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Purpose
The purpose of this design project was to make use of Dynamo
to drive the parametric modeling of our building components in Revit. We had the option of either updating our
previous models, or creating new models with new parameters to be altered.
Design Concept
For my design project, I chose to re-use my previous model
(which can be seen in the blog post below).
It is a 25 story conceptual high rise living apartment/hotel complex
located in Seattle, Washington. It is an
L-shaped building where the shorter leg side is made up of 20 stories and
contains the hotel side of the apartment and the restaurant on the lower
level. The long leg side is made up of
25 stories and contains the apartment side of the building.
For this project, the building façade was my primary
focus. The concept for the building façade
was to have a series of large, multi-colored glass panels that extruded from
the building surface. Each panel would
be extruded a different depth from the building surface. The color pattern and extrusion depth pattern
are to appear randomized in order to give a unique aesthetic look to the
building.
Preliminary Design
For my preliminary design, I decided to remodel my original
building façade using a different approach.
This time I wanted to use a combination of adaptive point panels and
curtain panel by pattern instead of only adaptive point panels like I did for
my previous design. My thoughts were
that it would make the building façade much smoother, and faster when loaded
into the model as well as easier to control when using Dynamo.
To begin, I started by creating 5 separate square adaptive
point panels and assigning them material property parameters. The materials I gave them green glass, blue
glass, navy glass, light gray glass and dark gray glass (all were
created). Once the individual adaptive
panels had been created, I opened a rectangle curtain panel by pattern, created
a surface and divided that surface into 25 segments (5x5 gridlines). From here, I loaded in each of the 5
different color adaptive panels, and created a random grid system which will be
used as the main façade component.
Next I opened up my mass model and loaded in the curtain
panel by pattern façade that I created and assigned it to be the surface of my
building. On certain faces of the building
I only used one of the façade curtain panels, while on others 2 or 4 were
required in order to keep the sizes of the panels proportionate to one
another.
Finally, I made sure that all of the parameters I wanted to
change (extrusion depth and panel color) were properly nested into the current
mass family.
Once this was completed, the next step was to utilize dynamo
to drive the parameters.
Dynamo Model
When programming the dynamo segment of my project, there
were 2 main parameters that I wanted to be able to change simultaneously and
with ease: The individual glass panel colors, and the extrusion depth of the
individual glass panels. To reach this
final design, there were three major steps I took:
·
The Test Phase
·
The Combination Phase
·
The Randomization Phase
The Test Phase
The test phase was exactly what it sounds like, it was the
phase of my design where I wanted to test my idea on a single panel to ensure
that it worked properly. In order to
begin I made use of a few different dynamo parameter drivers: “Set Element
Parameter”, “Select Model Element”, “Get Material By Name”, and “String”.
To make these 4 parameter drivers work properly, I first had
to select the element in my model I wanted to change. In this case, the element that I wanted to
change was one of the 14 different curtain panels that made up my façade. Once selected, I plugged that box into the “element”
slot of the “Set Element Parameter” box.
Next, I needed to tell Dynamo which parameter of the selected element I
wanted to change. Therefore in one of
the “String” boxes, I typed the name of one of the 5 different material
parameters for the selected element (Navy/Green/Blue/Light Gray/Dark Gray) and
plugged that box into the “param” slot of the “Set Element Parameter” box. Finally, I needed to tell Dynamo what value
to give the parameters. To do this I
made use of another “String” which I gave the name of the material I wanted to
be assigned to the parameter selected. I
then plugged that “String” into the “Get Material By Name” box and then plugged
that box into the “value” slot on the “Set Element Parameter” box.
Once everything was connected, I ran the Dynamo and the
material changed to whatever material I specified it to be, thus indicating
that my test phase was correct.
The Combination Phase
For this phase of the project, instead of recreating the
same process above for each and every panel on each and every façade, I decided
to make use of “Lists”. The “Lists”
allowed me to combine all 5 different panel color parameters as well as all 5
of the materials into one box and then feed that information to the “Set
Element Parameter” boxes. The only
inconvenient thing was that the “Set Element Parameter” box did not accept a “List”
for the “Select Model Element”.
Therefore, I had to create 14 different “Select Model Element” boxes and
14 “Set Element Parameter Boxes” in order to properly drive the entire building
façade at once.
Once all 14 of both box types were created I attached each “Select
Model Element” box to a corresponding “Set Element Parameter” box and selected
each of the 14 curtain panels that made up my façade. Next, I attached 5 “Strings” (each with a
different parameter for the different color panels) to a “List” and plugged
that list into each of the 14 “Set Element Parameter” boxes. Finally I attached the other 5 “Strings”
(each with a different material property) to a corresponding “Get Material By
Name” box (5 boxes), then attached each of those boxes into another “List” and
finally attached that list to each of the 14 “Set Element Parameter” boxes.
When I ran the Dynamo program, everything worked well and I
could change the material properties to whatever I wanted and the corresponding
panels would also change.
The Randomization Phase
For this phase, I wanted to make the color pattern on the façade
of my building randomize each time that the code ran. In order to do this, all that was required
was to make the list that contained the material properties random. Therefore, I made use of a parameter driver
box named “Shift List Indices”. This
parameter driver box shifts the current list based on a given number. For example, if the number were 3, it would
shift all the list values up 3 spaces moving the first, second and third values
to the end of the list. To make it
randomized I made use of the “Random Number” box and multiplied the random
number by 5 (five is the number of parameters) since the random number is only
from 0 to 1. Next I made sure to round
the number up to a whole number after it has been multiplied, and finally this
value will be plugged into the “amt” slot of the “Shift List Indices” box.
Once that was completed I plugged the list into the “Shift
List Indices” box and then plugged that box into the 14 different “Set Element
Parameter” boxes.
When I ran the Dynamo program, the color pattern changed
each and every time. I had achieved a
truly randomized pattern.
Panel Extrusions
Once this design was completed for the panel color pattern,
the next step was to make a randomized panel extrusion pattern. This was done in the exact same manner as the
panel color pattern was done. The only
different was instead of using “Strings” and “Get Material By Name”, I used “Number”
to give an extrusion depth value to the panels.
Also, so that I could change both the material color pattern
and the extrusion depth pattern on the façade at the same time, I made sure to
link the already created “Select Model Elements” to 14 new “Set Element
Parameters” (which control the
extrusion) as well as the original 14 (which control the material color pattern).
Final Results
Here you can see the final results from running the Dynamo
program a few times. Notice how the
color pattern changes as well as the extrusion depth pattern changes each time
that the program runs.
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