RhinoGrow? Phantom Scatter?

[Phantom107]

Hey guys,

If there's any way for me to ease your scattering workflow regarding Phantom Scatter + Rhinoceros let me know. I don't use it myself so I have no idea what's supported in the Rhinonceros Octane plugin and what isn't. I imagine it's possible to import CSV data? If so it should work with Phantom Scatter.

I'm working on some tools to manually place instances in a future update. That's going to be very useful.

- Guus

[Bendbox]

Hi Guus,

Thank you very much for your reply. I've taken a look at the Phantom Scatter software and it looks awesome! However, my biggest concern (and this is of course not using it yet) is that I really need to be able to do the final rendering within Rhino using the Octane plugin. NOT in the Octane stand alone.

Currently, Rhino users can do vegetation in two ways:

1) Rhino supports blocks which are placed within an Octane scatter node when arrayed. This is of course great until the scene gets to heavy with vegetation and the viewport response becomes (in Rhino) cumbersome.

2) The Octane plugin also supports proxy's, which I'm using more and more these days, as clients seem to be wanting more and more vegetation rich scenes. The Octane proxy systems has a section to import CSV files in it. I've attached a screenshot of the Rhino Octane proxy tab. By looking at the tab and reading this, does this look like this is something where your Phantom Scatter software will allow rendering the scattered data within Rhino? To be honest, I've never used CSV files before, so I'm not really familiar with how they work.

[Bendbox]

OK bendbox, I will look out for your thread in the Rhino forum and write a few lines to support our issue!

best

Andreas

Thank Andreas!

Guus, responded as well, and I'm really liking what I see of the Phantom Scatter software. If it's possible to do vegetation scenes with it and the workflow between it and Rhino is fluid, then we may have our answer and solution. I responded to Guus -- let's see what he says.

My one concern with getting Rhino to embed it, is that, for me at least, it's got to work with proxy's, otherwise the scene gets to viewport heavy. And the current suite of Array commands in Rhino don't work with proxy's, since the proxy's are not contained within an Octane scatter node. I'm certainly not a programmer by any means, but this would lead me to believe that Rhino would have to develop an entirely new suite of array/scatter commands JUST for the Octane proxy system. I think it would be a tough sell to get them to do that, but I may be wrong.

[Phantom107]

Phantom Scatter is designed to export CSV files, and seeing there's a button to import CSV in that screenshot, I think it should work perfectly. That is, if it loads them the exact same way the standalone version of Octane does.

Here is a CSV file that PS generated for a project that I did: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uxj78722iehyx ... dekker.csv

Try loading it up.

[Bendbox]

It worked! Is this the expected outcome from the CSV file Guus?

So, basically, if I'm understanding correctly, from reading over your PS website, I can export the surface(s) from Rhino as an OBJ file, load them into the stand alone PS software, create the scatter CSV file so that the scattered items are ONLY along the exported surfaces, then load that CSV file into Rhino, and the scattered instances should be only along the surfaces that I exported from Rhino? Is this the correct workflow? Can it really be that simple?

[Phantom107]

Looking good! And yes that's how it should look. You could try a grass OBJ though because that's what this scatter was for. But it's very nice to see it works.

It's actually even more simple.... the idea is that you keep a pre-made library inside Phantom Scatter with your favourite scatters so you can use them quickly in various projects. You just create a material inside PS and make sure its name matches the material name inside your OBJ that you want to scatter on. Then you can create one or more scatter objects to scatter over that material.

Materials inside the OBJ that don't match materials inside your Phantom Scatter library will be ignored. So you don't have to pick out specific geometry to scatter on.

It takes a little bit of effort to setup correctly, but once you do you can use the same scatter settings for any OBJ you load into it. Just keep your material names consistent in your projects (such as: material_grass) and you will be able to scatter very rich quality in very little time.

I hope that was clear. If not just ask or you could download the manual off my website, which explains everything in detail.

[Bendbox]

Yes, that's very clear, love it. I'll download your manual and read over it tonight, and most likely purchase PS within the next couple of days. This really seems like what I've been looking for to do vegetation!

[newske]

Hi Bendbox,
Unfortunately RhinoGrow is somewhat dead in the water at the moment - I just don't have the time with other projects I have taken on. As far as I know there isn't anything broken about it, but it's far from optimal and quite messy (has to be used in a certain way to work properly). I was really just developing it as a way to accomplish what I was working on at the time. At the moment it's just python with a poorly implemented interface, but if I were to continue it I would re-write it in C# with a proper UI. Now that Octane is supporting hair, it gives it some more power, too.

Sorry to disappoint! It's something that I'll probably come back to eventually, but now is not the time.

Cam

Scratch that - I have decided to port it to a proper Rhino plugin using RhinoCommon and C# (just as an excuse to learn how to do it and learn another language).
I should hopefully get an evaluation build (14 or 30 day beta most likely) out in the next two weeks. It's instant at the moment up to about 200,000 instances (I haven't actually checked much higher yet). Of course if you then add the geometry (rather than just baking the matrix) it's still instant to produce but your display will run slower.

Will post an update on this forum somewhere once it's ready. If you see any features you think are necessary (and missing) just by looking at the UI let me know!

Here's a 30 second preview:

[Bendbox]

Hi Cam,

This is GREAT news, I'm glad you've decided to this. As I mentioned earlier, I honestly think this is something people would pay for, just my two cents though.

You can count me in for beta testing.

I think the options look great. I do have two additional ideas if they are possible. I don't know if these are easy or complete headaches to code and develop. These thoughts are based on a couple of other modeling tools I've used in the past.

1) it would be great, if there was an "erase" tool for the populated surfaces. For example, let's say you've got a scene with a road, building, sidewalks etc. In addition to populating the vegetation areas, it would be nice to be able to erase areas of your instances to make room for something like a flower bed area, or additional sidewalk, etc. I know a work around would be to create a separate surface area for the flower bed, etc, but having an erase tool would make the process more fluid and artistic. Especially when the clients comes back and tells you they like everything but want to add that extra playground, or picnic area, or path, flower bed, etc, after you've already got everything else looking just right -- then you can just remove the necessary areas.

2) the second thought, would be if there was a "brush" tool. This is purely artistic, but this would allow the user to "paint" the instances on a surface. Normal direction would of course need to be controlled while doing this. But this would be very useful for "man made landscaping" areas where there are paths, etc. It would be a very fluid and artistic way of controlling where the instances are.

Please keep the CSV export in there you've already got. Using Octane's proxy system is crucial for display performance in Rhino!

Thanks Cam, glad you're developing this.

[archtobi]

Hi Guus,
tried out your csv in the octane for rhino ui and works perfect. I dont understand why octane has no problem to instantly render out hundreds of high poly office chair and rhino crashes after arraying some. or i dont use rhino properly. But csv stuff works well, thanks for your toy

greets Tobi