Plane Force (Grasshopper Example)
This example uses the Fields Plus plugin developed at The Different Design. You can download the plugin here. This example looks closely at the Plane Force component, which enables the creation of a force field through any plane geometry. The component allows you to run create a force based on the X, Y or Z axis of any plane input into the component.
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Download the Plane Force example file.
The grasshopper example:
This example makes use of the Plane Force component together with the Field Line Simple component to simulate field lines through a collection of planes generated from a surface in Rhino. The surface is divided up into a grid of frames. At the location of each frame, the surface curvature is measured, and then each frame is rotated around it’s Z-axis based on the surface curvature. This creates a collection of frames oriented based on the surface curvature at a specific point. Each of these rotated frames is input into a Plane Force component, which are merged to create a force field based on surface curvature.
The final algorithm showing the field lines flowing through the planes in response to curvature from a surface
Producing different iterations:
This grasshopper example can be tweaked by adding changing the number of planes on the surface, changing starting points, adjusting the rotation of the planes, referencing in a different base surface or adapting the Plane Force component.
The Plane Force component can be tweaked by changing the input parameters Strength (which controls the strength of the field relative to other fields in the simulation) and Axis (which controls the axis any given plane is using to generate the force in the field.
A collection of iterations derived from the example by changing axis directions in the Plane Force component and maximum rotations of each plane.
Taking this a step further:
The component can be used with all field force and charge components to create more complex force fields. Try using it in combination with the Spin Force component, Point Charge component and Tangent Force component, and simulating it with a Field Line Discrete component or Field Line Grid component.