About the initiative

In November 2003 the Vienna University for Applied Arts (Universität der Angewandte Kunst) organised the workshop "Wireframe will work". This workshop was part of the Greg Lynn curriculum of the architecture faculty and initiated by Sigrid Brell-çokcan of II Architects International. The workshop lasted 4 days and the aim was to teach the students how to create geometric shapes using programming/scripting in a CAD environment.

Very few students were familiar with programming when the course started, but they all managed to write simple scripts within a day like the one below:

Option Explicit Sub Main()    Dim arrObjects    Dim ptOrigin    Dim arrPoints    Dim PointCoordinate    Dim i        arrObjects = Rhino.GetObjects("Select objects to copy",, vbTrue, vbTrue, vbTrue)    If IsNull(arrObjects) Then Exit Sub    ptOrigin = Rhino.GetPoint("Point to copy from")    If IsNull(ptOrigin) Then Exit Sub    arrPoints = Rhino.GetObjects("Select points to copy to", 1, vbFalse, vbFalse, vbTrue)    If IsNull(arrPoints) Then Exit Sub        For i = 0 To UBound(arrPoints)       PointCoordinate = Rhino.PointCoordinates(arrPoints(i))       Rhino.CopyObjects arrObjects, ptOrigin, PointCoordinate    Next End Sub Main

For the occasion I wrote a 73 page handout that dealt with the fundamentals of vbScript and RhinoScript programming. The handout is aimed at complete beginners with no programming experience whatsoever. It starts by explaining how vbScript works and then moves on to how vbScript is implemented in Rhinoceros 3D.


The schedule

Friday 10:15	Lecture by Sigrid Brell (Die Angewandte); Introduction to "Weekend Wireframe Workshop".
Friday 10:30	Lecture by Gerhart Brandt (Waagner Biro); Basic Geometric Relationships for Building Envelopes.
Friday 11:30	Lecture by Erich Handel (Zenkner & Handel); Wireframes -Optimisation, Calculation, Fabrication and Erection.
Friday 14:00	Lecture by Thomas Wingate (Alsop Architects); Gestures L Rules ® Fabrication: Exploring and developing gestural forms.
Friday 15:00	Lecture by Olivier Bertram (Greg Lynn Architects / Die Angewandte); Surface Thickness.
Friday 16:00	Lecture by David Rutten (TU-Delft); How to circumvent the manual work in 3D-modeling and become a happier person altogether.
Saturday morning	Workshop course by David Rutten (TU-Delft); Macros, scripts, variables and mathematics.
Saturday afternoon	Workshop assignment 1; Create a set of scripts that prove you understand the basics about programming. Working with variables, user interaction and mathematics.
Sunday morning	Workshop course by David Rutten (TU-Delft); Variable arrays, functions and methods.
Sunday afternoon	Workshop assignment 2; Write a script that copies a set of objects from an origin point to a set of destination points. Start workshop assignment 3; Write a script that creates a 3D (poly)surface object based on *any* 3D curve data.
Monday morning	Workshop course by David Rutten (TU-Delft); Dynamic arrays and controlling complex 3D geometry via scripts.
Monday afternoon	Finish workshop assignment 3; Write a script that creates a 3D (poly)surface object based on *any* 3D curve data.
Monday evening	Presentation of all the script projects and apres code party.

Some photographs taken by Sigrid Brell during one of the assignments.

 

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