Modeling a Ski Cabin

Get started using Rhinoceros 7 for Windows for architectural modeling with our most recent project-based tutorial on modeling a Ski Cabin. 

• Introduction and Basics: start to 57 minutes
• Modeling the Cabin: 57 minutes to end.
• Download the Rhino 7 3DM files used in this tutorial. 
• See the Rhino 7 for Mac version of this tutorial here.

See additional tutorials for Rhino in Architecture here.

Questions? Please email Mary Ann Fugier, McNeel Tech Support and Training.

Lands Design 5.6 released! 8000 plant species and IFC support

Lands Design 5.6 version is now available to download! This new release includes two major features: 

• A fully upgraded and extensive Plant Database: It now contains more than 8000 species with botanical information and various displays. There are many improvements and modifications in the database core structure. 
• IFC Support: This new feature enhances your BIM workflow by exporting landscape models to IFC. Therefore, it enables you to open your Lands Design model and recognize its parameters in other BIM programs. More details.

Download Lands Design 5.6 here. 

Find out more details about this new version...

Partnership offer at Saxion's Industrial Design research group

Saxion's Industrial Design research group offers companies knowledge and practice-oriented research for the development of innovative products and services:

"At Saxion Lectoraat Industrial Design we are looking for potential partners who want to work together with the MST and us in a research project on the parametric design of personal medical products. 

We are looking for partners who have knowledge in the field of parametric design and want to contribute this knowledge to take our care to a higher level. The question we ask ourselves is "How can a parametric model contain all the necessary information to easily create patient-related devices?". 

If you are interested or have any questions, please get in touch with project leader and researcher Wouter Weijermars (w.w.weijermars@saxion.nl).

PAZ-BSS-Archicad-Grasshopper

PAZ-BSS-Archicad-Grasshopper
PAZ Academy (Parametric Academy Zurich)

PAZ's Building System Specialist Programme is a way of life. During five intense months, you'll be absorbing knowledge from experts and learning a new parametric BIM working methodology using Archicad and Grasshopper. Later on, and as part of PAZ NET, you will have the opportunity to continue growing as a professional, developing your own business, or starting a new office department as the main BSS hero.

During the whole programme, you'll be supported by their team, because private mentorship is the most powerful way to secure your future, solve any problem, and design what you currently can't imagine as possible.

Start today with Part I - Hello

Introduction to Rendering with V-Ray for Rhino 7 course in English

 

We invite you to register for our new Introduction to Rendering with V-Ray for Rhino 7 course in English by Valeria Palacio. The Spanish version was launched a few weeks back. Check them both out here!

V-Ray is a tool that lets you create high-quality renderings with the option of creating and editing materials, lights, and geometries. This course is for designers who want to see their ideas come to life. In this introductory course, the user will learn the V-Ray interface and approach complex renderings, exploring this tool's various possibilities in product and space rendering.

Register now and give your models a realistic appearance!

Plus: Upon completion, you will receive a certificate of attendance.

Get started today!

Rhino3D.Education offers online courses in Rhino, Grasshopper, Computational Design, GhPython, PanelingTools, RhinoCAM, V-Ray, and more!

Check out Rhino3D.Education for the latest courses on Rhino, Grasshopper, and more!

PAZ-BSS-Rhino.Inside.Revit

PAZ-BSS-Rhino.Inside.Revit

PAZ Academy (Parametric Academy Zurich)

PAZ's Building System Specialist Programme is a way of life. During five intense months, you'll be absorbing knowledge from experts and learning a new parametric BIM working methodology using Rhino.Inside.Revit. Later on, and as part of PAZ NET, you will have the opportunity to continue growing as a professional, developing your own business, or starting a new office department as the main BSS hero.

During the whole programme, you'll be supported by their team. Private mentorship is the most powerful way to secure your future, solve any problem, and design what you currently can't imagine as possible.

Start with Part I - Hello...

Parametric Design Webinar

Parametric Design Webinar

January 2022

Are you interested in gaining parametric competency to push your design skills to the next level? Are you ready to learn a very exciting and powerful tool that will take your ideas and concepts to a whole new realm?

This Parametric Design Webinar will provide you with the necessary knowledge and ability to use Grasshopper, a free visual programming plugin in Rhinoceros.

If you already know Grasshopper and would like to uplift your parametric knowledge, you can choose Option 2.

• Option 1: General Webinar for Beginners - 8 Days / 16 hours in total: Start 17.01.2022
• Option 2: Intensive Webinar for Intermediates - 4 Days / 8 hours in total: Start 27.01.2022

Timezone: CET / Berlin Germany Time

Language: English

Participants receive a certificate of participation at the end of the webinar.

More information and registration...

Seanaptic - ANSYS Interface now available

Seanaptic is a plugin for Rhino that allows naval architects to model parametric ship structures with extreme efficiency.

The release of Seanaptic 7, now compatible with Rhino 7, has achieved a significant milestone by implementating the interfacing with ANSYS Mechanical and SpaceClaim. Full geometries of naval structures can now be directly exported to ANSYS for finite element analysis. Seanaptic pre-processes the geometry to ensure connected meshes of incredible quality while complete structural parameters of plates and beams are transferred directly to the FEA model, obtaining efficiencies never seen before.

What usually took weeks or even months can now be achieved in days or even hours. This golden bundle of Rhino, Seanaptic, and ANSYS will render traditional FEA pre-processing obsolete!

Request a trial on food4Rhino...

Exceeding clients expectations with digital tools - Australian Institute of Architects 2021 Report

The Australia Institute of Architects BIM and Beyond 2021 annual report highlights a shift from BIM as Objects to automating workflows that deliver better outcomes for clients. There is a lot of good information in this report, including the Design: From Object to Process article on page 24 by Daniel Guiffre, Tristan Morgan, and Andrei Smolik. New digital methods are tested on real-world projects using Rhino and Grasshopper to explore more efficient project delivery.

Rhino3D.Education - Holiday Bundles

 

Rhino3D.Education is offering Holiday Bundles this season! Take your Rhino training to the next level with our online bundled courses.

Rhino3D.Education offers online courses in Rhino, Grasshopper, computational design, GhPython, PanelingTools, RhinoCAM, V-Ray, and more! For the holidays, we've created these Bundles which consist of a group of courses on specific topics packaged together and offer a flexible and cost-effective solution. 

With our bundles, you save +50%. 

Our Holiday Bundles are:

Bundle #1 For Coders and Computational Designers

Bundle #2 For 3D Modeling, Organic Shapes, and Rendering

Bundle #3 For Fabricators 

Bundle #4 For 3D Space Modeling and Rendering

These Bundles are also offered in Spanish! 

Offer valid until January 7, 2021.

After purchase, you will have access to the courses of the bundle you picked for one whole year.

Questions? Contact Lucia Miguel at lucia@mcneel.com

Check out Rhino3D.Education for the latest courses on Rhino, Grasshopper, and more!

VisualARQ BIM Design Student Contest 2022

Asuni is pleased to announce the second edition of the VisualARQ BIM Design student Contest.

This contest seeks to recognize emerging talent in AEC students. The competition is open to any student enrolled in an academic program (during the 2021–2022 academic year) associated with the AEC industry.

Competition entries will take advantage of VisualARQ tools to create innovative design spaces with no scale or project typology constraints.

The submission deadline is on 1st March 2022.

Winner projects will be awarded Rhino, VisualARQ, and Lands Design educational licenses.

Complete details...

Getting to know... Indimise: 3D Printed Phone Cases!

3D printing has made it possible for anyone to design and create customized products with great ease and efficiency. And with the flexibility of Grasshopper and cloud applications like ShapeDiver, businesses of all sizes can now offer the possibility for non-technical users to get creative and design their own 3D printed products.

A great example is Indimise, a German company that allows anyone worldwide to 3D print their own smartphone case without the need for any technical experience, special CAD design software, or their 3D printer. 

In this interview, Sebastian Flügel, CEO and founder of Indimise, talks to ShapeDiver and gives us a glimpse into his company and story.

Read the complete interview and try their configurator...

Skopelab launches audio-reactive Christmas trees

Skopelab, specialists in Audio-Reactive Computational Design, is growing Christmas trees that move to the sound of seasonal greetings. Developed within Rhino and Grasshopper, the home-grown algorithm allows fine control of tree movement, bauble size, color, and color gradient effects.

At www.dancingwishes.com, clients can upload video, text and logos through a simple process, which are then integrated into the tree design. A unique webpage is then created for each client, accessed by link or by scanning the QR code at the tree base.

Designed for both individuals to share their wishes with friends and family or for businesses to send their seasonal greetings to clients in an innovative way.

Enjoy!

Crypto Cities V1.0 Webinar by DesignMorphine

Crypto Cities V1.0 Webinar
February 5th, 2022

Crypto Cities V1.0 will explore generative drawing practices over one hundred years. From early conceptual art of the mid-20th century minimalists to today's generative art movement enabled by NFTs on the blockchain, the use of algorithms to produce drawings is fertile ground for architects and designers. While many popular BIM platforms automate drawings, they do so with an eye towards production, not creativity. 

This webinar will focus on conceptual drawings made visible through automation. As a demonstration, drawings of fictional cities will be developed and then minted on the blockchain. Using Grasshopper as the primary tool, this webinar will take attendees through creating generative sketches of fictional urban developments. These sketches will be refined through various prebuilt component groups provided during the workshop. The webinar will detail how to use plugins such as Human to automate layer and attribute creation and baking to Rhino. The drawings will be further refined in Illustrator before being minted on an NFT marketplace. Attendees will learn various techniques within Grasshopper related to drawing output and managing complex files, as well as how the basics of minting artwork on the blockchain. 

Details and registration...

Rhino to Twinmotion Video tutorial – An Introduction to Twinmotion Materials, Characters and Vegetation

SimplyRhino UK has been kind enough to share a new video tutorial on how to transfer your Rhino models and scenes to Twinmotion and apply materials, characters and vegetation.

Watch the full video tutorial here...

"Grasshopper Explained Series" video tutorials by White Lioness Technologies

White Lioness Technologies, as long-time fans of Rhino and Grasshopper, and developers of Packhunt.io (a cloud-native parametric platform and marketplace for digital services), are sharing their knowledge with the community through a series of video tutorials: Grasshopper Explained Series.

Enscape 3.2 offers dynamic real-time visualization and streamlined workflow with Rhino

Enscape, a leading provider of real-time visualization, 3D rendering, and virtual reality technology for the global AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) industry, recently released version 3.2. This latest update includes many new features that help architects and designers worldwide to transform Rhino models into immersive real-time 3D experiences, creating more vivid real-time visualizations and streamlining workflow.

Enscape 3.2 New Features

• Dynamic asset placement
  
  Users can select, place, and edit assets from the Asset Libraries into their designs via the Enscape rendering window. The Rhino model instantly reflects everything added to the rendering, offering a two-way asset placement. Users can rotate, scale, and delete an asset, and all changes will sync back to the project. Multi-asset placement is also now available to quickly populate scenes with assets such as trees, cars, and people, directly inside Enscape.
  
  
• Green building assets and materials
  
  Over 250 new assets, including 150 green building assets like wind turbines and solar panels, have been added, in addition to new materials such as organic bricks, recycled plastic, hay plastic, solar modules, solar roof tiles, and more.
  
  
• New materials and people assets
  
  
• Batch rendering of panoramas
  
  
• Panorama tours
  
  
• Upload management overhaul
  
  
• Ray-traced sun shadows in the real-time view
  
  
• Windows 11 support

Read more about Enscape 3.2...

Request a free student and educator license...

Try Enscape for free...

New landscape design plugin: Land Kit

LANDAU Design + Technology recently launched Land Kit,  a new Grasshopper plugin. It is beneficial for landscape design, but many applications exist for architects, ecologists, pattern makers, and more. 

Land Kit's customs tools make landscape design more efficient and intuitive while solving some of the trickier problems presented when using computational tools to design landscapes in 3D. 

Not only can it save time with a particular design, drafting, or modeling process, but it provides a platform to build your specific workflows. 

Land Kit is composed of three component libraries:

• Plant Kit is a powerful platform to make planting design more manageable and site-specific. Use analysis, data, and placement rules to guide the placement of individual plants while you focus on the big picture of the planting design and layout. By defining environments, areas, plants, and rules, Plant Kit help keep track of the complexity, helping to layout and visualize your planting design for output to CAD, Revit, or rendering in Rhino, Lumion, or Enscape.
• Use Topo Kit to create and change topographic features in the landscape. You can avoid the sticky problem of relying on elevated contours to generate and revise models. Design directly in 3D with the features that drive topography: walls, curbs, stairs, paths, spots, and maybe a contour or two. Analyze slope, elevation, or cut contours during the design process.
• Use the Paving Kit toolset to define simple paving zones with shapes. Add standard or custom patterns with paver dimensions and let Paving Kit draft repeat patterns, seams, coloration, and edge trimming. 

Download and begin using all of Land Kit's free core features. And check out the online learning resource CAMPUS.

Land Kit (Windows only): Now on food4Rhino...

Intro to Grasshopper - January 24-27, 2022 online

Join McNeel instructor Andres Gonzalez for a live and in-depth introduction to the Grasshopper visual programming tool in Rhinoceros 7. 

In this workshop, you will learn the basics of Grasshopper and push your skills to an intermediate level in just four days. The last 30 minutes of class will be reserved for live Q&A.

When: January 24-27, 2022, Monday-Thursday
Time: 9:00 AM-12:30 PM PST
Where: Online Classroom

Register here.

- Each class session will be recorded for your review and study.
- Grasshopper definitions are available for immediate download.
- Troubleshoot your classwork live with the instructor.
- An Intermediate Grasshopper online course will be offered in March.
- Instructor will be using Rhino 7 for Windows. Rhino 7 for Mac is ok to use.

Questions? Email Mary Ann Fugier, mary@mcneel.com

"Bridging the gap between Digital Fabrication and the Design and Construction Industry" webinar by Māk Studio

 

Join Rhino3D.Education in a free live webinar, Bridging the gap between Digital Fabrication and the Design and Construction Industry, by Jose Aguilar from Māk Studio. 

Register here!

Jose Aguilar is a licensed architect and an expert in digital fabrication with over 15 years of experience in the design and construction industry. He and his partner, Liz Cordill, began Māk Studio when they noticed that traditional construction fabrication is not able to produce parametric designs on a budget. To bring designers' innovative visions to life, Māk Studio was born in 2014. Since then, Māk has grown to a large team of makers comprised of architects, interior designers, industrial designers, and master carpenters.

Join Jose Aguilar in this webinar, where he will go over how they apply Rhino and Grasshopper to streamline their design-to-production process. From real-time visualization and approval processes via cloud applications to CAD and CAM functionality to operate robotic manufacturing, their utilization of Rhino helps them rapidly advance fabrication processes in the design and construction industry.

When? Tuesday, December 7, 2021

Time? 11:00 am (EST) - Miami time zone
Where? Online live-stream via Zoom

Free with prior registration
The webinar will be held in English

Register now! 
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

In case you can't make it, we keep recordings of our webinars so that you can replay or watch on your own time!

Watch Rhino3D.Education's whole collection of free podcasts and webinars here. 

Questions? Contact Jose Aguilar at jose@makstudio.us

Check out Rhino3D.Education for the latest courses on Rhino, Grasshopper, and more!

New Grasshopper Component in Tekla with Rhino.Inside technology

The new Grasshopper Component in Tekla Structures uses the Rhino.Inside technology. This brings Tekla users the benefit of visual scripting in Grasshopper without each Tekla user needing to be exposed to the visual script itself. Furthermore, this provides developers a powerful new way of creating logic for custom components in Tekla using visual scripting.

Tekla's custom component is an intelligent object type in Tekla Structures that can be used for connections, reinforcement and other details as well as for larger parametric objects like sandwich walls or staircases.

Until now, new custom component types have been created by anyone using the Tekla Open API or using the custom component editor within Tekla. Now, new custom components can also be created with Grasshopper. The logic is provided by any Grasshopper definition that then creates objects in Tekla Structures.

The benefit for the Tekla user is that using the new Grasshopper Component they do not need to know visual scripting to use a Grasshopper definition. For the custom component developer, creating component logic with Grasshopper can be more straightforward especially when it comes to geometry.

Complete details...

Download the Grasshopper Component for Tekla Structures...

PDX-GH: Rhino.Inside.Revit - December 9 (online event)

Portland Grasshopper User Group: Rhino.Inside.Revit Meetup 

Thursday, December 9, 2021 - 5:00 PM PST (online event)

Join the Portland Grasshopper User Group on December 9th for an introduction to using Rhino.Inside.Revit with Ehsan Iran Nejad. 

This event will look at the interface between Revit and Rhino. All experience levels of Revit, Rhino, Grasshopper are encouraged to attend. Just curious about BIM or computational design? This is a great place to start!

Details and registration...

Free Rhino7 Webinar (Turkish)

Free Rhino 7 Webinar in Turkish

December 9, 2021 at 19:00 (TSI) / 17:00 (CET)

In this RhinoCenter / McNeel Europe joint webinar, CAT Tasarım owner and teacher Can Aysan present Rhino 7's new tools and workflows, and will talk about the different industries in Turkey using Rhino.

The webinar will start with a short presentation done by Carla Sologuren from McNeel Europe. Then, Mustafa Dülger, founder of RhinoCenter, will talk about the activities and plans for the next year. We will continue with Can Aysan's demonstration, and we'll close with a live Q&A.

We invite you to set a reminder and join our webinar to learn more about the most significant upgrade in McNeel's history. Don't miss the chance to ask any questions!

Information in Turkish and link to join...

TOMKOD publishes a whole range of Rhino plugins

Developed with the user experience and simplicity in mind, TomKod released a range of tools to address the engineers' expressed needs. At a few dozen euros, the investment is cost-effective starting from the first use.

Following is the list of TomKod plugins currently available:

 

   Attribute Analysis - Get a 3D model's attribute analysis and stats

Draw UserTexts - Draw attribute values as text, with consistent positioning

Rhino Beam Tools - Export data to beam calculation software (Finite Element Method) BV STEEL® and RDM7®

Marine Weight Schedule - Compute a project's Bill Of Masses and Bill Of Materials

Selection Tools - Object selection tools

Tables - Create/Edit tables and import from Excel Spreadsheets

New features are still released regularly via updates or new products based on expressed needs.

The plugins are also downloadable from Rhino’s package manager.

Details...

 YouTube channel.... 

Re-Emerge Pavilion, a collaboration between AA [EmTech] and Hassell

Photography: Studio NAARO

Architectural Association (AA) Emergent Technologies & Design (EmTech) Post-Graduate Programme and Hassell in London have collaborated to create a new pavilion in Bedford Square.

EmTech Post-Graduate Programme at the Architectural Association has a long history in designing and creating structures and pavilions. This year’s pavilion is titled Re-Emerge and is the first time since the pandemic that the students could closely work together, fabricate and assemble a full-scale structure.

For this collaboration, Hassell gave the students the challenge to keep the project's carbon footprint to an absolute minimum and therefore only use reclaimed timber.

Xavier De Kestelier, Head of Design at Hassell, said, “The students really took on the challenge with both hands and decided early on to build the pavilion out of timber from reclaimed wooden pallets.”

The Re-Emerge pavilion explores new design and construction technologies that repurpose materials that have completed their first life cycle towards innovative structural formations. The project addresses themes of generative design, material computation, large-scale fabrication and assembly technologies, emphasizing the pavilion's ecological impact from the early phases of the design process onwards.

Re-emerge revives the tradition of building on Bedford Square as a collaboration between an academic programme at the AA and partners from the world of practice to test ideas at scale and imagine new possibilities.

Dr. Elif Erdine, Director of the EmTech Program, said, "This collaboration with Hassell demonstrates a successful illustration of how academia and practice can come together to discover novel solutions to complex spatial and material problems. With the support of our other sponsors, BuroHappold Engineering and One Click LCA, EmTech and Hassell explored new design and construction technologies for repurposing timber."

She added, "As designers, architects, and engineers, we share the responsibility to maintain a mindful approach towards our environment while designing and building. Our mutual insight into how construction waste can be a useful resource has originated this research into repurposing timber for an outdoor structure that is lightweight, emphasizing the project’s ecological impact from the early phases of the design process."

Complete details about the Re-Emerge Pavilion...

The EMTECH (Emergent Technologies and Design Programme) is a post-professional graduate degree at the Architectural Association open to graduates in architecture and engineering who wish to develop skills and pursue knowledge in architectural design science located in new production paradigms. EMTECH investigates new synergies of architecture and ecology through the critical intersection of computational design and fabrication. 

EMTECH Graduate programme 2022-23 registration now open...

ShapeDiver Open Beta Invitation

ShapeDiver's new platform is (almost) ready! 

In collaboration with the CORE team, they've developed a major update to their infrastructure to support lots of new features and improve the performance and flexibility of the data flow through their servers.

You can now take part, explore some new features and give ShapeDiver your feedback, comments, and bug reports ahead of the public release.

Complete details about the new platform...

Introduction to V-Ray for Rhino 7 Online Course

Rhino3D.Education offers online courses in Rhino, Grasshopper, Computational Design, GhPython, PanelingTools, RhinoCAM, V-Ray, and more!

We invite you to register for our new Introduction to Rendering with V-Ray for Rhino 7 course in Spanish by Valeria Palacio and also for the Work In Process (WIP) English version, which will be available by the end of the year, but you can get an early start now!

V-Ray is a tool that lets you create high-quality renderings with the option of creating and editing materials, lights, and geometries. This course is for designers who want to see their ideas come to life. In this introductory course, the user will learn the V-Ray interface and approach complex renderings, exploring this tool's various possibilities in product and space rendering.

Register now and give your models a realistic appearance!

Plus: Upon completion, you will receive a certificate of attendance.

Get started today!

Check out Rhino3D.Education for the latest courses on Rhino, Grasshopper, and more!

food4Rhino webinar: Designing Jewelry with 2Shapes for Rhino

food4Rhino webinar: Designing Jewelry with 2Shapes for Rhino

November 30, 2021, at 5 PM CET

In this webinar you will learn the most exciting tools of 2Shapes for Rhino applied to authentic designs. In addition, you will uncover the new additions to 2Shapes for Rhino 2.0 and what new tools are coming in the following versions.

This webinar is an excellent opportunity for all professionals in the jewelry industry looking for the best tools for jewelry design. Some of the most interested may include jewelry designers, jewelry store owners, jewelry manufacturers, jewelry students.

Speaker: Rafael del Molino is an Experienced Chief Executive Officer with more than 15 years of experience in the jewelry sector and more than 25 years as a computer software developer. He has designed and created products such as RhinoGold or Clayoo. Passionate about helping jewelry business leaders to grow their business and boost their sales with 2Shapes.

2Shapes for Rhino download on food4Rhino... 

Add the webinar to your calendar and watch it live on YouTube...

Black Friday at Rhino3D.Education

This Black Friday, we are offering something BIG at Rhino3D.Education!

Rhino3D.Education offers online courses in Rhino, Grasshopper, Computational Design, GhPython, PanelingTools, RhinoCAM, V-Ray, and more!

This Black Friday, we are offering ALL of our courses found at Rhino3D.Education, including all English and all Spanish courses, for only $79.95.

Check out the entire list of courses here! Don't miss out on these never-before-seen prices. Purchase the Black Friday Bundle now, and enjoy it for one whole year.

Offer valid from November 19-December 6, 2021.

After purchase, you will have access to ALL our courses for one whole year.

Questions? Contact Lucia Miguel at lucia@mcneel.com

Check out Rhino3D.Education for the latest courses on Rhino, Grasshopper, and more!

AKTII presentation on Rhino.Inside Revit now available!

In case you missed the recent Rhino UK User Meeting with a focus on Rhino.Inside.Revit, you can now watch the recorded presentations by AKTII and by McNeel here.

Enjoy!

Play Structures Workshop in Sao Paulo

The AA Visiting School Sao Paulo 2021 – Play Structures will be the first of a two-part workshop series, led by architect and Professor Kristof Crolla, conducted in a hybrid online-physical format. 

Join him in this workshop where he will explore the combination of bamboo construction and digital design technology, building upon previous research into digital design used to implement bending-active bamboo shell structures.

As part of our Rhino3D.Education Podcasts and Webinar, we recently had a webinar talking about their upcoming workshop. View the recording here!

After initial basic training in Parametric Modeling in Grasshopper, students will be introduced to digital tools for physical behavior simulation (Kangaroo 2) and procedural structural analysis (Karamba) to obtain structurally optimized forms and equilibrium surfaces that can be analyzed for their structural properties.

Location: Hybrid online-Physical format, Sao Paulo
Date: December 11-17, 2021

Fee: £510

For additional information, visit this link.

Apply here!

Questions? Contact Camila Calegari at camila@subdv.com

Check out Rhino3D.Education for the latest courses on Rhino, Grasshopper, and more!

Parametric Design Webinar

Parametric Design Webinar
December 13-16 and 20-23, 2021

Are you interested in gaining Parametric competency to push your design skills to the next level? Are you ready to learn a very exciting and powerful tool that will take your ideas and concepts to a whole new realm?

This Parametric Design Webinar will provide you with the necessary knowledge and ability to use Grasshopper, a free visual programming plugin in Rhinoceros.

If you already know Grasshopper and would like to uplift your parametric knowledge, then you can choose option 2.

• Option 1: General Webinar for Beginners - 8 Days / 16 hours in total. Starts: December 13, 2021
• Option 2: Intensive Webinar for Intermediates - 4 Days / 8 hours in total. Starts: December 20, 2021

Timezone: CET / Berlin Germany Time

Language: English

Participants will receive a certificate of participation at the end of the webinar.

More information and registrations...

Robotic Fabrication with the COMPAS Framework online workshop, December 13-15, 2021 (McNeel Europe)

 

Robotic Fabrication with the COMPAS Framework online workshop

December13-15, 2021, 10 AM-5 PM CET

Tutors: Gonzalo Casas, Romana Rust, Beverly Lytle

Hosted on Zoom by McNeel Europe

Architecture and digital fabrication in the age of robotics require juggling a toolchain spanning very different skills, ranging from the creative aspects of design to the engineering needs of software and hardware development. At ETH Zurich, the NCCR Digital Fabrication lab develops an open-source Python framework, the COMPAS framework, that aims to streamline these workflows, lower the barrier of entry to robotics and enable architects and designers to access state-of-the-art robotics tooling from within the parametric design environment.

In this 3-day workshop, Gonzalo Casas (software engineer), Romana Rust (senior researcher) and Beverly Lytle (software engineer), of the Chair of Architecture and Digital Fabrication at ETH Zurich and members of the COMPAS core development team, will introduce participants to the COMPAS framework, provide an overview of robotics fundamentals and focus on the design and planning of robotic fabrication processes.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Analyze and explain the kinematic structure of a robot model (Links, Joints, Joint Types, URDF description format).
• Describe and discuss building blocks of robotics (forward and inverse kinematics, cartesian and kinematic planning, planning scene).
• Apply building blocks of robotics to plan stereotypical assembly processes (e.g., bricklaying) in a simulation context.
• Design new robotic processes (e.g., spatially assembled linear elements) for digital fabrication based on the building blocks applied in the physical world.

COMPAS FAB is the robotic fabrication package for the COMPAS framework that facilitates the planning and execution of robotic fabrication processes. It provides interfaces to the software libraries and tools available in robotics and makes them accessible from within the parametric design environment. 

Day 1

• Introduction to digital fabrication.
• Overview of COMPAS framework.
• Fundamental concepts of robotics: components of an industrial robot, robot workspace, control modes, robot positioning (cartesian and joint space) and singularities, robot coordinate frames and transformations.
• Description of robot models, the URDF format, visualizing robot models, interop with external model sources. Grasshopper integration. Exercise: build your own robot model.
• Forward Kinematics (in-process and out-process) and Inverse Kinematics (overview of analytic and numerical solvers).

Day 2

• Overview of supported robotic backends.
• ROS: Robot Operating System and the MoveIt! Motion planning framework. ROS communication model: topics, services and actions.
• Path planning: Cartesian and kinematic path planning from Rhino and Grasshopper using MoveIt backend. Defining goal constraints.
• Planning scene manipulation. Dynamic end-effector attachment and detachment.
• Describing assembly processes in code. Basic structure of a pick and place process. Approach frames. Overview of advanced assembly structures: graphs/partial orders/networks.
• Fabrication-aware design: the impact of sequencing in spatial assembly processes.
• Exercise: path planning of a simple assembly structure.

Day 3

• ABB robot control with RRC.
• Comparison of robot control modes: offline, online real-time, online non-real-time control.
• RRC control primitives: blocking, non-blocking, and deferred blocking.
• Overview of RRC instruction set: motion, IO control, custom instructions.
• Remote control exercise with one of the robots of the Robotic Fabrication Lab at ETH Zurich.

Gonzalo Casas is a software engineer at the Chair of Architecture and Digital Fabrication at ETH Zurich. He joined the NCCR Digital Fabrication in 2017 and is a member of the COMPAS core development team.

Romana Rust is a computational architect and a senior researcher at the Chair of Architecture and Digital Fabrication at ETH Zurich and within the Design++ initiative – Center for Augmented Computational Design in AEC. She is also Co-coordinator of the Immersive Design Lab and a member of the COMPAS core development team.

Beverly Lytle is a mathematician turned software engineer working on the COMPAS core development team at the Chair of Architecture and Digital Fabrication at ETH Zurich.

Course requirements
Participants are expected to be familiar with Rhino/Grasshopper and have at least a basic knowledge of python programming.

Online course fees: EUR 395,- (+VAT); full-time students and university teachers get a 50% discount (proof of status required).

Please note, your seat is confirmed after payment has cleared.

Max. number of participants for the course: 25. If there is no quorum, the course will be canceled 15 days before.

Course language: English

Educational seats are limited. Sign up now by contacting McNeel Europe!