Tree Trunk Object

[Red]

I'm looking around for an object that would look like the picture I attached. I need for the trunk to flare out at the bottom. I would like to be able to change the diameter to 10", 12", 14", & 16". And it would be nice for the flare to be consistent.

Does anyone here know of an object like this, or is anyone interested in helping me out?

[Dwight]

No offense at all taken.

The topic does bring another thing forward to mind: I think that architects HATE code. I would NEVER go close to GDL if writing it wasn't an exquisite puzzle. You seem to have discovered this in your other work, and the fantastic angel. In Canada we have the moose head object. Somebody had a project. Making fine objcts can be fun, but doing so reveals how difficult realism can be - subtle realistic geometry cannot be captured by crude cylinders and blocks as the library from Archicad 6.0 attests.

Most architects, like my avatar does, want to merely wave their arms and make something happen - attesting to the popularity of the wall tool.

Code? What code? As powerful as GDL is, or isn't, the time it takes to solve, form, code and then debug a script is outrageous. Not to mention deriving the user interface and the property data issues.

I fell in love with the puzzle-solving aspect of GDL back before we could draw curved walls. You needed to save a wall and then tweak the code with _BWALL. Yikes. 1994. Our current GDL tools would be helped by color-coding and text formatting in the script, and quicker 3D orienting, but the process is still not architectural and does not service the architectural mind.

But it still isn't architectural rates. All of these delightful games: GDL, rendering, whatever, can't be made to pay what a focused architect can earn. And so it goes. And the commercial object makers see their meticulous work shared all over. Just sell one thing to Russia and "poof."
In St. Petersburg, six guys got together to buy my book. I wonder how the photocopied edition looks.

[Dwight]

Steve is on to something: Most architects should simply model their objects with visual tools and save them. This is just one step away from waving the arms. ("Waving" the fingertips).

GDL is only necessary when making parametric objects, where individual parameters adjust formulas that generate object code. The most basic example is that parametric code makes the multi-shelf bookcase possible in just one script. Instead of a different model-turned-object for every possible bookcase variation, the code will execute the script to generate the number of shelves you request.

[jest/taunt] Do that with slabs.

[Rakela Raul]

know noting at all about GLD programing.
I can make anything I want with Archicad.

brave man

[David Collins]

Dwight wrote:
GDL is only necessary when making parametric objects, where individual parameters adjust formulas that generate object code

There's no doubt that the power and glory of GDL lies in the ability to create parametric variables, but it is also essential for simple object problem solving like the tree trunk. That SWEEP trick is a quick viola with a relatively simple bit of GDL. Why limit yourself to the ArchiCAD interface and remain a lifetime at the mercy of third-party developers?

[Dwight]

I've seen your fine cathedral window and you are indeed a master coder!

The reason one is at the mercy of third party developers is that one makes money as an architect and to purchase fine objects IS cost efficient regardless of any upcoming storms in that realm. Altho i did buy a $5.00 chair from a certain Russian member to discover that it was not very good close up. (Getwhatyoupayfor.)

It comes down to where you put your problem-solving priorities. I've made many complex GDL objects that cost hundreds of dollars and STILL did not feel well compensated for the time and last minute requests. But it IS so much fun to get a script to work out.

And to make a GDL joke:

When the figure object Woman in Red Dress 65 was not distributed in the more modest parts of the world because she was not covered, i suggested a new "woman" object that would serve to preserve modesty but still provide a scale element in a rendering:

Block 0.4,0.5,1.6
Material "Black"

haha. see?

[David Collins]

No fair talking about profitability!
I wasn't making any money at this before computers, either.

Good GDL joke, though
Try this:

IF adultery = 1 THEN
ADDz 1.40
CUTPLANE
Block 0.4,0.5,1.6
Material "Black"
DEL 2
CUTEND
ENDIF

[Dwight]

Hahahaha.
Building, like that, on my material.
I don't feel so alone in the GDL humor game.