Parametric design
About Rhino & Grasshopper and PARAM-O.

Assign random materials to Archicad model

zofa groningen
Contributor
In an Archicad 24 model with a pattern of 3D bricks I want to assign 4 materials spread randomly over the bricks (about 500 bricks, modeled with the wall tool).

Is there a way in Grasshopper to connect (import) a complete AC 3D model and just assign the materials without generating the whole model again in Grasshopper?

I am familiar with connecting AC to GH.
Hans Overdiep • AC 10 - 27 • MacOS 14.3 • IMac 2020 10 Core i9 • 64 GB • 16 GB Radeon Pro 5700 XT
3 REPLIES 3
Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin
You could randomly overwrite the side and edge Surfaces of Walls to achieve this result.
The main problem is that The Archicad-Grasshopper Connection cannot modify elements already existing in Archicad. It can only create new elements.
If this is about 500 elements, I would say it is faster to individually select elements (maybe an Elevation Viewpoint is best to do it in), set the Surface overrides, and achieve the result that way.
Loving Archicad since 1995 - Find Archicad Tips at x.com/laszlonagy
AMD Ryzen9 5900X CPU, 64 GB RAM 3600 MHz, Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, 500 GB NVMe SSD
2x28" (2560x1440), Windows 10 PRO ENG, Ac20-Ac27
zofa groningen
Contributor
I used the "Deconstruct Wall" component to get the curves of the walls in the AC model (they are in Layer A). These curves are the input for the "Wall" design component. In "Settings" component I assigned another layer (Layer B) for the walls and I found a way to spread the 4 materials randomly over the new walls.

This works .... but .... something strange happens ....

The walls from Layer A which I assigned to get the curves are being deleted in AC (only when synchronizing of the "Wall" design component is true). What I am doing wrong?
Hans Overdiep • AC 10 - 27 • MacOS 14.3 • IMac 2020 10 Core i9 • 64 GB • 16 GB Radeon Pro 5700 XT
Laszlo Nagy
Community Admin
Community Admin
Could you post a few screenshots about how it looks in both AC ad GH, the GH network that achieves this?
Loving Archicad since 1995 - Find Archicad Tips at x.com/laszlonagy
AMD Ryzen9 5900X CPU, 64 GB RAM 3600 MHz, Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, 500 GB NVMe SSD
2x28" (2560x1440), Windows 10 PRO ENG, Ac20-Ac27