Visual Algorithmic Design for Design Applications (A Rant]
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SME was a test on having an interface for writing Ruby scripts without knowing how to program (you can play with the limited demo). it creates a simple ruby script after you click on script (upper right)
it was created before SU6 and WebDialogs as a testcase for my Suriko project (WebDialogs daddy in SU5
), so it can be extended now and have a realtime tool, with instant feedback. it can be turned in something similar to Grasshoper, but it needs some work 
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@unknownuser said:
SME was a test on having an interface for writing Ruby scripts without knowing how to program (you can play with the limited demo). it creates a simple ruby script after you click on script (upper right)
it was created before SU6 and WebDialogs as a testcase for my Suriko project (WebDialogs daddy in SU5
), so it can be extended now and have a realtime tool, with instant feedback. it can be turned in something similar to Grasshoper, but it needs some work Sounds good, but if you take it up again don't forget the visualization and dataflow components. Let me know if I can help...the interesting thing about Grasshopper (which I've used more than any of these others) is that it opens up a separate interface, outside of the Rhino application, with a pretty robust set of independent GUI rules, but the changes in the visual script immediately manifest themselves (in a sort of preview mode) in the main Rhino window.
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Virtools (now called 3dvia Virtools) by Dassault Systemes is a 3d physics/game engine and it also has this visual interface. It took me a while to learn and certain aspects were quite difficult, but in the end it was certainly much easier than learning the coding language used by that program.
And I'm also a big terragen fan (though I haven't used it much recently). I think that making a visual ruby programming application for SketchUp would be a very interesting development indeed!
Good luck to whoever takes this on
Chris
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I think it would be very important and quite in keeping with the whole original sentiment of SketchUp: "3D for everyone."
"Programming for everyone."
It would have to be more than just Ruby (I think that might be too slow) to make this...well beyond my current programming skill set and my limited Java and Python. But once my current project finishes up at the end of the month, I don't seem to have anything to do besides worry about my personal economic status...perhaps this would be a good time to learn a new skill.
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I don't think that is quite what we're talking about, TBD, although it is close to the hidden recorder that was in SU1. And a great idea, too, I should add.
But this is the sort of visual programming we have in mind: Rhino's (still-beta) Grasshopper. It's not a macro recorder--it's an object-oriented programming language with a visual interface that immediately indicates connections and flow path between data objects and methods.
Here's the interface for PD.
The idea (at least for me) is to not have to deal with the non-natural grammatic patterns of a textual computer language. Since human beings are primarily visual and haptic creatures, a scripting/programming language that permits immediate visual feedback would be the most natural language of them all (in theory). In this sort of environment, you move your data/method nodes arround, pull out connectors to tie objects together (indicating data flow), and then run to see output (some variants, like VVVV and PD are live...output happens as the nodes are assembled, which is why DJs and VJs are so fond of them as performance art tools).
This visual evolution in programming should be considered equivalent to the visual evolution in operating systems from primitive versions such as DOS to windowized modern ones. It could also be criticized in the same way...but did we really become dumber once we went from DOS to Macintosh OS?
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Arg Grasshopper needs Rhino SR3...
Have you been using this a bit Lewis? I'm very intrigued.
P.S. Does anyone know of any decent Rhino forums?
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@-rb- said:
Arg Grasshopper needs Rhino SR3...
Have you been using this a bit Lewis? I'm very intrigued.
I used the previous beta, which was originally titled "Explicit History." It was great but missing some fundamentals (like instances for objects). Since the update I've been caught up with a more conventional modeling project, but that will be due in 9 days and I'll have the time to play around with software for a bit. Diego has assured me that many of the limitations in the earlier beta are being dealt with.
Here are some nice tutorials on Grasshopper. This site also contains some interesting work. Also, do a search on Youtube and you can see some screen recordings of it in action, affecting Rhino models. Finally, the main Grasshopper site includes a nascent but enthusiastic forum (Google Group).
If you're really interested in visual programming, however, there are plenty of open source or otherwise free applications--see Diego's and my posts at the top of this thread.. PD, noted above, is FOSS, quite mature and well documented (if not particularly pretty). Blender has a shader developer that is very intriguing (and free). I have used that, and it's a wonder, but of course you have to get past the Blender interface to model something to use it on. Lily is FOSS as well, and looks interesting (I found it through Wikipedia's entry on Visual Programming).
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Wow, Designreform looks great - thanks!
Haha can't handle the Blender UI so will stick to Grasshopper for the moment. Oddly enough the UI in Grasshopper looks alot like some of my peers live DJ 'chain of effects' tools. I wonder if they operate in similar ways.
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@-rb- said:
Wow, Designreform looks great - thanks!
Haha can't handle the Blender UI so will stick to Grasshopper for the moment. Oddly enough the UI in Grasshopper looks alot like some of my peers live DJ 'chain of effects' tools. I wonder if they operate in similar ways.
VVVV (freeware) and PD (open source) are both used by VJ's and DJ's, although PD's older brother Max is more common among musical types. And it has been around for ages...look at the Wikipedia site to see who has been using it. It was looking up Radiohead's tools, oddly enough, that introduced me to this programming concept, well before I discovered shader makers or Explicit History.
By the way, if you are reading this and have a Mac, you have a VJ-ready visual programming application already: Quartz Composer. It comes with your OS.
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Thanks again, I am currently looking at VJ stuff also so will have to have a good flick through the links. Was looking at (is it the MIT based?) Programming language for a bit but as is always the case there ain't enough time in the world. BTW the new Nine Inch Nails live show looks pretty spectacular, if you haven't YouTubed already.
Does anyone know which generative software bands such as Autechre use? Shot in the dark but hey, this forum looks to have a pretty broad knowledge base.
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Thanks again!
Do you know what Eno is using too?
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Wow Max/MSP/Jitter look fantastic can't wait to try 'em out.
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@-rb- said:
Thanks again!
Do you know what Eno is using too?
Well, he was involved with a program called Koan, which is apparently obsolete. I just looked it up, and there seems to be a successor program. However, I just scanned the site, and it's based on textual scripting. I don't know if Eno uses this.
I'm not so much interested in "generative" design as I am in that Visual Programming idiom, although of course Visual Programming can be used to create generative design (and apparently often is).
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@-rb- said:
Thanks again, I am currently looking at VJ stuff also so will have to have a good flick through the links. Was looking at (is it the MIT based?) Programming language for a bit but as is always the case there ain't enough time in the world. BTW the new Nine Inch Nails live show looks pretty spectacular, if you haven't YouTubed already.
Does anyone know which generative software bands such as Autechre use? Shot in the dark but hey, this forum looks to have a pretty broad knowledge base.
Autechre uses Max much of the time, or rather they use Max to design their own sound applications. There is a screenshot of one of their "patches" (that is the term in Visual Programming for a script or program) on the Wikipedia entry for Max that I listed above, and I've linked to it below.
Incidentally, I've been led to understand this video for Autechre was produced with one of the Visual Programming applications...Max, PD, or VVVV would have been capable of it. I should write the designer and find out, I suppose.
If you mean Processing Language from MIT...that's great, but it is in fact a customized version of Java designed for artists and not a true Visual Programming Language. It is a textual computer language, like Java and using Java syntax with some graphic command additions. I've met the two principal developers...they are very devoted to computer applications for the arts.
I will check out the NIN live show stuff...I've enjoyed the recent albums.
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I was just noticing that Max 5 has finally come out...it looks like you could use the Jitter component for animation and rendering for 3D models...30-day trial...
Of course, you could also do this with VVVV, which is free for non-commercial use.
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I downloaded the Rhino SR3 pack last night and am running Grasshoper now. Very exciting to experiment using VAD - it just seems so logically set out too. Genuis.
Sorry to veer off topic slightly with generative design but it has been floating my boat as of late.
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@-rb- said:
I downloaded the Rhino SR3 pack last night and am running Grasshopper now. Very exciting to experiment using VAD - it just seems so logically set out too. Genuis.
Sorry to veer off topic slightly with generative design but it has been floating my boat as of late.
I'm looking forward to using it, as well...I think the challenge would be to use it for something other than generative design (which often seems just like an excuse for extravagant formalism to me, a kind of technologically-deterministic version of Eisenman's process-based design, and just as empty of meaning ultimately--Peter was one of my teachers and I'm sensitive about the flaws in his methods).
It would be nice to find a Visual Programming Language (VL or VAD...I think VL is a more common abbreviation) that could function as like a true computer language and not just a scripting language...so that you could actually compile it, the way you can with C, or at the very least run it on a virtual machine like Java.
I'm also thinking about buying a copy of Max/MSP/Jitter...imaging is something that interests me almost as much as architecture, and Jitter is better documented than PD or VVVV.
By the way, I was led to understand (Pete/Solo would know more about this) that the next version of Podium for SketchUp would include a noded VL shader designer.
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While I agree that some of the recent design form-finding excursions using various 'process orienated' design techniques are pretty vacuous tech-reinforcement (apart from some of the firms formed by ex-OMA architects) - I'm not quite convinced there is any right or wrong methodology to design, only that there are new schools and old(er) schools, just as philosophy tends to develop, and there is a validity to all of them (whether failed or not). Also for something to be empty of meaning, we have to first decide upon what 'meaning' really consists of and quantify it, and I think that will always be up in the air. I got into generative stuff through Wolfram, evolutionary theory and biomimicry originally, and I think that an understanding of generative systems will ultimately inform the design community on a few beneficial levels at some point. Specifically I'm thinking the use of computational design to assist in the challenges urban housing will face in the next 50 years, and biomimicry to aid in sustainable futures. But I'm only in my early 20's - so who knows, I may become an Eiseman yet.
Sorry off topic just had to add my 2 cents.
Back to VL!
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@-rb- said:
so who knows, I may become an Eiseman yet.
Careful about saying things like that...one day in a seminar I had with the man in grad school he referred to himself as "the Voice of Darkness." I laughed, thinking he was joking, and said something like, "Well, good, I've always been a satanist at heart." He turned to me and said, without blinking, "Wadsworth, if you ever compare yourself to me again I will make personally sure you never have a job in architecture on the planet again."
How's that for an off-topic?
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I always look back fondly at the 'Deconstructionist' VHS I had at school, where he turns and mutters something at Hadid - Hadid looks at him condescendingly, doesn't reply, flicks her hair, and looks the other way
I read his new manifesto and its attack on digital mediums, form finding, and the new generation being 'apathetic' - and was actually quite offended, considering it was his generation that has burdened this one with a whole array of social and planetary concerns. He could at least be constructive with the criticism. But he did design a stadium that looks like a coiled snake recently - so what can I say.
Am enjoying the new humanist approach he is having as he comes to grips with his own mortality (Ouch?)
Just kidding.
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