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Parametric design
About Rhino & Grasshopper and PARAM-O.

Creation of custom GDLobjects directly in GS

Anonymous
Not applicable
Hello, i know we can access and manipulate the parameters of an existing object from within Grasshopper.
I was thinking that it would be amazing if full GDL 3D Objects could be created directly in GS together with their parameters and then sent to Archicad just like other BIM elements. That would be a type of visual GDL connection and would be a huge feature. There is the Rhino to GDL convertor already but can we add more intelligence to the 3D objects like dimension parameters and more?
Will this be possible to add this feature in a future release of Rhino-GS connection or is it in your wishlist? Thanks!
28 REPLIES 28
Joe Putnam
Booster
henryL wrote:
An internal visual scripting tool is necessary and all competitor software has one. Archicad is the only one in the nemetschek family that still relies on a third party software for algoritmic design.

This would be a wrong move if you ask me. There is nothing wrong with piggy backing on Grasshopper. This is the default tool for this kind of work any anyone that is any kind of expert or competent designer uses this tool. No way are they going to move to using a Graphisoft branded tool, especially with all of the plugins and addons already available for Grasshopper.

Again from my experience doing this for many years designers are going to stick to what they know. Yes Revit has Dynamo, the BIM managers love it and they use it to automate their tasks, the designers use it to connect to and read in Rhino/Grasshopper data after they have designed something in Rhino.

Close integration is key and what AutoDesk should have done. Its great to see that Graphisoft is not making the same mistake.
Nader Belal
Mentor
Just to clarify

I meant with pyGDL, as a python wrapper for GDL, not ArchiCAD's Python API
A good friend of mine have once told me that I´m so brute that I´m capable of creating a GDL script capable of creating GDLs.
Joe Putnam
Booster
leceta wrote:
For the most part the Grasshopper Components make calls back to Archiad and use the native API to open Archicad dialog s. They could do the same with a GDL component. Especially if they provided a new updated IDE. So in effect they would not need anything specific to Rhino.
sounds good, but if you are not happy with the current IDE, then what we could expect in GH... I would be happy to jump to ArchiCAD to write some code if a proper coding enviroment is waiting...

I think we are saying the same thing. They need to fix the internal IDE, and why not at the same time expose it over in the other world of grasshopper for those of us that would use it there as well.
Joe Putnam
Booster
Moonlight wrote:
Just to clarify

I meant with pyGDL, as a python wrapper for GDL, not ArchiCAD's Python API


GDL is a language based on BASIC. They cannot "wrap" it. They would have to write a new functions in python or c and expose those.

If you ask me this would not make GDL better in any way it would just take developer time away from other tasks. Wrapping the current API gives all the benefits of that and should in the end allow for calling GDL scripts. That combination covers all the best use cases.
Improvements to GDL should be in the tools provided to use the language.
Joe Putnam
Booster
Moonlight wrote:
@leceta

I just want to add this:

If the problem was the GDL IDE, well there are procedures to take the code of IDL editors such as VS Code (infact I think I have seen one have already made it)

PS: by the way, Grasshopper IDE component is also horrible, but it have its perks

I think this is a great point and I would be really happy with a VS Code extension from Graphisoft but simple code completion and syntax highlighting is not enough. Its still not ideal if I have to go back to Archicad and copy paste or open the file again to test it. They need to allow for full remote debugging and stepping through code.
Nader Belal
Mentor
@Joe Putnam

First, The GDL plugin for VScode wasn't released by Graphisoft.

Second, amen to that.

Third, I would like to welcome you to my facebook group, just search for "GH <--> ArchiCAD Group"
A good friend of mine have once told me that I´m so brute that I´m capable of creating a GDL script capable of creating GDLs.
leceta
Expert
Could you please share with us this VS code extension for GDL?
Nader Belal
Mentor
@leceta

If you have https://code.visualstudio.com/ in the Extensions Tab, search by: ArchiCAD or GDL or Graphisoft

Update: I didn't find it although I could swear that it was there not long ago ... anyhow and not to come empty handed ... I have found this for Sublime-Text
https://github.com/runxel/GDL-sublime
A good friend of mine have once told me that I´m so brute that I´m capable of creating a GDL script capable of creating GDLs.
leceta
Expert
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