Dear Driving Dimensions forum members and guests!

Recently we launched Driving Dimensions Labs (here is the press release), where a couple of short movies demonstrate (a kind of) bottom-up assembly design and kinematic animation in Rhino.

This is only one of possible parametric applications we can propose to Rhino users. Other ones are:

• 2D sketching with constraints (like in SolidWorks and other CAD);
• direct geometry editing with constraints (like we did in SketchUp);
• parametric features (like in many MCAD).

What else can you suggest? What functionality do you really need?

Dear Dimitry,

From watching the YouTube Rhino/DD demo video's it looks like you are doing a pretty damn good job already!

As I said before, I'm really looking forward to DD's for Mac OS X. Rhino for Mac is going to rock!!

Tom

Thank you for this opinion, Tom.

Recently we announced the availability of our geometric solver for Mac OS X, and now we are porting our SketchUp plugin to Mac. We'll think about Rhino.

First of all I like to say that I really appreciate this effort!

I know that full parametrization of rhino can be a difficult task, but to have an extended and live history per "object" or surface would maybe be possible? A history where you could stack deformers on top of each other and make (slight) modifcations that propagates to the top. If you have used Softimage, Maya or MAX you know what I mean. It´s more like a local undo tree than parametric features. You can make changes but not extreme and not so far from the top. I think that the UDT tools in rhino are great, but almost useless to use cause you can´t revert the effect if you are out of undo´s. Take the cage deformer for instance. How many times have you used it, moved the model ( i.e locked the deformation) and after a while realized that you need to tweak the deformation just a little?! Well it has happen to me a lot of times! That and simple fillets and chamfers would be something to keep "live" and editable.

Another approach is the one that Npower use for their Powernurbs plugin to MAX. They have their own solid and nurbs engine to make the magic happen. I am not saying that you should write your own solids or nurbs engine, but that might will be needed if you plans to go full parametric?!

But "Local live history" or what to call it, would be a very welcome plugin for rhino. a plugin well worth spending my money to buy!

Please let me/us know what you guys are planning to do, and what you think is possible to achive!

Cheers

Dear qwerty,

Thank you for this interesting feedback. Currently we do not have any plans in the direction of history-based modeling. There is a wonderful Grasshopper plugin for Rhino to deal with history. What we are going to do is to allow users to edit their models independently on their history. We call it variational direct modeling, and you can find more details in our whitepaper.

Dmitry, thanks for you reply!

Yes, I am aware of grasshopper, but that more visual programming than modelling to me.
But the whitepapper was very interesting! I will follow this closely and see where it ends. Hopefully it ends with Rhino having wonderful modeling and editing tools!

Cheers

Congratulations for your work

Could you make a video tutorial on moving gear


my email: davidnascimentodasilva@hotmail.com

Thank you for thus feedback, Dolfino!

Currently our plugin cannot simulate moving gear, however we plan to support it in future versions. Here is a screenshot taken from an OpenCASCADE-based application called Legend 3D (see Driving Dimensions Labs) that demonstrates how a gear joint can be modeled with our geometric solver LGS 3D using a white-box equation:
Click to view attachment

Hi,
I know that it's not the main use for this plugin, but could it be possible to save constraints properties for each object in order to have a library, and then drag and drop objects in rhino so that when an object gets near to another one, and two "compatible" constraints are detected, the objects get assembled?
Also, just for curiosity, would you be available to customize the plugin (under payment, of course) for specific uses?
Thanks, bye!

Hello Simone,


Very nice idea, thank you!


What kind of customization do you mean? What do you need for that?

Actually Rhino misses a few features that would make it perfect for who, like us, makes modular products.
Our needs: to make rhino a "configurator", a tool that almost anyone with no experience on 3d sw could use to:
-drag and drop objects to rhino viewports
-combine them in a "kit"
-push a button and get a bill of materials
Actually we paid a developer a few time ago to make a plugin that would spit a .csv counting the selected blocks, so something like
Item : codexxx
No. : 14
Material: silver

Now, a "crippled"/modified version of your plugin, that could work with blocks too, that could get "smarter" in order to make drag and drop easier, imho would sell like bread

Hi Dimitry,

Your plugin will change the way users work will Rhino at a very basic level. This is an amazing achievement.

The big missing ingridient in Rhino is a history mode, which is common in the animation and MCAD world.

Grasshopper needs to be able to make associative links to Rhino elements driven by DD. Will you make this possible?

What about the elements in a LEDAS assembly? Will LEDAS provide the necessary interface?

Interoperability is really a big productivity issue. It would be a shame if Rhino users had to deal with AutoCAD 13 style zombie problems again.

Simone,

Thank you for this clear description. Now we are working on new possibilities of kinematic analysis and technical illustrations, but later we will think how can we combine your proposition with our own ideas.

dseah,

Grasshopper is not available as a commercial product yet. When it will, we can think what we can do.

This is really cool plugin, my wish list is function like solidworks, when i add concentricity, i would like test only with mouse, it is not very comfortable make always animation only for testing

I would like some function, that would allow "movement along curve". All the movement now present in this plug-in is archieved by axis only. So it is not possible to make moveable a track of a dozer. Other thing that might help would be some possibility to make a winch - kind of winding/unwinding of a rope or so...

If you mean RhinoAssembly, there is the possibility to move objects with mouse to test how constraints correct the trajectories.
In future, similar possibility will be available in RhinoDirect.

Thank you jbb - this function is already in our todo list.


An interesting suggestion! We have to think on it...

Perfect - the movement along the curve would help me a lot... As a sequel to the upgrades policy - do you think we can get such a function for free, as a holder of 1.0 licence? Or would we have tu upgrade, albeit for a lower price?

Yes I mean RhinoAssembly, but if i test trajectories with move it's working, but not with rotate. For example gear which is rotated only with mouse.

We are going to follow the general RMA upgrade policy: free service packs and 40..60% discount for upgrading a commercial single-user license.

When you finish the _Rotate command, your assembly will be updated automatically according to new position of your part.
But probably you want to see other parts moved when _Rotate command is still in action? We are calling this mode "move under constraints", and we will start it to work on it soon (probably with our own implementation of translation and rotation commands).

BTW, you can animate the movement of a track of a dozer with RhinoDirect 0.1. Please watch the following video:



We can share the model, if you need.

Hi, if you could send me the model (you should have my e-mail in the system of this forum) I would appreciate it a lot! It seems to be working, indeed!
Now a new task I have set myself to. I have successfully animated a dozer slate on a Tatra truck:

What I would realy need is some kind of possibility to model pipes or hoses - as in reality, the dozer slate is connected to the frame by hoses, which have to move... Might be interesting in next versions of RhinoAssembly!

I've just sent it to you.


My congratulation! And thank you for sharing the nice video!


We are now working on supporting Rhino history in RhinoAssembly. The pipe is a derived object built on top of a 3D curve. So if RhinoAseembly will be able to manage the position of the curve, the pipe will be updated automatically. You can see similar ideas implemented in RhinoDirect 0.2 plug-in:


However, there is a simpler way to model things like hoses - just use a sequence of partially interpenetrated spheres with distance constraints between them. You can easily repeat it in Rhino Assembly 1.0 (again, I can share the model, if you need):