ARC550 Advanced Computer Applications in Architecture

Lecture Notes

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Monday   April 8, 2002: Form·Z Materials, Surface Styles
Main Entry: pa·ram·e·ter; noun
Etymology: New Latin, from para- + Greek metron measure
1 a : an arbitrary constant whose value characterizes a member of a system (as a family of curves); also : a quantity (as a mean or variance) that describes a statistical population b : an independent variable used to express the coordinates of a variable point and functions of them -- compare PARAMETRIC EQUATION
2 : any of a set of physical properties whose values determine the characteristics or behavior of something <parameters of the atmosphere such as temperature, pressure, and density>
4 : LIMIT, BOUNDARY -- usually used in plural <the parameters of science fiction>

From Meriam Webster dictionary
formZ can be described as dealing with two kings of modeling objects
  • facetted objects (sometimes called polygonal or plain objects) and
  • parametric objects.
Facetted objects are stored it its database as boundary representations, or b-reps. Fundamentally all facetted objects are defined or anchored by points, locations in 3 dimensional space, each with its own x, y and z coordinates. Formz uses the notion of topology to describe the connection between the points.

Facetted objects are also known as polygonal or plain objects.

All of the values (points, segments, faces, volumes, etc.) can be considered variables.

 Parametric objects are the result of a process of parametric modelling, that is, the information that is stored amounts to a description of the process by which the object is generated rather than the description of the object itself.

Since the properties of the object type are known, fewer variables are required to describe the object.

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Notes by Allen Williams:

4/8/02

  • Materials
    • To create a new surface style, click in the blank space of the surface style pallet.
    • Once the new style is created, it (as well as any of the styles provided by Form· Z) can be altered.
    • To bring up the characteristics of a surface style, simply double click on one in the styles pallet.
      • Once this is done, the user has several options which can customize any of the surface styles. Color, reflection, transparency, and bump can all selected here, along with further customizing of each subtopic by selecting options.
      • As an example, consider the selections possible when considering color.
        • One has several options which result in a colored face possessing various patterns, such as: brick, checker, grid, polka dots, stripes, and wood boards.
        • In addition, at the very bottom of the menu, one can select image map. This selection allows the user to take a custom image, and apply it as a surface style. The size of this selected image can be adjusted, as well as the number of repetitions of this image both horizontally and vertically.

Clicking on options to the right of the color selection, will bring up a window allowing one to select one of a huge range of colors
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Last update: November 09, 2003. Copyright © 2003 Bruce M. Coleman
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