Falcon - a grasshopper plugin

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A grasshopper plugin for matrix, quaternion and marker detection.
Chen, 2016-10-19

This plugin was developed initially for receiving Quaternion message from ROS and convert into Matrix, in order to visualize our drone in Rhino, which is controlled offboard by ROS through a SLAM algorithm.

Due to higher and higher need of Quaternion and Matrix calculation, I covered almost all necessary operations and put them into a plugin.

Additionally, I added a marker detection part that may be useful to some of you who wants interaction with grasshopper. Further more, augmented reality can also be added upon, but I didn't since I felt it's superfluous to have it in Rhino. To use marker detection I added load image, show image, webcam, and conversion between bitmap and firefly image in case you feel more comfortable using firefly components.

Besides that, I have another component which is pathfinding, just looking for shortest path between two points, with given obstacles. It works in both 2D and 3D. It was one of my assignment in a seminar. It's worth sharing to you although it would be useful in very limited situation...

functionalities

Matrix 4x4

Quaternion

Vision

To use marker detection, you need to print out your markers or use it on your pad or phone(not recommended due to strong reflection of screen). Current supported markers are AprilTags and NyID Model2. Remember, a white boarder around marker is necessary for detection.

Motion

To use marker detection, you need to print out your markers or use it on your pad or phone(not recommended due to strong reflection of screen). Current supported markers are AprilTags and NyID Model2. Remember, a white boarder around marker is necessary for detection.

Showcases

Here is a showcase of Falcon plugin for marker detection.

You can find some videos below showing possible applications using this plugin.

Robot Localization and Navigation Through Grasshopper:

Robot Pathfinding Through Grasshopper:

Acknowledgement

This plugin is developed based on .NET Framework 4.6 and Aforge.NET framework. Also thanks to Long Nguyen, researcher from ICD, University of Stuttgart, who helped debug my plugin.

Download

If you are interested in Pathfinding component, please refer to pathfinding component

The plugin can be downloaded at food4rhino