Utilizing Pangolin in a "Consteel first workflow"

Pangolin not only creates Consteel models for you but can also read and utilize your existing Consteel models. This is what we will look into more detail in this article.

Importing a simple Consteel model to Rhino-Grasshopper

Let's say you already have a model built in Consteel:

You can either save this model as a .smadsteel file from Consteel, and load it in Grasshopper, or as in this case, use Pangolin’s live connection to read it while both programs run:

The imported objects can be used in the further Grasshopper definition just like any other object created with Pangolin’s components.

For example when you get a huge spreadsheet with a list of all the loads and their positions on a floor from a partner, or there is just a particular load distribution that is easier to define algorithmically than placing them all manually:

Then you can just send over the newly added objects to the same Consteel model:

Of course, this was a really simple example.

Now let's take a more complex Consteel model: