Honeycomb: a Grasshopper Plugin (2023)

Honeycomb, a pattern generating grasshopper plugin, enables the creation of 2D and 3D patterns through symmetric transformations, each derived from the 17 wallpaper groups. Users can choose any of the wallpaper groups to create tilings based on Voronoi Domains and custom topological interlocking blocks. This project was completed in collaboration with Tom Görtzen and Reymond Akpanya from the RWTH Aachen University and Sebastian Wiesenhütter from the Technische Universität Dresden.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and please share anything interesting that you create! Download the plugin from the Food4Rhino Forum and try it out. The code for this project is on GitHub.

The plugin consists of ten components, which work together to generate, manipulate and array the smallest unit of a repeating symmetrical pattern, named fundamental domains. Simply by changing a few parameters in the below script, all six tilings shown above can be created.

Each symmetry group has an infinite amount of fundamental domains, so the number of patterns that can be quickly created is quite large. Historically, Dutch Graphic Artist M. C. Escher employed the use of the pg wallpaper group. Honeycomb enables users to make generate similar imagery.

The below script is responsible for the creation of the above animation. It did require some post-processing in blender, but the entire generation of interlocking blocks and their movement was enabled by Honeycomb.

Users also have the option to draw their own geometry and repeat it via the logic of the wallpaper group. Whether it is an interlocking geometry (created via one of the Make Interlocking Block components) or a geometry created within Rhino-space, the grasshopper tool quickly allows for a repeating transformation.

The software has potentials to move into the physical space and become 3D. 3D printed geometry is quick to output with a few additional rhino or grasshopper commands to make a printable solid. If you, the reader, uses Honeycomb and creates something interesting and beautiful, please share it!

This project was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)-SFB/TRR 280. Projekt-ID: 417002380. Tom Goertzen was partially supported by the FY2022 JSPS Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research in Japan (Short-term), ID PE22747.