PanelingTools New Release for Rhino 4.0 SR7

The new release of PanelingTools plug-in for Rhino 4.0 SR7 is now available. Download....

Important notes:

• To load this release, please make sure you have the latest Rhino 4.0 SR7.
• PanelingTools is also integrated with Rhino Mac version (installed with Rhino. No additional download in necessary).
• PanelingTools is now compiled for V5 WIP ( 32- and 64-bit ). There is a download link for the plug-in for V5 from the PanelingTools web site.
• Toolbars and reference manual are updated with each release.

New features:

• ptExtractCenterGrid to generate a new center points of input grid.
• ptMeanGrid to generates intermediate grids. There is an option to create the surface that goes through mean grids.
• ptMeanSurfaces to generate intermediate mean surfaces. Input start and end surfaces are not matched in terms of direction or base UV point location. The algorithm divides the surface using surface UV directions, generate mean points and use points to create the mean surface.
• ptPanel3DCustomVariable: This is a first prototype that include the following features.
• It supports two methods for distributing variable patterns. The list based method take surfaces or polysurfaces, but the mean-based one take only untrimmed surfaces.
• Surfaces UV parameterization is not adjusted internally by the command. The user must ensure surfaces are matched (test input start and end surfaces with ptMeanSurface before running the command).
• Variation is defined by surface curvature, attractors or randomly.
• ptRemoveOverlapedPoints: This command takes point input (doesn't have to be part of a paneling grid) and remove duplicate overlapping points.
• Added an "Overlap" option to ptCloseGrid command. It is set to "1" by default to create a single seam for an open grid, but the user can now set it to any number. For example if Overlap=2, then it will create a double seam. There is also the "StartIndex" option to define what row/column index to duplicate. This is useful for wrapping patterns that expand over more than one unit length.

The following set of prototype commands are meant to help serialize, view, and export joint and connector data useful for FE and other analysis:

• ptSerializePoints: Add user data to point objects that consists of a serial number and data string (can include any text based string defined by the user).
• ptSerializeEdges: Add user data to curve objects that consists of a serial number, the serial number of the two end points that it is connecting and data string (can include any text based string defined by the user).
• ptTagSerializedData: Show points and edges serialize data in the form of a Dot or Text.
• ptExportPointsSerializeData: Export points data to a text file. There are options to add start and end strings, export the serial number, and to add new line.
• ptExportEdgesSerializeData: Export Edge data to a text file. There are options to add start and end strings, export the serial number, and to add new line.

Terminated commands:

• ptPanelCurve and ptPanelSurface commands were terminated because their functionality is available through other commands.

Fun stuff:

• There is an upcoming PanelingTools workshop during the AIA conference in June. See details...