Updates You May Have Missed

With my new business keeping me busy, I haven't had as much time as I would like to keep TheProvingGround.org as up to date as I would like. Make no mistake, I am still very much committed to keeping this blog going and sharing some of my more recent computational design explorations.  If you have been following any of my social media accounts, you may have noticed that there have been several updates to LunchBox, Rhynamo, and other tools making their way out into the wild.

Here is a summary of what you may have missed in recent months...

Playing Nice with JSON

In both LunchBox for Dynamo AND Grasshopper, the LunchBox toolkit now has several new nodes converting between JSON, XML, datasets, and more.  I like being able to convert my data between various formats with ease and these new tools hopefully make this easier

Serialize Dynamo data as JSON

Grasshopper Tree to XML and converted to JSON

Extended Excel Tools in Dynamo

Grasshopper and Dynamo both have some great solutions for working with Excel.  Within Dynamo, I created a few helpful nodes for serializing Excel data to .NET DataTables.  These nodes make it easy to serialize your tables so they can be queried like a database or converted to other formats like XML and JSON.

New LunchBox Excel nodes for Dynamo

Dynamo 0.9 Support

Rhynamo and LunchBox have been upgraded to the latest version of Dynamo (0.9) and have been given some general facelift for use with new versions.

Get the latest tools here....

Slingshot! for Dynamo Update

Introduce some SQL into Dynamo

It was about time something was done about the version of Slingshot! that has been collecting dust on the Dynamo package manager....   A year ago, the Slingshot package was released as a collection of Python scripts and several required libraries for MySQL and SQLite needed to be downloaded separately due to package limitations.

No more!  As of tonight, Slingshot! for Dynamo is distributed as a node library and ships with all the needed dependencies.  So if you are interested in cutting your teeth on some SQL within a graphical programming language, give it a shot!

Interact with relational databases

And just in case you forgot Slingshot! was open source... I have moved the source code to a new home over at BitBucket.org (including both Grasshopper and Dynamo projects)

...Get the source here...!

https://bitbucket.org/archinate/slingshot/

UMN Catalyst 2013

This March, I am teaming up with UMN's Adam Marcus for a 1-week Catalyst studio.  This studio will investigate the relationship between “big data” and material practice through the construction of a series of full scale prototypes that merge aspects of computational design, graphic design, information aesthetics, and digital fabrication. The basis for the studio will be the School of Architecture’s upcoming Centennial (October 25-26, 2013). The Centennial celebration will feature a built installation inspired by the history of the School and its alumni.

Following the workshop, I will deliver an presentation showcasing some recent computational design work  at CASE Design Inc.  Please join us!  https://events.umn.edu/025100