Louvers that know their orientation

on

2011-07-18_2315

Do your shading devices know where they’re at?  Well they should.  In New England, we like a nice big shade on the South, almost nothing on the North, and a whole lot of medium in between, maybe we add some verticals if we’re smart.  Seems simple enough, so how do you get your shades to be a little self aware?  Gimme 12 minutes.

2011-07-18_1520

Making a Self Sizing Shade

2011-07-17_2129

2011-07-17_1116

Download the Panels from here.

Comments

  1. TimJuly 21, 2011 at 1:15 AM

    -Zach,
    Great blog! Two questions: I am trying to adapt the "complex panel" into a project and I'm stuck with height1 and height2 parameters in the family-which align the sides I presume. 1) How do I drive those heights with the two angles? Also, you mentioned in the video, the curtain panel ref. lines drive the geometry. 2) Is there a way to drive the panel heights as a curved/nurbs surface instead of the orthogonal surface for added complexity?
    Thx, Tim

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  2. Zach KronJuly 21, 2011 at 8:58 PM

    Hey Aire11ao, yes, that one is a little more involved, but the basic principles are the same as the more simple panel.
    Tim, the height are driven by formulas inside the measuring panels and, yes, you can use the panel height to drive other more complex shapes. Uncheck "visible" parameter for the measuring panel inside of the shadePanel family, then host your complex geometry on the extrusion.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJuly 24, 2011 at 6:50 PM

    are you using revit 2012?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Zach KronJuly 24, 2011 at 7:24 PM

    Anonymous: Yes, I'm demonstrating this in in Revit 2012, but you can do the same thing in R2011, as well as Vasari 1.1 or Vasari 2.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dave BaldacchinoAugust 1, 2011 at 11:27 PM

    My head hurts, but in a good way :) Nice work as always!

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousAugust 5, 2011 at 12:58 AM

    Instead of using angles to drive the extrusion of panels, i'm thinking how it will be done if the z-height of each curtain panel from the ground determines the thickness of mullions. Can you show us how?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Zach KronAugust 5, 2011 at 2:02 PM

    Anonymous: Try this plug in:
    http://buildz.blogspot.com/2009/05/api-yi-yi.html
    Unfortunately, I don't have the plugin compiled for r2012, but you can download the r2011 version from Redbolt in his big pile of compiled samples
    http://www.redbolts.com/blog/post/2010/04/29/Revit2011-e28093Compiled-SDK-for-consumption.aspx
    Otherwise, you'd need to do some mucking around in the REvit 2012 sdk.
    C:\Revit SDK 2012\Software Development Kit\Samples\Massing\DistanceToPanels\CS

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownAugust 11, 2011 at 2:17 PM

    great work, I test it with self orienting panel with self sizing openings and it works great too!
    see
    http://funxploration.blogspot.com/2011/08/self-adjusted-opening-panels.html

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousNovember 14, 2011 at 4:04 AM

    Zach, this works great for a horizontal Shade panel, currently I'm trying to make a shade system (similar to 'fish scales" using the 1/2 step geometry) that has the panel rotated to be orientated directly toward the sun to allow northern light(in Australia)in. Any ideas??
    Thanks

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  10. Zach KronNovember 14, 2011 at 8:54 AM

    Try this tutorial:
    http://buildz.blogspot.com/2010/08/look-ma-no-api-making-sun-tracker.html

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousNovember 14, 2011 at 7:52 PM

    Thanks mate.
    I want to create the same sun tracker using a 1/2 step geometry, but i'm having issues as it keeps breaking, any ideas??
    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  12. UnknownNovember 20, 2011 at 6:37 PM

    Hi Zach,

    Quick question:
    I got this to work in a Conceptual Mass, but to my surprise, the whole orientation thing looses reference when importing the Mass in a project. Is this expected behaviour?

    ReplyDelete

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