ABConcept 101 / Part 2 / Building Blocks / Geometry

Prelude

In this article I will explain more about how we can create the foundation on which a ABConcept model can be initialized - in this episode it's all about the geometry.

But before I tell you more about that, I want to make sure that you are aware of Part 1 - Introduction, where I made a highlevel introduction to ABConcept.

Otherwise this is still the structure(!) of this 101 series.

Part 1 - Introduction

Part 2 - Building Blocks (this article)

Part 3 - Parametric Model

Part 4 - Collaborations

Part 5 - Future Development

Like I mentioned in Part 1 - Introduction, this present article could be subject to be divided into smaller parts. And as foreseen I'm going to do so.

Part 2 - Building Blocks is going to be divided into:

• Geometry (this part)
• Elements
• Materials
• Loads
• Analysis
• Visualisation

Enough talking - let's take a look at the subject of this second part.

Generating Geometry

Why is this necessary to use geometry?

For us it is necessary because that we believe that a geometrical representations for input are better for the end-users to better understand the relations between different elements and to see the effect the inputs have to the model.

In the ABConcept plugin we have created two Grasshopper (GH) components that quickly generates the needed geometry - nothing fancy - just basic geometries like points, curves and meshes.

The geometry doesn't have to origin from these two components as it also can be created using other methods or simply manually drawn and referenced into Grasshopper.

Voxel Method - Fast, Flexible & Fun

We believe that a Voxel approach will be sufficiently accurate to represent structures in large scale urban development projects, where speed is king - which means that we sacrifice precision in these type of projects.

We made the component robust so it will work on any set of stacked breps the user provides.

The component takes very few input:

• massing (brep)
• x (double that represents span in x-direction)
• y (double that represents span in y-direction)
• level (list of doubles that represent the building storeys)
• dir (span direction int: 0=x, 1=y, 2=xy)
• _core (closed curves)*

*the core input is optional and if not defined the component automatically calcutation the center point of the brep and adjusts the core to the nearest grid.

The outputs are simple curves (for Columns and Beams) and meshes (for Slabs and Walls)

Grid aligned - (more)Precise, (still)Fast & alot more flexible

The other Geometry component we have developed operates slightly different, but still with very basic inputs.

Input parameters:

• vol (brep)
• v?gLn (polylines that represents the base of walls - these doesn't have to match any grids)
• _void (optional, closed polylines in the lowest level - cuts slabs)
• etage (list of doubles that represent the building storeys)
• modul (lines representing grids in both directions in the lowest level)

The outputs are simple curves (for Columns and Beams) and meshes (for Slabs and Walls).

This component also has a info output, where we can read some warnings.

Parametrization

Both of these components can be parametrized which is quite fun to play around with - also for generating training data (more on that later ??).

In the upcoming part we will take a closer look at some of the element components like Wall, Column, Beam, Slab and Foundation.

Stay tuned for more.