Grasshoppercom: the only limitation is yourself!

I'm not familiar with evolutetools, but Paneling Tools is basically only used for paneling applications.  Grasshopper is a more full-fledged scripting tool, so you can really do whatever scriptable task that you can think of.

Dear mix,

thanks for your response. So technically, grasshopper can do everything panelingtools can?

I suppose if you spent enough time at it, you could make it do what Paneling Tools can.

Grasshopper is more of a visual programming language (for want of a better term).    You can make it do a lot of things, and are mostly limited by your skills and your imagination (which, when I took the class, meant a lot of point-attractor projects).

Hi Nappy, I already answered this on another forum, hopefully this info will be useful to other people too.
I'll try to add a few more insight please let me know if I'm not doing a good job or if this isn't clearing things out :

Paneling Tools:
-a Rhino plugin for creating panelings and patterns ( 3d patterns ) on Surfaces ( not polysurfaces );
-can interact with Grasshoper.
Pluses: free , nice design tool for 3d patterns.
Minuses: cannot spread pattern on a polysurface, you have to work on separate surfaces, bottom up approach.

Grasshoper:
-a Rhino parametric component for...anything ?
-it can communicate with other Rhino Plugins for inducing parameter based modeling;
-can do some paneling.
Pluses: free, lots of possibilities and applications.
Minuses: can be hard to use and requires a bit more knowledge to do all the cool stuff you see on pics on the internet, bottom up approach.

EvoluteTools
-a Rhino plugin suite targeting architects and designers allowing very easy paneling and optimization for freeform architectural surfaces;
-currently does not interact with Grasshoper;
-besides easy paneling on ANY freeform (or not) surface (TSplines surface, NURBS surface, mesh) it can optimize for planarity of the panels, the smoothness of the seams, the closeness to the original surface, ballpacking and vertex fitting constraints (say you want a set of vertices to become co-planar or aligned with a curve or polycurve);
-it can employ multiscale mesh modeling or subdivision modeling (you can create a paneled freeform shape from scratch and keeping the ability to smoothly deform the mesh );
-it is very easy to use and does not require any programming or scripting knowledge.
Pluses: all above, very powerfull optimization for the craziest freeform surfaces (surfaces with holes, blobby shapes, bridging shapes, etc ), stable, very easy to use subdivision modeling, parametric optimization, top-down approach.
Minuses: trial version limited to 256 mesh faces.

Now- I might not have the latest details abput GH or PanelingTools soe please correct me if I am wrong in the descriptions. If you have other questions about our plugin I will happily try to answer them.

http://www.youtube.com/user/evolutegeometry#p/u/7/OGy2o5y8O-8

Best regards,
Florin
EvoluteTools
Poster

Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Aug 03, 2011 10:01 am

Hi Nappy, all,

I think a comparison among tools becomes much more useful if put in the context of what you are trying to achieve.

I will speak for PanelingTools and hopefully you can decide when it might be useful to you.
In general, PanelingTools uses sequential method to generate paneling where you can quickly generate a solution, reflect on the design and rebuild without having to get involved in scripting or parametric methods.

Here are few general features:

- The plugin has been used to design paneling solutions for all type of forms from concept to fabrication.
- Particularly effective at the concept stage of the design where you need to experiment with different possibilities quickly.  Almost like sketching your paneling ideas.
- Panels are populated over a rectangular grid of points.  Grids are generated either directly or based on some geometry like curves, surfaces or polysurfaces.  There is also scripting support where you can use RhinoScript or Grasshopper for example to generate custom grids.
- Paneling grids are easily manipulated either by using Rhino transform commands; such as scaling, projecting or pulling grids to geometry but also through the many PanelingTools commands to edit grids.
- Paneling solutions can be based on custom 2D or 3D units and/ or modules.
- modules can be repeated or made variable.  For example you define a start and end shape and panels are morphed in between based on attractors, bitmaps, curvature or other constraints.
- Few of the PanelingTools commands implement rhino history, so there is some support for parametric design.  For example, move attractor point and have the solution update.  However, it can be slow in big models.

I hope this is helpful... If you are interested to learn more, there are few nice tutorials to walk you though the process:
http://v5.rhino3d.com/video/video/listTagged?tag=PanelingTools

Let me know if you have questions.

-Rajaa Issa
Robert McNeel & Associates