Explorer Record

Saves each design of a study into a folder the Alpaca4d Explorer opens: data.csv with its inputs and results, and a picture and a 3D model of each design.

🔧 Grasshopper component

Explorer RecordAlpaca4d ▸ 12_Optimisation

Inputs

FolderTextAlpacaExplorer\<file name> next to the .gh fileWhere to save the study.

A relative path starts at the .gh file's folder. A definition not saved yet records under Documents\Alpaca4d.

InputsGenericlistFrom Inputs of Explorer Inputs.

A design is known by its inputs.

OutputsGenericlistFrom Explorer Outputs.

ImageGenericactive viewport, 800 × 600From Explorer Image.

ModelAlpacaModel, mesh, Brep, curve, point, text dot, textlistThe design's 3D model. Left empty, there is none.

ColoursColourlistA colour per Model item, or one for all: a text dot's background, a text's colour.

Left empty, anything picked from Rhino keeps the colour Rhino draws it in.

WriteBooleanfalsetrue to save designs.

Outputs

FolderTextThe study folder.

DesignsIntegerHow many designs it holds.

Right-click

Item	Does
Open the study folder	Opens it in Finder or Explorer.
Open the Alpaca4d Explorer	Opens the explorer in the browser, and the folder, ready to drop on it.
Start a new study…	Deletes data.csv and the pictures and models it lists, after asking. Other files in the folder are left alone.

📈 What it saves

AlpacaExplorer/bridge/
  data.csv
  20_1.5_6_HEA200.png
  20_1.5_6_HEA200.glb

Files are named after the design's input values. data.csv has a column per input (in:Span [m]), per result (out:Mass [t]), the picture (img, or img:Top and so on for several views) and the model (threeD).

The 3D model. Plug the AlpacaModel into Model and it is saved as Model View draws it: beams as their sections carried along them, shells and solids as meshes, in the elements' colours. Meshes keep their vertex colours, so a coloured result mesh comes out coloured. Breps and SubDs are meshed, curves become lines, points and point clouds become dots.

Labels. Text dots and text become labels: the explorer draws them over the model, facing you and the same size however far you zoom, as Rhino draws a text dot, and a button in the 3D view shows or hides them. A dot keeps its colour as its background, a text as its colour: the one given in Colours, or else, for a dot picked from Rhino, its own object or layer colour, as Rhino draws it. A thin light ring keeps a black dot visible on a dark view. They are kept as labels in the .glb rather than turned into geometry, so other glTF viewers show the model without them.

💡 Notes

Note

A study only grows. A design whose inputs are already in data.csv is not saved again. Fly again after a stop and only the missing designs are run. To start over, right-click ▸ Start a new study…

Warning

One study per folder. If the folder holds a study with other inputs, results or views, Explorer Record refuses to add to it rather than write rows that do not line up. Record into another folder, or start a new study.

• If a design cannot be saved - data.csv open in Excel, a full disk, a result whose list changed length and with it the columns - the flight stops and says why, rather than solving designs that are not kept.
• A design is written once its solution is over and Rhino has redrawn, so its picture shows it and not the design before. With Write on, moving a slider by hand records the design too.
• Pictures leave out the grid and the axes. Pick a display mode and a view before flying; the picture is the viewport as it is drawn.
• Something that solves designs back to back without letting Rhino redraw, such as Galapagos, still has every design saved, but a picture may show the design after its own.