Ladybug Forward Ray Tracing component on OSX

MatthiasDz · July 9, 2023, 11:23am

I’m having trouble finding Ladybug’s Forward Ray Tracing component after successfully installing the latest Ladybug Tools 1.6.0 from the Food4Rhino webpage. Running Rhino 6 for Mac on OSX 10.14.6. Is this component available in this version of LB on OSX? Where could i find the component?

Thanks!

mostapha · July 9, 2023, 1:04pm

It has a new name. See here:

You can always search the docs page to find the component.

MatthiasDz · July 9, 2023, 3:07pm

Is it still possible to use this component for Ray Tracing in acoustics? Seems like it has changed from an earlier version, where the component could be used to evaluate some acoustical characteristics of a geometry by means of ray tracing. Since it’s using a sun vector and needs a base surface to reflect of, can it still be used to mimic a point source? Like in this method : GA Acoustics - YouTube

Thanks.

chris · July 11, 2023, 3:15pm

Hi @MatthiasDz ,

The ray tracing components were never really designed for acoustics modeling. They were really just meant to model parallel rays as you would get from the sun. You can make your own Grasshopper script to do this kind of analysis without too much work using the native Grasshopper components. Or you could write your own GHPython component that does the point source analysis. You see that there’s only one Rhinocommon method that is used to trace a ray through a set of Breps:

github.com

ladybug-tools/ladybug-rhino/blob/master/ladybug_rhino/intersect.py#L317


      
          
          
def trace_ray(ray, breps, bounce_count=1):
              """Get a list of Rhino points for the path a ray takes bouncing through breps.
          
          
    Args:
                  ray: A Rhino Ray whose path will be traced through the geometry.
                  breps: An array of Rhino breps through with the ray will be traced.
                  bounce_count: An positive integer for the number of ray bounces to trace
                      the sun rays forward. (Default: 1).
              """
              return rg.Intersect.Intersection.RayShoot(ray, breps, bounce_count)
          
          

          
def normal_at_point(brep, point):
              """Get a Rhino vector for the normal at a specific point that lies on a brep.
          
          
    Args:
                  breps: A Rhino brep on which the normal direction will be evaluated.
                  point: A Rhino point on the input brep where the normal will be evaluated.
              """
              return brep.ClosestPoint(point, tolerance)[5]