CAD, BIM & 3D

I have slowly began to learn Grasshopper (and Rhino with it). But as a Mac user, it is a bit cumbersome to launch Parallels and wait several minutes before the whole systems is operational and responsive. Once it it fully launched, it is workable. But I have a conceptual issue with Grasshopper. I am experienced with programming in code (C++, php, Java, VBA and a tiny bit of Ruby and Python). There are so many things that I can easily write in a one or two lines of code that take a lot of nodes in Grasshopper to do so. And the whole thing becomes a mess... But replacing this with a scripted node will make the whole thing hardly legible. I guess I need more practice: e.g. learn how to use the remote control, to put independent groups of nodes apart, so they don't overlap. I also try to use groups, but did not find how to ungroup or how to add new nodes into an existing group. And I still don't get how to combine several nodes into a smaller unit, to make it more reusable. Now I s...

On http://www.pixellight.org you can find an Open Source cross-platform (Windows+Linux) programming library that combines C++ and OpenGL into a complete framework for graphics applications, such as visualization and games. Not that there aren't any of those engines available, but the best ones are not free nor Open Source, so this could be an option.

Taking Open Source concepts and Cloud computing together, vSwarm is promising a free-to-access Render Farm. Currently they target the Blender and LuxRender software. You can do mainly two things to participate: use the Render Farm to process your renderings install a Client software to contribute CPU power to the farm (you'll need to install a VMWare-powered client system, which is currently only available for Windows, but Linux and OSX support are planned). More info on http://www.vswarm.com/

Graebert ( http://www.graebert.com ) is a CAD Developer who have released their ARES Commander Edition software for the three major platforms: Windows, OSX and Linux (in beta). It uses the Qt toolkit to make their GUI (and probably some other aspects) work on all platforms. The software is generic CAD, with 2D drafting and 3D Modeling features, such as reference files, ACIS solid modeling, programming (Lisp, C++, ARX-like, DRX), plotting/layouts, ... Some Windows-specific features (ActiveX, OLE, COM, VSTA) are obviously not supported in the OSX and Linux versions. Compatible with DWG files and similar commands to AutoCAD. It is commercial software, but currently, the introductory price is about €500 till the end of September 2010. There is a free trial version, which does not print or save, unless you register it and then it is a time-limited watermarked demo.

WeaverBird 0.3 is the new alpha plug-in for topological transformations in Rhino 4.0 and Grasshopper 0.6.0059. A new build is now available for Grasshopper 0.7.0030. It helps smoothing, modifying and preparing meshes for rapid manufacturing technologies.

Just when you thought everything is getting tied into specific platforms, someone started to let the JavaScript version of Processing work on some of the current "hot" devices, such as the iPad and the Android. http://www.jepstone.net/blog/2010/04/16/processing-js-mini-ide-for-ipad-iphone-android-chrome/ Programming on a computer for a handheld device suddenly seems cumbersome. (with thanks to Andrea Graziano from whom I read about this)

If you go to http://neoarchaic.net/2010/08/excel-grasshopper/ , you can download some Visual Basic components which can be used to link Excel to Grasshopper more efficiently. These vb Components for Grasshopper, adapted from work by Damian Alamar of www.liquidtectonics.com , allows for the streaming in and out of data from Excel to Grasshopper with parametric control of not only data placement but also general formatting. If you are a Mac user, it is a bit frightening to hear that the connection of these technologies is tied to a particular platform: Rhino for Windows (Mac version is evolving nicely), Grasshopper to .NET (Mono might be an option, but only after Rhino 5 for Windows is ready will they look at it seriously) and then VBscript, which is also tied to Microsoft libraries.