To install:

1. Just place the minimalSurface.dll in you GC assemblies directory
2. Load the dll from within GC

To Use :

The plug-in will create a new feature name “MinimalSurface”. There are two update methods

1. ByBoundingCurves
   1. U0 –  Curve defining one U boundary.
   2. U1 – Curve defining other U boundary.
   3. V0 –  Curve defining one V boundary.
   4. V1 – Curve defining other V boundary.
   5. Ures – amount of points between the U boundaries. The more points the higher the resulting precision
   6. Vres – amount of points between the V boundaries. The more points the higher the resulting precision.
   7. Itteration – The amount of times the calculation are performed per surface. The higher the value the more precise the calculations. Set this to 0 to have this calculated automatically.
   8. SurfaceOrder – the order of the resulting surface.
   9. createSurface – if True will draw a BSplineSurface, if False will not draw the surface. Useful if you want to build a mesh or polygon on the resulting points instead of a BSplineSurface

1. BetweenTwoCurves
   1. U0 –  Curve defining one U boundary.
   2. U1 – Curve defining other U boundary.
   3. Ures – amount of points between the U boundaries. The more points the higher the resulting precision
   4. Vres – amount of points between the V boundaries. The more points the higher the resulting precision
   5. Itteration – The amount of times the calculation are performed per surface. The higher the value the more precise the calculations Set this to 0 to have this calculated automatically.
   6. SurfaceOrder – the order of the resulting surface.
   7. createSurface – if True will draw a BSplineSurface, if False will not draw the surface. Useful if you want to build a mesh or polygon on the resulting points instead of a BSplineSurface

After the surface is created you can access the surface in two ways

1. minimalSurface01.bsplineSurface
2. minimalSurface01.Constituents[0]

you can also access a 2D array of DPoint3d’s that makeup the surface (good for creating a polygon representation)

1. minimalSurface01.dpoint3d

Please note that when in a new feature dialog .bsplineSurface and .dpoint3d will not show up in the dropdown list. They do show up in a script transaction. This has to do with how GC builds the list for feature properties.

To use :

• drag the .gha file onto the grasshopper window.

• After the file is copied and you start grasshopper you will see a new option in the “Extra” tab in a section name “MinSurf”.

What’s new:

1.  Set the “I” value to 0 to have the optimal solution generated.  This option is very slow due to the amount of time rhino takes to calculate surface area.

2. You can now pass multiple curves into U0, U1, V0, and V1. This allows the solution to maintain the creases (or knots)