Pantograph re-start

After reviewing the structure of Freestyle, I’m still left with the belief that Pantograph provides a necessary vector-rendering alternative for Blender. The parts of Freestyle that are missing for me: lack of vector fills, lack of cutting/sectioning tools, and no post-processing/tweaking possibilities.

I’m starting the tenative steps to re-write Pantograph again, with the following priorities:

1. Good memory management
2. Stability
3. Speed
4. Integration with Blender
5. Ease of installation

I’m looking at using a mixture of C++ and Python,  and implementing some sort of multi-processing.  Output will be restricted to SVG and PNG: enough good convertors exist that maintaining extra exporters doesn’t make sense.

cheers,

Severn

 

Some Reorganization…

I’m pleased to announce the formation of my new multidisciplinary design studio, Studio Les Bêtes.   For more information and updates on that enterprise, please visit http://lesbetes.wordpress.com.

This blog will continue to support my software development work – I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus lately, focusing on my design work.  Pantograph is currently on hold until the new Blender 2.5 API stabilizes – after that, I’m still deciding whether to work to support Freestyle as a Blender vector-rendering option or to continue to develop Pantograph.  Freestyle shows a lot of promise, has the weight of solid developers behind it, and also is able to create vector (svg) output – the style modules seem to have enough flexibility to add features pretty easily.

cheers,

Severn/rocketship

 

Natatorium Project to be Exhibited at Tokyo Biennale

The Rouse Hill Natatorium, a project that I designed with Francis Bitonti (FADarchitecture) and Brian Osborne (BOTH) will be exhibited from April 7 to May 17, 2009 in Turin Italy, and then travel to Tokyo in May of 2010 as part of the Advanced Architecture Settimo Tokyo Biennale:

The House of Arts and Architecture Association CASARTARC  in Settimo Torinese, Turin, is developing a project called ‘Advanced Architecture Settimo Tokyo’ (AAST), a group of Generative Architecture events: workshops, a two days conference and an exhibition with venues in Settimo , Tokyo,  Cagliari and London. The events of AAST focus on the approach to design through parametric design tools, such as Rhinoscript, Grasshopper, Mel, DP, GC. The first stage of the exhibition will run from 7 April to 17 May 2009 in Turin, Italy. The opening conference for the exhibition will be made by Patrik Schumacher (partner at Zaha Hadid Architects).

 

Open Source Publishing

I’ve been reading this blog by some graphic designers in Brussels, and have found some of their writing on the use of open-source tools particularly interesting.  I carried a copy of this article around in my briefcase for several weeks:

http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/wp-content/uploads/awkward_gestures.pdf

I would like to see a similar discussion started with architectural software – our profession, at least in the States, is equally bound to the fate and profit motives of one software company (Autodreck).

Here’s the link to the main blog:  http://ospublish.constantvzw.org/

 

Pantograph update

“Bleeding-edge” is updated again:
-no longer does sys.exit(1) when Cairo is not present
-swf output may be fixed (?) but ming still crashes Ubuntu 64
-config settings are now in pantographConfig.py, to make it easier to update without re-setting your home dir.

 

_bleedingEdge is updated.

Clipping is…better.  Here.

 

Pantograph 0.5 is out

Its been an exhausting month – my son was born on October 7, and everything takes longer when you’re trying to bounce a baby with one hand and type with your right hand!

I’m moving to a slightly different system – putting out a pretty stable release and keeping a less-stable bleeding-edge version as well (basically, the version I’m using). YMMV. So, without further ado:

Pantograph 0.5 changeLog (yeah, we’ve got that too)

• the GUI has been thoroughly replaced by a Blender user-interface.  Its a little spare, but its growing on me and the experience is much smoother running it from Blender.  pyGTK is no longer required.
• The clipping has been re-written  – with the hopes of dealing with the memory hole for larger meshes.
• There’s now a “raster fill” option – you can use a rendered version of the scene (a PNG file, to be exact) as a clipped fill – you get sharp linework but also soft shading, textures, shadows.  You could take this into Inkscape and poTrace your way back to resolution independence.
• There’s now a proper frustum cull – things outside of the camera view are clipped and not rendered.

Known Bugs:

• The Blender GUI doesn’t yet work properly in Windows – to get changes in buttons to register, you have to raise another window and then go back to Blender.  Works fine in Linux.  Upstream bug?
• There’s a mysterious, unrepeatable seg fault that happens every once in a while, though I’ve only noticed it in Linux.
• SWF output is broken.  No, its just not hooked up yet – I’ve been developing on a 64-bit system, and Ming is only 32-bit… if people are clamoring for this, it might happen sooner.

Happy Halloween,

Severn

 

Time #%^@# Warner

…has wiped my ftp space – again.  Downloads will be back shortly – sorry for the inconvenience! (Seriously, if I could buy internet service from a herd of baboons operating out of a basement instead, I would)

 

Pantograph update

I have a new full-time job (yay!), which means I haven’t had nearly the same luxury of time to work on Pantograph (boo!).  I have, however, been patiently working through the debugging of Pantograph 0.5 – I’m hoping to have it done by the end of the Summer, if not sooner.

Spurring things on is the discovery that pyGTK doesn’t seem to work with Blender 2.46.  Since 2.46 hasn’t hit the Ubuntu repos yet, I didn’t realize this until people started complaining.  The new version will have a Blender-native GUI, so this should fix the problem.

I’ve also started to look at re-coding parts of it in C or C++.  Very preliminarily – I haven’t written much C since college, and the thought of all those semi-colons makes my head hurt.  At some point it would be great to get help/advice from somebody who has experience cross-compiling between Windows and Linux, or even just somebody who has experience compiling from source in Windows.  I have a copy of MS Visual Studio, though I have to admit I’ve never even installed it.

 

Cooper-Hewitt Bicycle rack design competition

Team members: Severn Clay-Youman, Nathan King, Daniel Ramirez

Designing for Promiscuity

Because of their speed and efficiency, bicycles may well be the future of transportation in the 21^st Century city. For cycling to reach its full potential in the urban milieu, a locking strategy must be developed that meets the needs of all cyclists. The traditional bicycle rack simultaneously accommodates and explicitly limits the urban cyclist: here you may bring your bike on the sidewalk, here you may park your bike safely, here you are allowed.  It is a familiar type of urbanistic intervention: clearly delineated, appropriately proportioned within the streetscape. It belies, however, the opportunistic nature of urban cycling: rather than a simple replacement for driving a car, cycling fills the gaps between walking, public transportation and driving.