Tuesday 1 December 2009

Weaire-Phelan intersecting a surface



I responded to a request for help on the Grasshopper forum with regards to generating Weire-Phelan polygons intersecting with a surface. I've recorded the screen capture below showing the difference as you halve the size of the polygons which I think is quite interesting. If you wish to try for yourself, the Rhino file can also be downloaded below, could be interesting to see how other shapes look (and to generate the intersecting curves using the command in the BullAnt plug-in)


Associated Rhino File

11 comments:

  1. Hello,

    We are two students, and we take close
    interest in the Weaire-Phelan structure. We hoped we could solicit your help. We
    are indeed trying to simulate the Weaire Phelan and the Kelvin structure on the
    Solidworks software. Could you please indicate us the angles at each vertex (in the corners of the faces), and the "dihedral" angle that two faces make along an edge for the W-P
    tetrakaidecahedron and irregular dodecahedron ? Thank you for your help.
    Cheers
    Marion Gavoille and Soukayna M'Sirdi

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  2. Hi Marion,

    I don't know Solidworks too well, but if you tell what format you can read (ie dwg,dxf,igs) I can try exporting the basic shapes and emailing them to you. Else I used the vertex coordinates as defined here for mine : http://www.steelpillow.com/polyhedra/wp/wp.htm

    Cheers, Jon

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  3. Hi There,

    Hope you are having nice week.

    I saw the weaire phelan tutorial and i realized that when you use the grasshopper script it just follows the cylinder object, is there any way to fill in the cylinder object or a sphere...

    Thank you

    Alina

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    Replies
    1. Hi Alina,

      The grasshopper tessellation component has a breps input to define the boundary of user defined shape, and then a tessellation type input further down to determine if you use a bounding box, intersection test or enclosure (to fill) the targets. Right click on the input to access this.

      Cheers,

      Jon

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    2. Hi Jon,

      Its Alina again, ok so when I open the 100903 weaire phelan in grasshopper... i have to components "curve" with a dialogue box that failed to load something and then i have a component that is called "pipe" does that seem normal only two compents... should i replace the "pipe" component with a sphere?

      or did the definition not open correctly....

      thank you again!!!!!!

      Alina

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    3. Jon, is there anyway I can send you screenshots of my work space or dialogue boxes...

      thank you :)

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  4. thank you!!!! this was really helpful :))))

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  5. hello Jon.
    I downloaded BullAnt and I can't find the Weaire Phelan command on it, Help please?
    Thanks

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    Replies
    1. Jon has moved on to better things, aren't you late to the party?

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    2. Certainly I haven't actively been developing BullAnt, but I haven't abandoned it. Commands might have changed a little (sometimes only they prefix). Try ggPackPolygons and it should work. Cheers, Jon

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    3. Thanks for your reply Jon! Anyway I can email you more info on what I need to do and you could help ke out a little? It’s the first time I use grasshopper, I need to create a bunch of different variations of pavilions using weaire phelan.

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