The Los Angeles Design Technology Forum Lecture

I will be presenting at UCLA as part of the Los Angeles Design Technology forum on Thursday, September 16th @ 7:00 PM.

My presentation will be alongside Satoru Sugihara from Morphosis.

More information can be found at the LADTF website

Grasshopper FTP Components

I have created a few scripting components that allow Grasshopper users to upload and download files using FTP.

An HTTP component allows the user to download files from a web address.

The components are located at The Proving Ground Wiki

ACADIA 2010

I am happy to announce that I will be presenting at the ACADIA 2010 conference in NYC @ the Cooper Union.

My presentation will look at some case studies to examine how design information exchange and collaboration occurs in an international setting. The presentation will also study emerging workflows and evaluate their benefits for integrating teams and maintaining information integrity.

For more information, visit the ACADIA 2010 website.

Making a Remote COM Connection to AutoCAD using VB.NET

Inter-process communication allows you to create dynamic workflows between software applications. This can be achieved in a variety of ways (COM, Remoting...)

The example below provides some basic code for establishing a COM connection to AutoCAD using VB.NET. After a connection is established, it is then possible to send remote commands to the AutoCAD command-line as well as automate other features in the program.

The screenshot shows a custom Grasshopper VB.NET component using this code.

The process is quite simple.... Head over to The Proving Ground Wiki for details...

Feedback Cloud Lecture: Teaser Image 01

My lecture for the BIM Analytics symposium will demonstrate a series of methodologies for achieving a performance-driven design and collaboration process.

As a teaser... here is one technique that I will demonstrate showing an "ecology" of tools in use at once.
The tools are connected together and sharing information using inter-process communication.

More 'teasers' to come....

A change to the Rhino surface will update the connected software environments creating a dynamic design-analyze-document process.

1. Rhino (surface design)
2. Grasshopper (surface rationalization, inter-process communication control)
3. Ecotect (Solar analysis)
4. AutoCAD (2D Panel documentation)

Credit: [uto] were the first ones to figure out the process for connecting Grasshopper to Ecotect and were generous enough to provide me with information on how Ecotect could be accessed remotely using DDE. The particular components depicted in the image are custom made 'from scratch' to suit my specific needs.

For those of you interested in a similar kind of Ecotect-Grasshopper DDE link, please refer to [uto]'s Grasshopper plug-in: Geco.

For those of you interested in the COM connection to AutoCAD, you may find some sample code in my post here.

Info on my BIM Analytics lecture: Feedback Cloud