surface in g/h with 4 points, setting its planes to draw polylines along the desired axis. you can see in the image below that the surface from 4pointSurface tool needs inputs first to begin the calculations. (the wires are orange as this script is disabled) the remaining script it basically identical to the current version and will not require further discussion.

fig3: complete script including surface application to geometry (letter V)

part1 production

i// to avoid the error in fig 1, a surface was drawn in rhino with SrfFPt tool using 4 points, then brought into g/h and applied to a surface parameter. this was then exploded in order to allow for point selection where the list items tool was used to specify the coordinates of the surface.

fig4. part 1 truss script

ii// the boundary of this box was defined by listed the corner points. polylines were drawn diagonally from the opposite corners to define the triangular geometry for the pattern. set the drawing plane to lock in the desired axis.

iii// the polylines are then offset with a slider bar to control the width of the inner frame. this is then linked to a fillet tool to round off the edges for a smooth aesthetic. 

iv// to acquire data for the area concerning the framework requires a subtraction of the inner geometry from the bounding box. the boundary box holding the lines for the geometry is saved as a  curve parameter and then given a surface with the planarSrf tool. this process is repeated for the offset geometry and then plugged into region difference tool. this process required some trial and error as the tutorial was demonstrated on an older version of rhino, causing problems with the scripts. the tutorial used solid difference instead, and did not seem to require a planar plug in at the end of the script to give a surface to the outlines of the subtraction.

fig5: process of trust production

fig6: complete truss

fig7: part 2 apply to surface

part2 application

i// define the geometry of the letter V by drawing a curve in rhino and importing it into g/h's curve parameter. offsetting it to achieve thickness.

ii// divisions were made along the curve to draw reference points

iii// a surface was then applied to the bounding curves of the letter with surface grid tool, which was then divided using divide domain tool.

iv// finally the script is plugged into isotrim before linked into the truss system. the script did not seem to function without this parameter as the surface param from part 1 was unable to read the domains directly from the surface grid. what the isotrim seems to do is apply a secondary surface for the parametric object, in this case the truss system, to function on. the isotrim can also be used on 3d surfaces that have been lofted, and so forth. 

fig8: process of surface application

if i were to avoid editing in illustrator (which would be a faster option at this stage) i would need to figure out how to hide the  horizontal boundary box lines for the truss system. if this is not done, the laser cutter will end up going over the lines and cutting the letter up into all the separate segments that make up the solid. for the mean time, i will have to settle with deleting these lines in illustrator before finalising the document. for the final file, to give the letter some thickness, i have decided to cut multiple panels where the truss opening's size decrease. thus, when adhered onto the panels with the largest openings on the top layer, it should create a contoured effect.

fig9: complete letter

possible application for a 3D printed version of the completed script was also made. almost all the logic used was identical, however applied to a lofted surface which was made in rhino instead. the script was made and then mirrored to complete the final form.






      fig10: cut letter

                             fig11: cut letter

fig12: script for a lofted 3D letter

fig13: product of a 3D letter with the above script