Parametric Modeling - development?

[Dan Rathbun]

@Jorgensen said in Parametric Modeling - development?:

I've been jealous of the users of Rhino for some years - that they have the node based tool - grasshopper.

I think node based modeling could be a big think for Sketchup, but it seems development stopped back in 2021, witch I find sad....

Sorry, Cannot help with contact.

But SketchUp Live Components and the Trimble Creator have not been abandoned AFAIK.

Discussion is still happening in its SketchUp Labs subcatgeory.

[Jorgensen]

@Dan-Rathbun Hi Dan. I haven't heard of Live Components - I need to look into that.

Thanks

[samuel_t]

Hi Jorgensen,

I am the author of the Parametric Modeling plugin, I am glad you are interested in it.

The problem is that I have too many projects in parallel and I develop them on my free time...
I intend to improve this plugin but I cannot give a release date.

I remain open to your ideas.

Cordially,
Samuel Tallet

[Jorgensen]

@samuel_t
Hi Samuel - thanks for the reply. I know all to good, having to many projects and to little time. I hope you find the the time to develop it further in the future.

Just a quick question - is it possible to use the nodes with allready modeled geometry - like creating arrays of components?

Keep up the nice work
Jorgensen

[samuel_t]

@Jorgensen

You can extract, the shape from a group or component already available in the model, a shape a priori created outside the Nodes Editor.

Once imported into the Nodes Editor, this entity is represented by a “Draw shape” node, this entity is not as configurable as a pure parametric entity but you can still apply parametric operations to it, such as “Copy”, “Move”...

I can explain the formula inside this “Move”, if needed.

Note iterations can be slow if you use heavy shapes like those corinthian columns. I must optimize the performance of this plugin, at lost time :'D

[Jorgensen]

Hi @samuel_t

Thanks for getting back to me.
Iv'e just tested and it works very fine

Just a quick question - is it possible to copy paste a node?

Jorgensen

[samuel_t]

Hi @Jorgensen,

The "Copy / Paste this node" feature is on my TODO list

[Jorgensen]

@samuel_t ah ok - Thanks

[Jorgensen]

@samuel_t

Hi Samuel

Would it be possible to use nodes, to control materials, or don’t you have access to the materials?

Jorgensen

[samuel_t]

Hi @Jorgensen,

What exactly do you mean by "to control materials"?

In the Nodes Editor, it is possible to apply a material to the group resulting from a Draw pyramid node, for example.

This material comes from the active model. If this parametric schema is then imported into another model which does not have this material, it is then substituted by a random color.

[Jorgensen]

Hi @samuel_t

MATERIAL NODE
What I meant was, if it is possible to handle material parameters like

• color
• opacity
• image source (path)
• image size x
• image size y

The use for this would be, creating a material, and two or more bitmap nodes, this way is fast to change and test different material settings, eg. by switching between the two bitmap nodes.

SLIDER NODE
A slider node for fast and easy way to change values, and seem them change without having to think about a number - just watching the result.

COMPONENTS
Would it possible to use components instead of groups? it would be very usefull to copy components around, and when you edit one, you edit all.
It might allready be possible, and I have just overlooked it.

An example - a simple hotel - I created one component, use nodes to construct the hotel and BAM. It could hotel rooms, as components, that can be copied around.
Then it's easy to add details and update the whole project in one operation.

In the example I created a component, the single one on the left. I then used Node editor to copy the component, but they become groups, and when I change the first component - nothing happens - of cource.

Could be interresting
Jorgensen

[Jorgensen]

@samuel_t components?

[Jorgensen]

@samuel_t bump

[Jorgensen]

I hope that you, or others, pickup and continue to develop this plugin / feature - as I think is has a huge potential

[L i am]

I am having a play with it, not got my head around it yet, but my initial thoughts are it looks quite powerful

[L i am]

I do not know much about AI but what about asking AI to work on it. Please note the short conversation I had with AI

Amazing

[L i am]

and this one

[samuel_t]

@Jorgensen, @L-i-am Thanks for your interest in this plugin I haven't abandoned it... I just have too many projects in progress