Grasshopper Template

Ever since I became a computational designer, I've become more and more convinced of the importance of script hygiene. A good template not only identifies the author and purpose of a script but should also assist with the tedious process of script organization and sharing. As computational design teams grow, this becomes much more important, and it's good practice for anyone who wants to move beyond the "spaghetti" phase of computational design learning.

My personal Grasshopper template is an endless work in progress. I've tweaked it countless times in the past few years as I've collaborated and learned. Because collaboration in computational design is such a tricky subject, I decided to share this template in the hopes that people will use it as a base to create their own useful starting points for future scripts.

My goals in designing this template file:

• It should contain brand identity, author identification, a script description, and a clearly visible "last modified" date.
• It should make it extremely easy to organize scripts through the use of color and nicknames.
• All colors and settings should be customizable, according to the user's preference.
• The template should list all plugins used in the script, including version number, and automatically track additions and deletions.
• As a precursor to sharing scripts with outside collaborators, the template should check to make sure that all the plugins used are available on the Rhino package manager. While it's not necessary to ensure this before sharing a script, it makes it so much easier for the recipient to get up and running with your file.
• As a bonus, the script should offer educational resources for coding, in the form of seamless access to the GH-Sharp library of reference scripts.
• Finally, the template should have absolutely NO dependencies (i.e. it should run on anyone's computer regardless of whether they have any Grasshopper plugins installed). To that end, everything must be delivered using C# Script Editor components. Legacy old-style C# script components are also provided for Rhino 7 users.

First (and most important of all), the script allows users to auto-color groups via simple prefix codes that can be entered into the group nickname. All colors and codes are customizable, according to your brand/preference.

Previously, I had used the "Document Info" component from Metahopper to keep track of third-party assemblies referenced by my script, but it always annoyed me that a user would have to have Metahopper installed in order for the template to work properly. Rewriting this functionality in C# ensures that the tracking feature will always work, no matter who opens the file.

When I first encountered the package manager feature in Rhino, I didn't quite know what to make of it, and I've typically always chosen to manage my own plugins with direct file downloads (I've even been known to go into the package manager directory to "steal" .gha files for my own collection). However, since meeting Timo Harboe at a few conferences last year (Timo is a hardcore devotee of the package manager, even going so far as refusing to use any plugin that does not make itself available on the package manager server), I've come around and now definitely see the wisdom in favoring plugins that can be automatically downloaded by Rhino. There are certain plugins I just can't part with... so I probably won't be taking up Timo's zero-tolerance policy just yet, but I've written a tool that at least lets you check your script before sending it out.

When I was first learning to write C# code for Grasshopper, the GH-Sharp library was an important reference for me. Started by Harvard GSD professor Jose Luis Garcia del Castillo (and contributed to by many others), GH-Sharp is an effort to rewrite all the native Grasshopper components as C# scripts. This is just a fantastic resource for anyone who is familiar with Grasshopper and wants to learn C#. You can think about what you're trying to do in terms of a script, and then have all the code for that script available to you. As a little bonus feature, I've built in easy access to GH-Sharp through the template. After you configure the component to point to your local copy of the library, you'll have hundreds of C# code examples at your fingertips!

I hope this template proves to be a good framework for your own perfect script starting point. It's intended to be reworked and tweaked to suit your style. Please let me know what you think of it (you can leave a comment right here!), or if you have any suggestions for the next release.

Sign up as a member on this site in order to download the Grasshopper template here, completely free of charge:

Grasshopper Template Download

Access all releases of the CLSM Grasshopper template here.

CLSMColin L.S. Matthews