Software Products

Release Version

Important Notes:

• If Griddle toolbar is not visible after the installation, use _Toolbar command to open Toolbar controls, then:
  • in Rhino 8: select Griddle from the dropdown list under the Toolbars and Toolbar Groups and enable Griddle toolbar.
  • in Rhino 9: click on |Toolbars (1)| button under Griddle.rui and enable Griddle toolbar.

New Features:

• For the list of new features, see notes to version 3.1.7 below.

Improvements:

• GUtil: Added ability to color layers for all ColorBy modes.
• GUtil: Updated NameObjects mode to have distinct and compound naming toggles.
• Updated documentation, improved styling and colors when referencing Griddle commands and options.

Bug Fixes:

• GExtract: Fixed an issue causing occasional face duplication in ByAspectRatio mode.
• GCollapse: Fixed an issue causing very slow execution in Rhino 9 in MeshToMesh mode.
• GCollapse: Fixed an issue causing incorrect mesh pieces filtering by area in MeshToMesh mode.
• GCollapse: Fixed issues causing creation of an incorrect or poor fitting mesh in FitSurface mode.
• GCollapse: Fixed a bug causing incomplete options being shown in various modes.
• GUtil: Fixed issues with coloring layers to match object colors.
• Fixed issues with the ability to interrupt / cancel operations when they are executed in multiple threads.

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BETA Version

New Features:

• GExtend: New option to extend meshes in locally horizontal directions (extension vectors z-coordinate is zeroed at every vertex at the extension boundary).
• GCollapse: New FitSurface mode to collapse "volume-like" surface meshes into a single "best fit" surface mesh.
• GCollapse: New InterpolateBetween mode to interpolate one or more surface meshes between an input mesh and another base object.
• GFile: New functionality for importing and exporting multiple DXF / STL / 3DM files to and from a Rhino model.
• GUtil: New functionality hosting a collection of helpful tools / utilities for working with objects in Rhino.
• GUtil: New advanced options when coloring objects.
• GUtil: New NameObjects tool for changing objects property "Name" based on their layers.
• Rhino 9 support.

Improvements:

• ColorizeObjects: Migrated to new GUtil toolset (renamed to ColorObjects) with enhanced coloring features.
• GHeal operations are generally faster due to the use of multithreading in many operations (the speed up depends on the number of processed meshes).
• Improved security when checking for updates.
• All commands now display the total time spent on their execution. All commands (except for BlockRanger) display a progress bar.
• Griddle now checks for updates every time Rhino is launched, not only after a Griddle command was called.
• Updated documentation.

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Improvements:

• BlockRanger: New option InspectBReps to do additional checks on BRep parameters and warn about possible issues (BRep surfaces represent faces of solids).
• Some optimizations in the security logic.
• Updated End-User License Agreement.

Bug Fixes:

• BlockRanger: Fixed a bug with extremely slow processing when a large number of solids are selected.
• GCollapse: Fixed minor memory leaks.
• Small bug fixes in the security logic.

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Improvements:

• GExtend: New option TriangulateExt triangulates extended mesh parts to prevent creation of non-planar faces.
• GExtend: Updated progress reporting when running ExtendAllBoundaries with many inputs.
• GExtend: The ExtendToMesh option now requires that base mesh faces at and around the extension contain of triangular faces only, which is needed for improving extension accuracy.
• GExtract: Updated progress reporting when using Multiple option with many inputs.
• GExtract: Optimized Multiple option when extracting with a high break angle.
• Updated End-User License Agreement

Bug Fixes:

• GVol: Fixed group identification with volumes that are partially in contact.
• GVol: Fixed issue with reporting volume mesh errors.
• GHeal: Fixed a memory leak when working with a large number of inputs.
• GHeal: Fixed a bug causing crash when removing closed non-manifold pieces that are identified as duplicate faces.
• GHeal: Fixed a bug that removed non-manifold pieces when FillHoles=Yes and RemoveNonmanifolds=No.
• GExtend: Fixed an exception hapenning when extending surfaces meshes which are far from the model origin.
• GExtend: Fixed a bug when selecting a full boundary (a closed curve) results in the last extension segment being missed.
• GExtend: Fixed a bug of not finding mesh intersection when extending along average tangent.
• GExtend: Fixed an exception occurred when target mesh intersects the base mesh outside of the selected extension boundaries.
• GExtend: Fixed a bug causing the target mesh pieces to extend in the direction opposite to the normal to base mesh.
• GExtract: Fixed a bug with multithreading when only using one processor.
• GExtract: Fixed a bug caused from neighboring mesh faces having normals very close to break angle, resulting in duplicated pieces being extracted.

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RELEASE Version

New features:

• GHeal: New functionality in ShowErrors option to show duplicate faces.
• GHeal: New and deeply updated tools in AutomaticHeal option: RemoveDuplicates, FixClashingFaces, RemoveNonmanifolds, FillHoles.
• BlockRanger: Added VTK output.
• New Tutorial Example 8.

Improvements:

• Fully updated Griddle User Manual and Griddle Tutorials.
• WEB license checks are now faster (full checks happen only in the beginning and after longer inactivity periods).
• Updated most of progress reporting and command cancelling, so it is consistent between all Griddle tools.
• GInt/GSurf: Improved speed of processed faces regrouping and attributes reassignment.
• GInt: Improvements to handle some complex pathological/bad meshes.
• GVol: Changed group naming for visualization to be consistent with the output formats.
• GHeal: Updated the logic behind ClashingFaces checks in ShowErrors option.
• GExtract: Optimized and significantly improved speed when using Multiple option.

Bug Fixes:

• GInt: Fixed an exception occasionally happening when no intersections are found.
• GInt: Fixed issue with discrepancies between the displayed intersection type in the command options and actually used one.
• GVol: Fixed group and slot names assignments in 3DEC output.
• GExtrude: Fixed bug when the outermost boundary was not properly detected and extrusion wouldn't happen.
• GExtend: Fixed a bug causing crash when vertices on mesh boundary could not be found due to poor geometry and/or insufficient tolerance.

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New features:

• New Griddle toolbar.
• BlockRanger: New option to specify zone and face group Slots (applies to FLAC3D and 3DEC only).
• GCollapse: New function to collapse one or more surface meshes on another mesh within a specified distance. This allows for resolving (nearly) overlapping meshes and constructing simpler volumes between them.
• GCollapse: New option to automatically intersect and trim collapsed meshes to provide fully conformal intersections with the base mesh. Intersection tolerance is calculated automatically.
• GExtrude: Added new option to extrude meshes with internal boundaries.
• GInt: New option IntersectionType to specify which type of intersection will be done: between distinct meshes, within meshes only, or both (Full / the default option).
• GVol: New option to assign face groups only to the named surface meshes present in a Rhino model (applies to FLAC3D only).
• GVol: New option to specify zone and face group Slots (applies to FLAC3D and 3DEC only).

Improvements:

• BlockRanger:: Joint sets for 3DEC output are now grouped with group name indicating between which blocks the set is created (instead of joint ID).
• GExtract: Significant speed improvement when extracting faces within distance (WithinDistance option).
• GVol: Improved the issues layers behavior and the default locking of the layers.
• GVol: Removed "IF_/EF_" prefixes from group names coming from named surface meshes (applies to FLAC3D only). Face groups corresponding to the unnamed surface meshes will still contain the mentioned prefixes.
• GVol: Added surface output (as collections of nodes/vertices) for Abaqus.

Bug Fixes:

• Updated all embedded html help documentation. Upon pressing F1, the help topics are now opened in the default browser.
• GExtrude: Fixed issue with extruding faces attached to non-conformal naked edges (not actual boundaries).

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New features:

• GExtract: New option WithinDistance to extract mesh faces within some distance from an object (can be a point, point cloud, curve/polycurve, surface/polysurface, mesh).
• GExtract: New option ByArea to extract mesh faces that have area within user specified limits. Multiple meshes can be selected at once.
• GExtract: New option ByAspectRatio to extract mesh faces that have sides aspect ratio larger than user specified value. Multiple meshes can be selected at once.
• GExtend: New option TrimExtension in ExtendToMesh to automatically intersect and trim mesh extension. This provides fully conformal intersection between the extended and target meshes after the extension.

Improvements:

• GInt: New option ShowWarnings to show or suppress any warnings (e.g., about Ngons).
• GExtract: New option ShowWarnings to show or suppress any warnings (e.g., about Ngons).
• GExtract: New option to manage creation or modification of layers with extracted mesh faces.
• GExtract: Most of the functions are multithreaded based on the number of extracted meshes (except for Single, All).
• GExtend: Removed ShowExtOutline option as not necessary.
• GVol: Removed IniErrorCheck and added new option ShowWarnings for better handling of various warnings and errors.

Bug Fixes:

• BlockRanger: Fixed bug that deselected unsupported solids (they are supposed to stay selected to indicate that they were not meshed).
• BlockRanger: Fixed CSV output.
• GExtract: Fixed bug when extracting mesh faces at 0 brake angle ( = exploding mesh into faces).

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ALPHA Version

New features:

• GInt: Implemented a new two-pass intersector. This allows intersecting only the faces which fall within the specified tolerance of each other without affecting other faces (e.g., non-intersecting quadrilateral faces are not triangulated).
• GInt: Ability to highlight/visualize intersecting faces in real time and update the visualization depending on the tolerance.
• GInt: Ability to highlight/visualize intersected faces.
• GSurf: Multithreaded remesher. The engine is more robust and allows remeshing many bad meshes that would fail in Griddle 2.0.
• GSurf: New option, Output -> DistinctNoInpBnds to remesh while ignoring the skeleton edges (see F1 help). This makes remeshing similar to Griddle 1.0.
• GVol: Ability to include hard nodes and hard edges into the volume mesh (set MeshSettings -> InclHardNodesEdges=Yes).
• GVol: Ability to assign custom element size around the hard nodes in the volume mesh.
• GVol: Element groups are assigned based on the subdomain volume (from largest to smallest). This provides consistency with group assignment.
• GVol: Ability to visualize volume mesh and place each group/subdomain in separate layers.
• GVol: Ability to visualize poor quality elements and place/sort them in separate layers.
• GVol: All FE outputs (except for Abaqus, for now) allow for surface output via collections of surface nodes.
• GVol: New VTK output.
• GHeal: Ability to show and fix (triangulate) Ngons.
• GExtend: Ability to extend one mesh to another along local tangential, custom, or normal directions.

Improvements:

• All commands: automatic detection of Ngons.
• GVol: Reorganized layers for clear indication of errors, issues, and output (poor elements, visualization).
• GHeal: Reorganized layers to output number of issues for each issue type.
• Updated License logic / dialog corresponding to ItascaSoftware v9.

Bug Fixes: