Grasshopper Weekly Algorthmic Exercises
W2
For my first exploration, I internalised the original data of my lofted vase shape from last week in order to make the overall definition less complex to study. From here I proceeded to use the most direct way that I know of to decompose a surface to points by using the ‘divide surface’ component. Since I had originally used 4 circles to generate this loft, I had divided the surface at 4 sections spaced equally apart. Goin further, I could also produce Isocurves of the vase surface (obtaining circles), I used the Interpolate component to pass a curve through the each of the series of points I had generated previously.
Next, I decided to experiment with other options that were not specifically covered in the tutorial. I was aware of the ‘extract isocurve’ command in rhino, so I decided to find the grasshopper equivalent and understand its potential. This was a little challenging at first because I was unaware of how to produce the exact coordinates of the location on surface where I wanted to extract the curves from. Eventually, I decided to first define points along the centre of the vase and then attempt to project it on the surface, therefore allowing me to input the exact co-ordinates where the isocurves can be obtained from. To generate points from the extracted curves, I decided to try another method by dividing the curve by length which also generates points, the amount of which can be easily controlled by a slider.
For my 3rd exploration, I proceeded to create an algorithm which uses components such as ‘the golden ratio’ and ‘Pi’ to generate a series of spirals which can then can be lofted into an interesting looking surface. In order to decompose this surface I experimented with using the ‘brep edges’ component. Ideally, I expected this to give me the 2 edges of the surface, however I obtained an extra curve which was the edge at which the loft completes itself. Using the ‘item from list’ component I was able to obtain the curves that I wanted upon which I used divide curve to generate the points. To test if this had worked I had used the line component to join the points from each side. I realised one of the lists of points had to be reversed in order to obtain the same lines I had originally produced pre-loft.