Thursday, February 27, 2014

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Zoo 5 Service Release 8 available



Zoo 5 Service Release 8 contains two new features:
  1. License monitoring - Zoo 5 now allows users to monitor license usage from the convenience of their web browser. Just visit the status page, provided by your Zoo server, by entering http://<zoo_server_host_name>/status into your favorite web browser. For example, if your Zoo server's host name is zooserver.mycorp.com, then you would enter http://zooserver.mycorp.com/status into your web browser.
  2. Serial number exporting - Prior to Service Release 8, there was no way to export licensing information out of Zoo 5. Now, it is possible to export a comma-separated-value (csv) file that contains the serial numbers (not CD keys) of all licenses maintained by Zoo 5. This can be useful if you have difficulties in locating all of your product licenses. You can export the serial number and then email them to McNeel, who in turn can look up your misplaced license information.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Grasshopper Training - ITESM - Leon, Mexico


This course is for design professionals who want to efficiently learn concepts and features of Grasshopper at an accelerated pace in an instructor-led hands-on environment. This workshop will provide students a functional understanding of Grasshopper concepts, necessary to obtain effective algorithmic and computational knowledge to model parametric 3D shapes for design studies and concept development. Participants should have basic knowledge of Rhino 5.  

  • Date: March 6,7,8, 2014
  • Time: 8:30 am - 4:00 pm 
  • Place: ITESM - León, a certified RhinoFabStudio
  • Instructor: Andrés Gonzalez worldwide RhinoFabStudio Director

For more information, please contact: 
Iliana Gutiérrez Hernández - Coordinadora de Líderes Académicos - ITESM Campus León - Tel: 7109000 Ext-3004


What is a RhinoFabStudio? 

A RhinoFabStudio™ (fabrication studio) is a small-scale digital workshop, certified by McNeel, with an array of Rhino and Rhino compatible software and computer controlled tools and training. These tools cover the various leading-edge industrial methods and materials needed to design, analyze, and fabricate almost anything.


Monday, February 24, 2014

Rhino and Grasshopper workshops in Lebanon


February 28 - March 2, 2014
Suite 101, Verdun Twins
Beirut, Lebanon

The Rhino Level 1 course organized by Built by Associative Data Research in Beirut is aimed at professionals, educators, and student architects, engineers, and designers who are interested in enhancing their creative capabilities, while at the same time increasing efficiency.

This introductory course will acquaint the participant with Rhino's surface modeling capabilities, model visualization, model data extraction, model translation from other CAD packages, and a variety of other crucial strategies for effective workflows.  The course is particularly geared towards exposing Rhino’s capabilities in a production environment, where data fidelity, model translation, and output precision are involved.  

Instructor: Luis E. Fraguada - Director of Research Built by Associative Data, Authorized Rhino Trainer


Parametric Design with Grasshopper - Level 1
March 5-8, 2014
Suite 101, Verdun Twins
Beirut, Lebanon

The workshop on Applied Parametric Design serves as an introduction and immersion into the world of associative design with McNeel’s Rhino and Grasshopper software.  Rhino is an advanced NURBS modeler where we will learn about precision modeling, project workflow, and organization. Grasshopper is an associative modeling plug-in for Rhino that allows us to parametrically define the logic of our model to explore variations and optimized solutions. These two tools are a powerful combination for any architect, designer, engineer, professional, or student interested in exploring how parametric design can benefit their workflow.

Instructor: Luis E. Fraguada - Director of Research Built by Associative Data, Authorized Rhino Trainer

Saturday, February 22, 2014

RhinoBIM beta 3.27.130 is now available

 RhinoBIM beta 3.27.130 includes:

  • Added new Australian database
  • Added new Z shape type profiles
  • Fixed bug selecting objects using stretch mode
  • Fixed Rotate button disappears
  • Fixed rotate real time only allowed 90 degrees
  • IFC plug-in updated to latest IFC revision
Learn more...

Friday, February 21, 2014

Design for Manufacturing Summit #5


DESIGN FOR MANUFACTURING SUMMIT #5
Creating a leaner decentralized manufacturing ecosystem
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Dumbo*, New York

Design for Manufacturing Summit #5 will cover distributed manufacturing, Design for Cost, the product development process from concept to manufacturing and the latest in creative industrial design. The semi-annual Design for Manufacturing Summit brings together the thought leaders in the digital manufacturing revolution; industrial designers, engineers, manufacturers, and digital entrepreneurs.

Register now and save 50% with 'DFM'.

*Dumbo, an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn

Friday, February 14, 2014

Rhino-DAY - Guadalajara, Mexico




 Rhino-DAY Workshops and Lectures, April 2-5 
Tec de Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mexico - Campus
   
RhinoFabStudio and  Tecnológico de Monterrey-Guadalajara will host two days of workshops + two days of lectures on April 2-5, 2014.

Presenters will talk about their professional fields and how they use 3D modeling and design in real-life projects -- from jewelry to product design, furniture, and architecture. Join us and discover the principles of designing interactivity. Learn how to rationalize complex geometry into a format suitable for analysis and fabrication. Or discern validated environmental simulations directly to the conceptual design environments in Rhino and Grasshopper.

Important: 

Take advantage of these incredible prices!!!.  
You can register for any of the workshops or lectures by clicking here 



Rhino used in extremes: both old and new architecture


Next door to the Fulton Transit Center, a contemporary design using Rhino and Grasshopper, is the historic 124 year-old Corbin building.  A new entrance to the Corbin building and street-level access to the subway is part of this Metropolitan Transit Authority project in New York. Another Rhino client, Boston Valley Terra Cotta is fabricating the terra cotta replacement parts on the historic building.

The Corbin building restoration was given an 2013 Award of Merit in Adaptive Reuse and Historic Preservation by the New York AIA.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

AA Visiting School Los Angeles, June 16-27


AA Visiting School Los Angeles
June 16-27, 2014

The AA Visiting School Los Angeles is now accepting applications! Registration is open to students and professionals alike, who are interested in participating in a 10 day design charrette focused on exploring the legacy of experimental housing in LA through the lens of contemporary design methodologies.

Expect to explore computational design strategies, implement digital fabrication processes, work with a global network of like-minded designers, researchers, and educators, and experience the iconic legacy of LA's mid-century modernist homes.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

RhinoGold & 3D Printing in Miami


Join CAD BLU at one of their upcoming RhinoGold+Solidscape seminars in Miami. They will present two group sessions on how you can use jewelry design software and a 3D wax printer to grow your business.

Date: Wednesday, February 19
Choose from Morning or Afternoon session:
     Morning:    9:30AM - 11:30AM
     Afternoon:  1:00PM - 3:00PM

Location: Hyatt Regency Miami
   400 SE 2nd Ave, Miami, FL 33131

Note, each two-hour session will cover the same material. Reserve the time slot that works best for you.

Intermediate Grasshopper class starts next week


Intermediate Grasshopper - Online Training
February 18-21
9 am-1 pm Pacific Time
US$215 per person

Join instructor Andres Gonzalez as he explores the intermediate concepts of generative modeling in Rhino 5 using the Grasshopper add-on. He will apply these concepts to Grasshopper intermediate design and development numerous in numerous real-life examples with you.

This course is for design professionals who are looking to efficiently learn concepts and features of Grasshopper at an accelerated pace in an instructor-led online environment. This course requires Intro to Grasshopper training or equivalent. More....

Thursday, February 6, 2014

HAL 5 for ABB, KUKA, and Universal Robots


Announcing the release of the new version of the HAL Robot Programming & Control plugin for Grasshopper.

HAL 5
, compatible with Rhino 4 and 5 and 0.9x or above Grasshopper versions, is proposing an extremely versatile set of tools (+600 functionalities, subdivided in 154 components), offering you the possibility to simulate, program and monitor ABB, KUKA, and Universal Robots machines*.

This version is proposing a new highly flexible workflow based on toolpath objects, allowing you to use all the powerful tools that HAL embeds independent from the complex robot process. It is then possible to combine, edit, and organize complex operations on massive amounts of objects with only a few clicks, while keeping a clean and lossless structure of machine movements. These new objects also generate an advanced and customizable representation of the robot process, including the target orientations, approximation zones, interpolation attributes, position names, Digital Output values and channels, mechanical tools simulation and parts manipulation, stocks of material preview, etc.

With HAL 5, it is also possible to optimize the size of your programs by choosing the declaration syntax used in the post-processor in ABB RAPID, KUKA KRL, and Universal Robots URSCRIPT. Advanced programming and IO management functionalities have also been translated in these three languages so you can switch from a language to another by a simple right-click on any component.

In addition to these new global updates, some advanced functionalities have been added or improved for ABB robots: The HAL to ABB Controller component, allowing for program uploading. Realtime control and data streaming have been entirely redesigned to reach a minimal communication latency (approx. 30ms) and have new multithreaded monitoring features to analyze joint positions, TCP position, digital IO values, and program execution in real-time.

As an educational and research-oriented package, HAL 0.05 is extensively documented: right-click on any component to instantly access a selection of comprehensive annotated examples or to start a tutorial search on YouTube.


HAL 5, developed by Thibault Schwartz, is available on food4Rhino and the HAL web site.

Mr.Comfy building performance data visualization


Mr.Comfy is a Grasshopper component, written in Python, for designers to interactively visualize thermal and climate-based daylight building simulation results data in Rhino design models.

Instead of using charts or tabular data, the energy consumption, comfort, and any other available performance report variables are directly displayed through color-coded surfaces (and numeric values) where they occurin the individual spaces of a design. 

Mr.Comfy 0.2 (daylight covisualization) has been recently released. According to Max C Doelling, "Comapping is really the word here, because the new component is not really designed to run on its own and without accompanying thermal input (though you can of course hide the thermal display if you want). This is not really a coding rationale, but the idea behind the new tool is to do things differently from stand-alone daylight mapping aps, since you’re probably using Mr.Comfy to primarily look at thermal data in the first place and might want to see a quick daylight overlay when appropriate. In the 0.2 release, most of the daylight time inputs are therefore slaved to the thermal component inputs, with overrides exposed where appropriate."

"Mr.Comfy basically plays well with DIVA, too, and probably will work with upcoming Honeybee/Ladybug releases, so we're getting a little ecosystem of those kind of tools going here."


Monday, February 3, 2014

4×4 Architecture workshop at Medaarch (Salerno, Italy)


Medaarch (Mediterranean Academy of Architecture) is glad to announce the 4x4 Architecture workshop (Feb 8 - March 9 in Cava de Tirreni, Salerno), dealing with Rhino, Grasshopper, RhinoCAM and 3D printing.


Saturday, February 1, 2014

A subterranean transit maze



In the heart of New York's lower Manhattan the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is now replacing an early 1900s maze of underground pedestrian passages with a light-filled central hub.

The overall work involves several projects: rehabilitation of four existing stations, construction of an underground pedestrian concourse and connections to two other stations, and construction of the main transit center building, the Fulton Transit Center. The Fulton Transit Center's core is organised around a grand civic space, linking 11 subway lines and 6 stations, including those serving the World Trade Center site.

This above ground atrium structure is an artistic, architectural and engineering collaboration between James Carpenter Design Associates and Grimshaw Architects, with Arup as the engineer and facade consultant.

A hyperbolic paraboloid cable net stretches within the cone of this contemporary oculus. The cable net supports an inner skin of perforated metal reflector panels, which bounce daylight throughout the atrium to the deepest levels of the transit center.

Enclos, the curtainwall company, produced a 3D model of the Transit Center's interior cable net system. The model was critical in several aspects. To estimate the cable lengths, they started with the structural drawings, which included a table of 1056 nodal coordinates, each with an X, Y and Z component. They automated the generation of the cable net geometry and extracted accurate cable lengths of the tensioned cable net.

The control points were organized within Microsoft Excel. By developing a custom component within Grasshopper, the Excel spreadsheet coordinates were streamed in to the Rhino model. After verifying the accuracy of the work-point population, these points were used to generate the centerlines for the stainless steel cable members and tension rods which make up the cable net. The values could be changed at any point within the design process and all other tasks were immediately updated.

The Rhino model information was streamed via Grasshopper in to a structural analysis tool's database to check the construction's integrity under prescribed loads.

Because of the varied metal panel geometries and perforations that clad the cable net, accurate fabrication was a potential challenge. So the model was also used to automatically generate the complicated fabrication drawings for the 952 unique rhomboid and triangular perforated metal panels that wrap the net's geometry.