Friday, June 17, 2016

Kangaroo 2.0 -- Now out of the pouch and available for testing!

Daniel Piker announced the first public work-in-progress (WIP) version of the new Kangaroo.

Engineers and designers use the Kangaroo plugin inside Grasshopper for interactive simulation, form generation, optimization, and analysis of structural components and constraint introspection.

This is a complete ground-up rewrite of both the core solver and all interface components, with several key improvements for a more powerful and flexible Kangaroo. (Joey grew up.)
  • Greatly improved stability and convergence speed, overcoming previous limitations on stiffness values.
  • The old Force objects have been replaced with Goals. These encompass forces, loads, and constraints in a single simple system.
  • Goal types for many new applications such as areas, length clamping, length and angle snapping, collinearity, coplanarity, symmetry constraints, rigid body assemblies, plasticity, and more ...
  • Creating goals is now simpler than ever. New goals can be added as needed. New custom goals can be written in the Grasshopper scripting components and changed while the solver is still running.
  • Several of the more awkward and annoying aspects of the old interface have been improved: No need to reset when goals are added, removed, or changed. No need to flatten the goals input. No need to keep starting and stopping the timer.
  • Direct dragging and anchoring of points in the Rhino viewports with the new Grab tool.
  • The solver library is now separate from the Grasshopper components. Power users and developers now have more direct control and customization. 
For more information see Daniel Piker's videos.

*The fine print: This is a WIP. There are still bugs and missing features.

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