Parametric reinforcement with T-Rex in Grasshopper 🦖

Every now and then I like to share some personal interests and projects I find useful in this daily search for optimisation. Today we'll look into a Grasshopper plugin. If you are already working with Rhino/ Grasshopper you know there are hundreds of plugins and a great community behind it.

This one is called T-Rex. T-Rex is a Parametric Reinforcement Plug-in for Grasshopper and it helps your 3D modeling of reinforced concrete structures.

​I believe it's an awesome solution by Wojciech Radaczyński to quickly design reinforced elements and I can see a lot of potential using T-Rex with other plugins. In my tests below I use it with VisualARQ for example to generate a concrete column. I can see it being used in the future in connection with, or even being directly connected to other solutions to get a reinforced structure while you design your next architectural masterpiece and even simulate it's stability.

I also love the addition to the latest release (0.2.0 BETA); to group elements and export to a single IFC at the end of the pipeline. This component was designed based on the xbim library to allow IFCs creation. I'm still testing this feature and I will update this post when I do.

It doesn't stop there, it's also opensource, same as the other plugins by Wojciech; pterodactyl, megarachne, brontosaurus, which make it even more powerful.

I urge you to test them as well and possibly contribute to any of the plugins. Find them on GitHub at paireks, on Food4Rhino and with detailed documentation

Testing 👇

After a few basic tests of the components and the IFC export, I went on to design a parametric reinforced concrete column using T-Rex to add steel stirrups and rodes, wrapping it with a VisualARQ column element and visualising the data with Conduit.

About T-Rex

Purpose

T-Rex can help you to create 3D models of reinforced concrete structures with Grasshopper (Rhino 6 or 7).

How it works?

Basically T-Rex can help you to model different rebars, which are represented by meshes, which allows real-time generation of model even for thousands of bars.

Check Manual here: https://code-structures.com/T_Rex_Manual/Manual%20for%20T-Rex.html

Here's the introduction to the various capabilities of T-Rex

Features (0.2.0) BETA

• Concrete: Profile, Profile To Elements, Mesh To Elements, Element Group Info
• IFC: Create IFC
• Rebar Shapes from curves: Curve To Rebar, Polyline To Rebar
• Rebar Shapes from rectangle: Rectangle To Line Bar Shape, Rectangle To U-Bar Shape, Rectangle To Stirrup Shape
• Rebar Shapes library: L-Bar Shape, Stirrup Shape, Spacer Shape
• Rebar Spacings: Curve Spacing, Custom Spacing, Vector Count Spacing, Vector Length Spacing, Rebar Group Info
• Properties: Bending Roller, Cover Dimensions, Material, Rebar Properties

[...] and that's an actual T-Rex 3D model on Studio 3DX uploaded by Wojciech Radaczyński 🦖

I hope you enjoyed this quick view into T-Rex. Feel free to contact me on Linkedin and on email at mm(at)parametricos.com

Cheers,
Marios Messios