Gearing up for Knowledge Pattern Tutorial

I took some time this past weekend to work through the knowledge pattern process again for myself.  Prior to the workshop I had never even used a UDF, now I am scripting interactions as part of the process.  Look for an initital (provisional) knowledge pattern tutorial very soon.

Given this advancement, I am sure to have to re-work my upcoming graduate seimar to focus on knowledge patterns.  Image of most recent tests where the script counter is driving the color, depth, and aperature.  I am also trying to think up an approach where the script will create geometry that is not based on a surface but based on the previously instantiated part.

Knowledge Pattern - Game Changer

Just got back from a 3 day intensive workshop with Gehry Technologies at the pre-acadia sessions.  It was a session led by Nuri Miller and Neil Meredith and it was focused on knowledge patterns.  Imagine being able to script the insertion of powercopies and change the count or modify the replicated part and have the software re-insert the new part in seconds.  Your wish has been granted, and I know how to do it now.  For anyone that has inserted hundreds of parts 'by hand' before you appreciate this.  For others, I am way off in tech-geek land.  Knowledge pattern tutorials will proliferate paramod.net!

While I appreciated the workshop, I must say that the ACADIA planning leaves much to be desired.  Next time you advertise the workshop in Chicago make note that Evanston is NOT Chicago and is a 1 hour public transportation trek.  Everything was downtown but the Digital Project and EcoTech sessions.  Maybe Rhino bribed the ACADIA planner?  In any case, I would like to get a refund for the 6 hours I spent on a crowded train.  Or if you organize a shuttle bus, maybe it should pick people up at the conference hotel not 4 miles away.  Maybe I should also request a refund for the difference between a hotel in Evanston and the expensive conference hotel I booked in Chicago where I thought the conference was.  I am feeling a bit better, deep breaths.  I was starting to like the seclusion offered by our sequestered location until today when the classroom above us was also being used by a different conference group that was demo-ing hammer drills into the concrete slab.  I'll stop now for fear of coming off like an international cry-baby.  I just don't understand the thinking.  Every participant had their own laptops so it was not that the software was only available outside the city limits.

I met a bunch of great people all using the same tools in different ways, clamoring to share stories and approaches.  I sat next to an old friend (Mark Weston) so that was fun too.  It was fun to watch Mark drive the instructors crazy with his desires to make his parts use random numbers and pull in information from the stock market to produce curves.  AEC Industry software meets Mr. Wizard!  Not to mention his own special brand of names for variables and files.

Here are a couple of images from the part I was working on today.  The color is produced by the script that color codes the panels based on location and aperature depth.

Shape Shifters

How does JJ Abrams do it? 

In the most recent episode of Fringe (Momentum Deferred), Agent Dunham to Agent Broyles "I am not worried because if a shape shifting assassin from another universe wanted me dead, then I would be".

This comes across like a totally believable condition, not worthy of even pausing.

This is relevant because shape shifters are very cool.

Future of Design

Friday and Saturday (Oct 9-10) we are hosting an amazing line-up of theorists, designers, architects, educators to discuss the future of design.  It will be at Rackham Auditorium (seats 1000) so be sure to be in Ann Arbor this weekend.  It is a free event and open to the public.

Here is a link to the details: Future of Design 

Signs of Fall at the botanical garden

I had a chance to go out to the shadow pavilion this weekend to make sure it was still standing.  It is still there and the colors of the trees are starting to change.