Acoustics and aesthetics in Iowa

LMN Architects have added another performing arts facility to their portfolio. This one is the School of Music Building, University of Iowa: 700 seats, 946 unique acoustic panels.

The building's concert hall features a suspended acoustic ceiling canopy. Its intricate latticework provides strategic openings for the audio speakers, stage and house lighting, the fire sprinklers, while concealing the structural truss work.

For visualization, LMN fabricated a three-foot scale model, plus a few full-sized components, on the firm's 3-axis CNC mill.

Many consultants contributed to the design using different digital formats. The acoustical consultants used SketchUp. The lighting designers used Revit. The theater and audio/visual consultants saved their specifications as DWG files. All of these programs were compatible with Rhino and, using Rhino's Grasshopper plug-in, LMN was able to incorporate all the consultant's information.

The project resulted from the damage of the 2008 flood and is now expected to be completed in 2016.

Details featured in Fabrikator ...

Intersections 2013 AEC Symposium

Intersections 2013: Interoperable Workflow | Innovative Practice
May 31, 2013 - 9:00am-5:00pm
NYC College of Technology, New York, NY

Intersections 2013 is a symposium with lectures and panel discussions by industry leaders, educators, and innovators on the topics of:

• TOOLS: Identifying them, teaching them, and ensuring they play well together.
• INNOVATION: Finding the conditions and opportunities for innovation in both established firms and small start-ups alike.
• MAKING IT WORK: Translating innovative technology into high-impact practice using lessons from the field.

An exhibition of student work will run concurrently with the symposium. The display will focus on new curricular initiatives within the Department of Architectural Technology and will include research and prototypes from courses on foundational digital skills, computational fabrication, Building Information Modeling (BIM), and building performance/energy modeling.

Details...

Free real-time viewport raytracing in Rhino 5 with Neon

Neon 1.0 Service Release 1 is now available as a free download for all Rhino 5 users.  SR1 adds new features and fixes several bugs with the initial release of Rhino.  For more details, please visit:

http://v5.rhino3d.com/group/neon

Neon is a real-time, fully ray-traced viewport plug-in for Rhino 5.  Developed in collaboration with Caustic Professional, Neon adds a new working viewport mode called "Raytraced with Neon” - there's almost no other UI - it just works.

Neon helps a designer to quickly evaluate and establish the form, color, texture, lighting, and material requirements of a scene, very early on, without interruption.  Real time high dynamic range reflections, transparency, high quality sky-lighting, true procedural textures – all rendered in real time, right into the Rhino viewport, as you work.  And if you are using Brazil – many of those settings and materials will be rendered faithfully in real-time too!

Neon also supports the Caustic Series2 ray tracing accelerator boards (currently on promo – about 30% off) to deliver up to 4x the performance.

And best of all, Neon is free!

If you haven’t already done so, sign up to http://v5.rhino3d.com and join the Neon group, download Neon and start using it in Rhino 5 today!

Details and download...

Rhino and V-Ray presentation in Vienna

Presentation Rhino/V-Ray for Rhino/Maya in Vienna

Invitation to "ThreeKC Autodesk Maya / Rhino / VRAY" presentation on Thursday 13 June 2013, 15:00 to 18:30 in the Austrian Social and Economic Museum, Vogelsanggasse 36, 1050 Vienna (Austria).

We invite you to the presentation of the new versions of Rhino, V-Ray for Rhino and Autodesk Maya and show the latest developments in the 3D area.

Roland Reyer presents the new version of Autodesk Maya 2014, Carlos Pérez (McNeel Europe) presents Rhino 5 and food4Rhino, Matus Nedecký (flying architecture) and Fabio Palvelli (3D Dreaming) show V-Ray for Rhino and rendering services for architecture. We also show the new Wacom Cintiq 22 HD touch.

There are 2 events, the first at 15:00 and the second at 18:30. Places are limited to 30 people each.

As a special event you can attend between the 2 events a basic coffee seminar "Coffee - from the plant to the cup" at the Coffee Museum.

Program:

• 15:00-15:45h: Presentation software Autodesk Maya 2014 (group 1)
• 15:45-16:00h: Tour "100 years of life and living in Vienna / Dr Carl Auer von Welsbach in the Agricultural Museum (Group 1)
• 16:00-16:45h: Presentation software Rhino 5.0 and VRAY (group 1)
• 17:00-18:15h: Basic coffee seminar "Coffee - from the plant to the cup" with Mr Edmund Mayr
• 18:30-19:15h: Presentation software Autodesk Maya 2014 (Group 2)
• 19:15-19:30h: Tour "100 years of life and living in Vienna / Dr Carl Auer von Welsbach in the Agricultural Museum (Group 1)
• 19:30:20:15h: Presentation software Rhino 5.0 and VRAY (Group 2)
• 20:15-22:00h: Finger found, drinks and "Come Together"

Participation is FREE, but due to the limited number of places registration is required. To register to the event, we ask you to select the following options:

Online Registration 15:00
Online Registration 18:30
or by email: office@kkkc.at
or Tel: 01-545 78 25

The Rhino and V-Ray for Rhino presentations will be in English.

Rob|Arch 2014: Second Call for Workshop Proposals

Rob|Arch 2014: Second Call for Workshop Proposals
Workshops: 14.-16.05.2014 / Conference: 17.-18.05.2014

Rob|Arch has been initiated by the Association for Robots in Architecture as a new conference series on the use of robotic fabrication in architecture, art, and design, closely linking industry with cutting-edge research institutions. In December 2012 the conference was hosted by its founders in Vienna, Austria. In 2014 the conference travels to North America, hosted by the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, with Wes McGee and Monica Ponce de Leon as conference chair.

Continuing with the previous theme of international collaboration, the conference seeks to bring together artists, designers, fabricators, and industry leaders for the purpose of advancing the discourse surrounding robotic fabrication. Following on the success of Rob|Arch 2012, the conference will again present a series of workshops held at select research institutions on the east coast of the United States, aimed at exposing the advanced capabilities of applied robotic research. Following the workshops, the conference will span two days at the University of Michigan Campus in Ann Arbor, Michigan, about an hour outside of Detroit, the origin of robotics in North America. The internationally renowned publishing house Springer Wien/New York will publish and market the proceedings of the conference worldwide.

For the 2014 event, we are extending a call for workshop proposals. The conference invites proposals by institutions and individuals for workshops related to robotic programming and fabrication until 15^th of June, 2013.

Additional robot capacities by the workshop hosts, University of Michigan and Carnegie Mellon University, and/or industry partners can be made available to the chosen proposals. A total budget of 15.000USD is available to financially support the workshops.

Visit http://call.robarch2014.org for details.

New plug-in: Rhino Open Projects

Rhino Open Projects is a collection of tools for Rhino 5 developed by the Laboratory of Design Tools and Methods in Industrial Engineering (Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Padova) for a variety of research projects such as biomedical (including dental), veterinary sciences, reverse engineering, rapid prototyping, cultural heritage, the geometric products specification, the naval field, ophthalmic optics and others.

The Rhino Open Projects tools are now available for academic and commercial purposes. Currently there are three plug-ins available:

• AdvMesh: allows mesh operations such as curvature analysis based on fitting methods, add noise to a mesh, fit a quadratic function on a set of points, simple mesh editing tools that allow to add and remove vertices and faces.
• AdvSurf: estimates the lines of curvature of a surface.
• LensDesign: developed for progressive addition lens design, analysis and data exchange for manufacturing process.

More info and download at food4Rhino...

ID Jobs at Bose

Bose is looking for several world-class industrial designers to join their team. They are hiring for multiple positions. These positions are located at the Bose Design Center in Framingham, MA, about 30 minutes from Boston.

They are looking for industrial design graduates with 0-2 years of work experience. Creative, passionate, out-of-the-box thinkers. Consulting experience or internship work (if a recent grad). Thrive on exploring possibilities and building to see ideas through. Exceptional sketching and rapid visualization skills (in paper, wacom, cardboard, masking tape, and rubber bands). Conceptual engineering abilities to design assemblies/mechanisms for prototypes. 3D modeling skills in Rhino, Solidworks, or other 3D package. Visualize and render in Keyshot or Modo. Proficient using AdobeSuite (Photoshop, Illustrator, and Indesign). Knowledgeable about production processes and materials.

Details...

May 18th - 20th NYC design event

WantedDesign, an international design event of lectures, exhibitions, and workshops, is now showing in New York City at the Tunnel at the Terminal Stores building.

David Trubridge returns to the event, having just returned from the Milan Design Fair, where he exhibited 'The Elements', an installation of hanging sculptural forms with Swarovski crystals, acrylic, and anodized aluminum.

At WantedDesign David is launching his new light, Manuka.

WantedDesign program information ....

DesignX starts tomorrow

DesignX - ICFF 2013
May 18-21
Jacob Javits Convention Center, New York, NY

DesignX starts tomorrow! Join the DesignX meetup and attend the launch party. Limited seats are still available in the Grasshopper workshop. If you haven't registered yet, sign up today!

Register here...

Workshops include:

• Intro to Parametric Design: Visual Programming with Grasshopper
• 3D Printed Fabrics: Modeling Interlocking Elements with Rhino 
• Intro to Physical Computing for Designers (Arduino)
• Interactive Modeling: Responsive Design with Firefly
• Hands-on Desktop Prototyping for Designers

Details...

Grasshopper to CATIA - Technical Notes

LMN Tech Studio has been kind enough to share their research and experience on their blog.

Details on this topic and many others...

iRhino 3D 1.4 now available

Share your insight and inspiration

On the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch
Pan, zoom, and rotate with a tap or drag of your finger. The handy navigator lets you scroll through thumbnails, so you can quickly jump to any model you want. Load Rhino models from web sites, Google Docs, Dropbox, email attachments, or from iTunes. Save views as images for mark-up and emailing.

New in version 1.4

• New View Navigation Mode: Look/Move (in addition to the classic Orbit/Zoom) - found in Settings.
• Thumb joysticks make it easy to get inside models and look around - found in Settings. 
• Now requires iOS 5.1 or higher. 
• Various optimizations and bug fixes.

Details...

Looking for an Android viewer, click here...

Android controller for Rhino/Grasshopper

Control Grasshopper with your Android device.

The Rhino Grasshopper Controller sends all the sensor information from your Android device directly to Grasshopper. From there you can do with it whatever you want and control your geometry with gravity, rotation, light or touch input...

The app requires the following installations on your PC:

• Rhino 
• Grasshopper plugin for Rhino
• gHowl plugin for Grasshopper

Details and download...

View Rhino files on Android devices

3DM View is a new Android application from AMC Bridge for viewing Rhino's 3DM models on your mobile device.

Details and download...

RoboFold workshops: King Kong and Godzilla

Workshop: Folding - design and simulation
London, May 29th-30th

The RoboFold Folding Simulation and Design workshop is a two-day intensive workshop, exploring folding techniques in design and fabrication. You will simulate in Kangaroo and the King Kong plug-in for Grasshopper. Designs are realised with the CraftROBO vinyl cutter. Spaces are still available!

Workshop: Robotic simulation
London, June 27th-28th 2013

Godzilla is a new free Grasshopper plug-in for simple and intuitive robotic simulation. Also, there is an optional small device to generate the actual control code.

Godzilla competition: The best use of the Godzilla software gets a free place for next workshop. Judged on creativity and practicality.

Check the complete details plus a review of the latest RoboFold workshops here...

Rhino 5, Grasshopper and V-Ray event in Stuttgart

Softwarebox GmbH invites you to a free Rhino 5, Grasshopper and V-Ray for Rhino event in region Stuttgart, where Peter Mehrtens (Grasshopper expert and Rhino trainer) and Gerrit Corsmeyer (Rendering expert) will show you (in German) the latest in modeling, computational design and photorealistic rendering:

• Date: 6/6/2013
• Starting: 2 pm
• Location: MEILENWERK Region Stuttgart
• Free registration (in German): www.softwarebox.de/termine

RhinoTerrain and RhinoCity events

RhinoTerrain 2.0 and RhinoCity will be announced soon. To see a sneak preview of these new plug-ins for geo-modeling, civil engineering and urban planning, don't miss the following events:

• May 23-24 - Rencontres Nationales de l’Ingénierie Publique - Nice (France)
• June 11-13 - Les rencontres de SIG-la-Lettre - Paris (France)
• October 8-10 - Intergeo - Essen (Germany)

Contact RhinoTerrain sarl for more info...

Algomad 2013 – Focus on Sagrada Familia

Algomad2013 – Focus on Sagrada Familia will take place from July 3 - 6, 2013, at the ELISAVA Barcelona School of Design and Engineering. The seminar will focus on the design, fabrication, and construction work developed using parametric and generative computational methods at the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. These problems will be used to teach the digital design methods that are the core of the seminar.
 
The temple’s technical team is committed to the Algomad organization and will serve as supporters and guides throughout the workshops. Sagrada Familia will be open to the attendees for guided tours so they can see for themselves the design and construction work developed at the temple. The workshops will take place at ELISAVA’s beautiful facilities on Barcelona's world-famous Las Ramblas. 


The seminar leaders will not try to speculate on the how the tools under discussion will be used but will instruct in the operation and possible applications in the architecture, engineering and design fields.

The program includes workshops and conferences.

The workshops and conferences will be held in Spanish.

Complete details and registration...

Rhino jobs for industrial designers

Are you an industrial designer looking for a new job? These companies are hiring:

• ACCO Brands - Industrial Designer
  Redwood City, CA
• Ammunition Group - Designers, Packaging
  San Francisco, CA
• Hasbro - Senior Designer (Sesame Street Job)
  Pawtucket, RI
• ITO Design - Industrial Design Intern
  Nürnberg, Germany
• TOMY International - Designer (Boys Toys)
  Chicago, IL
• Exponents - Industrial Design Intern, Entry Level
  Toronto, ON
• Motorola - Senior Industrial Designer
  Chicago, IL

 More ...    

Lands Design WIP 5

Lands Design for Rhino is a software for designing gardens, green spaces, and landscapes that runs in the Rhino environment.

Lands Design provides tools for producing technical drawings in 2D and 3D of the green space to work with, and realistic images and virtual tours through the project to perform.

Lands Design is ideal for landscape architects, urban planners, town council technicians, constructors, designers and draftsmen, environment departments, nurserymen, gardeners…

What's new in WIP 5:

• improved joins between branches in the nXt plants
• new Conceptual plant blocks
• now, the Google Earth Import command also creates a textured mesh, in addition to the scanned curves
• new cut and fill option to add a path to an existing Terrain
• in the Terrain properties, new option to lock the X and Y cell size values of the grid
• new option to define custom folders for the urban furniture blocks browser

Complete details...

DYNAMIC FIELDS Workshop and Conference, Bucharest (Romania)

Parametrica [Digi Fab School] from Bucharest, Romania, invites you to DYNAMIC FIELDS Workshop and Conference (15-28 July 2013) to participate in the digital design build project, seeking to create an inventive collaborative environment. The workshop is part of a series of PARAMETRICA events, promoting computational design thinking and exploring the new possibilities of parametric design.

Key lecturer and Jury: Patrik Schumacher (Zaha Hadid Architects)

Workshop Concept (15th – 27th July 2013):
The future of structures lies in their ability to utilize and respond to the energy which exists in the environment surrounding them.
In this 14-day workshop the various energy fields which exist in a given environment (wind, water, sun, sand etc.) will be identified, analyzed and then simulated, after which experimental structures will be generated and fabricated such that their performance will act as a continuous real-time response to these environmental parameters.

Conference Concept (28th July 2013):
During this day we will present the final workshop projects and our special guest, Patrik Schumacher will explore the subject of computational design thinking and parametric architecture.

Objectives:
The workshop objectives are two-fold. In the first phase the workshop focuses on the identification and analysis of resources inherent to the environmental context, thus developing a better understanding of their nature as well as optimized methods of use or response. In the next phase, the objective is to generate structures which through either means of fabrication or material properties can respond to, or utilize the environmental energy sources.

Complete info and registration...

BrickDesign for Rhino 5

BrickDesign for Rhino 5 is the first software that allows architects and engineers to fully exploit the design potential inherent in the novel and innovative robotic fabrication processes.

Robotic Fabrication

Computer controlled fabrication allows the realization of highly informed building elements in an economic and efficient process. Applied to brickwork the robot allows to individually position each brick, thus, enabling to map patterns or images on a facade, or realizing complex wall geometries.

Functionality

• intuitive design of a large set of “small”, discrete elements
• fully parametric data model
• create design variants fast and easy
• integration of user defined details
• expandability through scripting interface
• complete integration into design and planning process
• automatic generation of basic fabrication data

Download BrickDesign 1.0 from food4Rhino...

RhinoNC and DentalShaper roadshow

Want to learn more about CIMsystem's Rhino plug-ins for CAM (RhinoNC, Bamboo, Electrodex), Dental (DentalShaper, Sum3D) and Nesting (Mosaix)?

Meet CIMsystem's expert team at any of these events around the globe:

• May 23-25 - Amici di Brugg, Rimini, Italy
• Jun 09-12 - SinoDent, Beijing, China
• Jun 19-20 - wfb, Siegen, Germany
• Sep 16-19 - Dental Expo, Moscow, Russian Federation
• Oct 11-13 - Expolab, Sao Paulo, Brasil
• Oct 17-19 - Expodental, Milan, Italy
• Oct 23-26 - Dentech, Shanghai, China
• Oct 25-26 - Colloquium Dental, Brescia, Italy
• Dec 03-06 - EuroMold. Frankfurt, Germany

Events details...

Rhino Python weekend workshop in Boston

Rhino 5 comes with the ability to script your ideas in Python. Python makes algorithmic design faster, easier and more accessible than ever before.

In this 2-day weekend workshop you will be introduced to algorithmic design for those with no programming experience. You will have the tools to work through geometric ideas in a whole new way.

For more information and to register, visit www.pointcrowd.com

.

Are you sure? Have you checked?

Are you checking your designs early and often?

There is no reason not to. The simulation and analysis tools for Rhino 5 keep getting better.

Scan&Solve™ has always provided finite elements in Rhino without meshing. Now they are offering two additional extensions to their tools.

First is SnSMesh. This version of Scan&Solve™ allows users to perform stress simulation on mesh geometry within Rhino. This version has the same functionality as the latest edition of Scan&Solve™ but works directly on closed meshes created in Rhino or imported from other applications that can export .stl, .wrl, .ply, and other mesh formats recognized by Rhino. That means you can directly analyze any part that you can 3-D scan. No need to first reverse engineer.

Second is SnSScript. This scriptable version of Scan&Solve™ allows users to automate simulation processes that otherwise require user interaction. In the scriptable version, most of the functionality of the original Scan&Solve™ plug-in is exposed for calls from RhinoScript, including simulation setup, simulation computation, and solution visualization and querying.

Download SnSMesh or SnSScript here...

New Release of PanelingTools for Rhino 5 and Grasshopper

The new release of PanelingTools for Rhino 5 and Grasshopper is now available for download.

Details and download…

DYNAMIC FIELDS Workshop and Conference

Parametrica [Digi Fab School] from Bucharest, Romania, invites you to DYNAMIC FIELDS Workshop and Conference (15-28 July 2013) to participate in the digital design build project, seeking to create an inventive collaborative environment.

The workshop is part of a series of PARAMETRICA events, promoting computational design thinking and exploring the new possibilities of parametric design. The workshop is aimed at: students, postgraduates, architects, interior, product and urban designers, engineers, anybody interested.

More details...

One more week for Regent Street Windows Project

British women's clothing retailer Karen Millen has teamed with the architecture firm Mamou-Mani to create a series of window displays in The Regent Street Windows Project 2013. Mamou-Mani is one of our Rhino and Grasshopper clients.

The Regent Street Windows Project connects fashion, architecture, and culture to create a series of unique window displays in London. Six teams of architects and retailers are on display till May 15th.

Project details ...

Art meets 3D Printing

Art meets 3D Printing with Type A Machines
 
Xylem is a product of the collaboration between designer Bryan Allen and sculptor Stephanie Smith. It is based on the translation of natural forms through analog to digital 2D representation and analysis into a re-physicalized 3D form. The final form evokes the Xylem layer of tree cells: reducing structure and enclosure to a minimum while still maintaining form.

Using a Type A Series 1 printer in conjunction with  Rhino 5 design software, the form was fabricated as 44 individually PLA printed panels. For 2 months straight the printer ran non-stop without failure producing all the compete components with registration numbers for placement. The parts were assembled on site by the artists.

 

Make sure to drop by Type A Machine booth at Maker Faire Bay Area at the San Mateo County Event Center on May 18th and 19th where you can get a closer look at this project.The Type A Machines team will also provide demos of their latest new product developments, to give you an exciting glimpse of innovative techniques for 3D printing.

Also, do not forget to join the Type A Machines group at www.RhinoFabLab.com too.

For more information, please contact:

Sara Bonomi, Marketing

sara@typeamachines.com

(415)378-5370

Force Based Design: Bauhaus Summer School

This two-week interdisciplinary course aims to lay the foundations of a "force based design“ through theoretical input lectures and presentations. Varying examples will show that the efficiency of structures depends largely on the flow of forces within the structure. Possible optimization strategies will be discussed in the light of material saving and their impact on architectural form.

This course will introduce you to digital analysis and optimization tools. You will learn to deal with three-dimensional parametric software (Rhino, Grasshopper, Sofistik, Karamba, GeometryGym, Kangaroo).

Finally, the knowledge acquired will be applied to designing a pedestrian bridge or a slender tower.

Participants will be able to recognize the effects of forces as design parameters. They will recognize the potential of building geometry in the context of architecture and resource-efficient designs.

Information
» Where: Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar, Germany
» Application deadline: 15 May
» Course duration: 18 - 30 August
» Course language: English
» Target Groups: Master students, graduates, doctoral candidates and young professionals
» Requirements: Basic knowledge of 3D parametric software is recommended
» Course fee: 490 € (100 € discount for students and alumni, 290 € discount for students of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)

Lecturers
» Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alexander Stahr - HTWK Leipzig
» Dipl.-Ing. Christian Heidenreich - Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
» B.Sc. Martin Dembski - Bauhaus-Universität Weimar

Guest Lecturers
» Dipl. Eng. Arch. Simon Vogt - Transform Engineers, Hamburg
» Dipl. Bauingenieur FH Nico-Ros-Zeile - ZPF Ingenieure, Basel (CH)

More details...

Thomas Heatherwick: Making

When all is said and done Rhino is still only a tool. You can create poor designs as easily as you can create great designs.

For inspiration, the book Thomas Heatherwick Making is a showcase of great designs. The 600-page book is a compilation of Heatherwick studio projects from 1989 to 2011 -- projects as varied as furniture, bridges, handbags, boats, buses, shopping centers, and Christmas cards.

Each project starts with a design question. The answers are fascinating and creative solutions.

Thomas Heatherwick has said that design is a solution to a problem. We are glad to help with those solutions.

To purchase from Amazon in US ...