Surface to Surface

Surface to Surface

I have been interested in creating a simple framework that had the capability of adapting to more complex surfaces. I want to manipulate this surface into complex forms and geometries by way of parametric scripting. In order to do so, I thought it would be most interesting to take a more complex surface and map it onto the simple surface. The best way to do this was by simply drawing a curve or line in Rhino and allow the magic to happen in Grasshopper. To make this more interesting, I wanted to see if this script could be applied to a number of different curves.

Currently, I am getting closer to putting together a final form for the parametric study. In order to diagram a process, I have taken a series of snap shots of how I attempted to achieve this parametric study.

I drew a series of curves stemming from a line to a more serpentine design.

In Grasshopper, I used the move component to move the original curve in Rhino. I utilized a slider on this component as well in order to manipulate this move component. This may be useful to me later.

Grasshopper then allowed me to loft a surface between the original curve and the new moved curve generated.

Using the subdivide component, I subdivided the surface that would create a framework to repeat some kind of other complex surface.

Utilizing the subdivided surfaces, I used the Surface Box component that would essentially create the constraining boxes by which my complex surface would fit within when I map it.

I created this surface that I would then define as the surface to be mapped to the simple surface above. The bounding boxes defined through the phase previous would contain this new complex surface.



With this surface mapped, I wanted to start to see how this form can be manipulated in more than just a Z direction and how this script looks when applied to other curves. Below are a few of those moments where this script is placed on the other curves.

Parametric Modeling

Ok, back to the arch670 grind...

I attempted to venture into the Generative Components version of parametric modeling, to no avail. I have a feeling Grasshopper will be my best bet. The UI is much friendlier and more intuitive. Maybe dumbed-down is the more blunt way of saying that.

Moving on to the actual study of the parametrics, I did the tutorial of the sunshade to try to grasp how to map out the grasshopper commands. I did that fairly successfully, which is the image below.

Here, I was just aiming to grasp things like the slider, list items, and other tools to see what was actually happening. Otherwise, the grasshopper format just appears to be a bunch of car battery wires tangled up.

Using the mapping I got from the tutorial, I tried to apply them to several curves to see what kind of forms I could create. Below is the overall mapping sequence and also a detail of each command.

All of the commands lead into a lofting tool, as you can see with the big wire-esque pieces all leading to one hub. This loft followed whatever parametric parameters I set with the corresponding sliders controlling each point on the curves, as hightlighted in purple. The first iteration is seen below.

From here, I did a series of iterations rotating the curves themselves in Rhino and also changing the values of the points, which only move in an X direction. The next step of this would be to insert a slider to allow the point to change in a Y direction as well as create multiple points to allow for a much more dynamic surface creation. It's pretty amazing that a set of parameters can change a form so drastically and so quickly.