COMPAS Formfinder for Rhino

Note

The current version of COMPAS-FormFinder on the Yak package server is 0.2.75. Note that this is still a pre-release!

COMPAS Formfinder for Rhino is a plugin for Rhino 8 that can be used for form-finding tension-only, compression-only, and mixed tension-compression structures, using constrained force-density and constrained dynamric relaxation solvers.

Installation

To install FormFinder, use Rhino's package manager Yak. To open Yak, type PackageManager on the Rhino command line.

COMPAS Packages

FormFinder uses the following COMPAS packages:

• compas
• compas_dr
• compas_fd
• compas_session

After installing RhinoVAULT with Yak, these requirements will be installed automatically if necessary. The tool might be unresponsive during this process. The packages are installed in a separate virtual environment named brg-csd.

User Interface

COMPAS FormFinder defines the following Rhino commands:

• FF
• FF_pattern
• FF_anchors
• FF_anchors_constraints
• FF_anchors_update
• FF_anchors_move
• FF_solve_fd
• FF_edges_q
• FF_edges_delete
• FF_vertices_attrs
• FF_edges_attrs
• FF_session_undo
• FF_session_redo
• FF_session_open
• FF_session_save
• FF_scene_clear
• FF_scene_redraw
• FF_settings

These commands can be executed at the Rhino Command Prompt (simply start typing the command name), or using the FormFinder toolbar.

If the toolbar is not visible after installing FormFinder, you can load it from the "Toolbars" page. To open the "Toolbars" page, type Toolbar on the Rhino command line...

Documentation

For further "getting started" instructions, a tutorial, examples, and an detailed description of the individual commands and the user interface, please check out the online documentation here: FormFinder Gitbook

Issues

Please report problems using the issue tracker of the github repo: https://github.com/blockresearchgroup/compas-FoFin/issues

Contributions

If you want to contribute to COMPAS FoFin, check out the developer guide.