Food4Rhino

Phyllium is a small WIP plugin designed to mimic the auxin-driven leaf venation process. This was developed as part of a master’s thesis at the Leibniz University Hannover, Faculty for Architecture and Landscape Planning. It works similar to the venation components in the plugin “Parakeet” (https://www.food4rhino.com/en/app/parakeet), but with some added features.

The core of the plugin (the leaf venation algorithm itself) is based on the work by Dr. Sabri Goekmen (PhD). This is basically a C# port of his original (java-based) Processing 3 code, modified to work within the rhinoceros-grasshopper framework. Please check his papers linked below for more information:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010448521001603
http://papers.cumincad.org/cgi-bin/works/paper/ecaade2013_167

Features Overview / General Structure:

Below is a list with the components currently included in the plugin. Some components were created in the design drafting process and are currently abandoned (marked with (WIP!)). Please check the example grasshopper file to see how the components function together.

Setup –

• Generate Veins: builds a new venation structure based on a root point and optionally line segments (this means that a prebuilt structure can be used as input for further generation)
• Generate Auxins: generates auxin objects which serve as growth simulators in the venation process

Generation –

• Leaf Venation: the main solver of the plugin; implements Goekmen’s algorithm
• Anastomosis: an attempt to mimic the anastomosis process, in which veins connect into closed loops (WIP!)
• Anastomosis Two: another attempt at anastomosis (WIP!)
• Move Nodes: offers a method of transforming the structure by replacing the location point for each node

Deconstruction –

• Veins to Lines: outputs the vein nodes as points and the connections between them as line segments
• Veins to Polylines: outputs the structure as a list of polylines between branching nodes
• Calculate Node Weights: outputs an integer value for each vein node, based on their relative position in the structure (nodes at the edge are light, nodes at the base are heavy)
• Deconstruct Veins: deconstructs vein node objects into their constituent properties

Limitations:

This is my first time coding in C# and creating a plugin. As such, there are many aspects that still need implementing or changing (lots of room for improvement). For example, the current code can only handle flat lists and no data-trees (you can only solve one venation at a time). I am also unsure how well the process functions in 3D (for my thesis, I generated the structures in 2D and projected them on 3D meshes afterwards). Please feel free to give me feedback and suggestions below.

(Created by: Tim Thiemann, a master student at Leibniz University Hannover)