Parametric Cups

In this exercise, I used basic functions in Rhino 7’s Grasshopper to first create a basic shape of a goblet and then manipulated sliders and functions to create different shapes. Parametric design is a fascinating way to create multiple shapes by manipulating constraints in your design.

This is the original goblet that I created and the tangle of wires that weave from one definition to the next to the final step of baking the object. Each purple section is a group that I named in order to better see what area of the goblet I was working on.

My two challenges were understanding what to do with data trees and how to make the lofts between the circles rounded and smooth. In my objects, they are very linear and I was struggling to understand how to make sweeping curves. In a workaround, I created revolve functions on several of the circles and by changing the angles of revolution, I could “tighten” the lofts. This led to concave bends but I could not get convex bows.

This was the most complex exercise, time-consuming, and challenging project in this course so far. It was also the most intellectually interesting and powerful display of functional parametric modeling, which got me more excited about designing in this way.

I can imaging envisioning an object to design in a sketch, potentially creating that object in Gravity Sketch as a rough model. Then recreating that object in Grasshopper in order to parametrically manipulate the shape for multiple iterations.

I hope to take a lesson on SubD in Rhino in order to create the organic shapes that seem interesting to me.