parametric tower builder

My version of a parametric tower mass builder made in grasshopper based on a tutorial I found at http://designreform.net/2008/05/29/rhino-tower-massing-with-explicit-and-implicit-history/ check it out.

grasshopper 2 surface frame

Recntly i have been playing around with the rhino plug in called Grasshopper wich before was called Explcit History ,Grasshopper still in development but the results you can achieve already are amazing, the visual worksapce its easy to understand and to use. Here are some images of a space frame from two surfaces.

voronoi cells spaces

water bottle design

As an academic task we were asked to design a water botlle made by injection molded pocess, for my design i proposed a bottle with fluid forms that would be similar to the ones we find in water in a natural enviorment, to achieve this forms i made a script in rhino that gererates diferent sections and the loft them togheter to generate a column with fluid forms , after that i altered the column using t-splines plug-in for rhino to obtain the final form , with the correct size and the exact volume needed for the project.

The material i proposed for my design is the PLA 700D (poliactide acid) wich is very similar to PET with the difference that PLA comes from corn wich is an abundant resource, this material also uses 50% less enegry to manufacture it compared to other polymers derived from oil . Using this materials not only represents a saving in energy but also a closed life cicle of product because once we use our bottle we can make composte with it and it can be used to make more corn wich will be used to make more bottles. For more information visit http://www.natureworksllc.com

An image of the molds proposed for manufacture

Script developded for the project.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Option Explicit
'Script written by Rodrigo Medina
'Script copyrighted by design playgrounds
'Script version thursday , 11 -04-08
Call BottleSurface()
Sub BottleSurface()
Dim i, IntUpper : IntUpper =18
Dim arrMajorPointb()
Dim arrMajorPointc()
Dim arrMajorPointd()
Dim arrMajorPointe()
Dim arrMajorPointf()
Dim arrMajorCross()
For i = 0 To IntUpper
ReDim Preserve arrMajorPointa(IntUpper)
ReDim Preserve arrMajorPointb(IntUpper)
ReDim Preserve arrMajorPointc(IntUpper)
ReDim Preserve arrMajorPointd(IntUpper)
ReDim Preserve arrMajorPointe(IntUpper)
ReDim Preserve arrMajorPointf(IntUpper)
ReDim Preserve arrMajorPointg(IntUpper)
ReDim Preserve arrMajorPointh(IntUpper)
ReDim Preserve arrMajorPointi(IntUpper)
ReDim Preserve arrMajorPointj(IntUpper)
ReDim Preserve arrMajorPointk(IntUpper)
ReDim Preserve arrMajorPointl(IntUpper)
ReDim Preserve arrMajorCross(IntUpper)
arrMajorPointa(i) = Rhino.PointCoordinates (Rhino.AddPoint(array (cos(i),sin(i),i)))
arrMajorPointb(i) = Rhino.PointCoordinates (Rhino.AddPoint (array(2,5,i)))
arrMajorPointc(i) = Rhino.PointCoordinates (Rhino.AddPoint (array(3,1.5,i)))
arrMajorPointd(i) = Rhino.PointCoordinates (Rhino.AddPoint (array(5,-sin(i),i)))
arrMajorPointe(i) = Rhino.PointCoordinates (Rhino.AddPoint (array(3,-1.5,i)))
arrMajorPointf(i) = Rhino.PointCoordinates (Rhino.AddPoint (array(3,-4,i)))
arrMajorPointg(i) = Rhino.PointCoordinates (Rhino.AddPoint (array(sin(i),-cos(i),i)))
arrMajorPointh(i) = Rhino.PointCoordinates (Rhino.AddPoint (array(-3,-4,i)))
arrMajorPointi(i) = Rhino.PointCoordinates (Rhino.AddPoint (array(-3,-1.5,i)))
arrMajorPointj(i) = Rhino.PointCoordinates (Rhino.AddPoint (array(-5,cos(i),i)))
arrMajorPointk(i) = Rhino.PointCoordinates (Rhino.AddPoint (array(-3,1.5,i)))
arrMajorPointl(i) = Rhino.PointCoordinates (Rhino.AddPoint (array(-3,4,i)))
arrMajorCross(i) = Rhino.AddCurve (Array(arrMajorPointa(i),arrMajorPointb(i),arrMajorPointc(i),arrMajorPointd(i),arrMajorPointe(i),arrMajorPointf(i),arrMajorPointg(i),arrMajorPointh(i),arrMajorPointi(i),arrMajorPointj(i),arrMajorPointk(i),arrMajorPointl(i),arrMajorPointa(i)),3)

Call Rhino.RotateObject(arrMajorCross(i),array(0,0,i),4*sin(i))
Next
Call Rhino.AddLoftSrf (arrMajorCross)
End Sub

topmod random spaces

mxmxxm

rhinoscript concept furniture

This are some concept furniture ideas i had using the rhinoscript I previously made the surfaces in these exaples are made by panels of plywood and could be joined togheter with cotton ropes in the same way that the Knitted Chair of Emiliano Godoy.

tessellation script

Here are a few images of RhinoScript i made using some ArchCut plugin methods the script takes a host surface and panelize it in triangular rounded sections.

top mod sculptures

Some digital sculptures i made in TopMod hope you like them

explicit history rhino script

Recently i have been playing around with the Explicit History Plug In for Rhino , wich helps you to create scripts in a visual work space for now the plug in is only a test version but its amazing what you can do with it, this are some images of very simple scripts i made in a couple of hours. I will keep playing around in order to achieve better results

voronoi lamp progress

Here are some photos from de progress of the Voronoi lamp , here you can see some testings i did with Corian for bending it the surface is 7mm thick an in order to bend it correctly i put it in the oven ata temperature of 140 cº for 15 minutes aproximately,there are also some pictures of the new mold i have made for the definitive prototipe ,the lower part of the lamp its made of acrylic were we can see also a picture of this part.The electrical components are also ready , i use a photoresistor this one is sesitive to the light so when there is light in the room the lights are off and as soon as it gets darker the leds will start to go on ,like street lamps do. Finally we can see a picture of the first model at dark and with lights one so we can give us an idea of how light passes through the voronoi diagrams made on the corian surface.

voronoi lamp production process

The voronoi lamp is being designed to be made of Corian with is a solid surface from Dupont, Corian has many characteritics that make it special its an eviormentally friendly material, its durable , its reusable ,under some condition ii is translucent and it can be thermo formated in almos any shape. Above we cas see some images of teh molds that are going to be used to thermoform the material. For more information about corian visit http://www.corian.com/

voronoi lamp process

First lines of the digital model
Main volume model

Envormental analisis made in Rhino

Here is a cutvature graph analisis that can be used to find minimum
or maximum curvatures values, and identify flat spots, sharp edge,
and poor matching across surface boundaries.

Zebra stripes depicts highlight flows across the part. This type of surface

evaluation provides visual feedback on surface continuity

lamp concept

After some time of being evaluating diferent concept forms for my poject i´ve decided to develop the one that is above , its form is based in the shape of a leaf , teh lamp will have an inner texture made with voronoi diagrams so when the lamp is lit ,The voronoi fractals will get illuminated and give the lamp an organic feeling. I will be posting the development of the computer modeling process soon.

about voronoi diagrams

In mathematics, a Voronoi diagram, named after Georgy Voronoi, also called a Voronoi tessellation, a Voronoi decomposition, or a Dirichlet tessellation (after Lejeune Dirichlet), is a special kind of decomposition of a metric space determined by distances to a specified discrete set of objects in the space, e.g., by a discrete set of points.
In the simplest and most common case, in the plane, we are given a set of points S, and the Voronoi diagram for S is the partition of the plane which associates a region V(p) with each point p from S in such a way that all points in V(p) are closer to p than to any other point in S.

Here are some Voronoi diagrams i generated using a special software that generates voronoi cells using points that you place in a specific metric space.
In nature we can find voronoi fractals as we can see in this photo taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/flight404/538133104/