Dynamo - Twisting Tower

Whilst I primarily use Dynamo for BIM Management tasks, I do like to delve into the Computational Modelling for facade optioning and building forms.

I am constantly getting asked about.... How do I create one of those twisting towers?

So I decided to put up a small tutorial and the Dynamo script for anybody interested in creating a twisting tower.

Starting with a Mass family, I create a rectangular shape on the Ref Level and a point element to act as my rotation point.

From there Dynamo takes over with inputs for "Number of Levels", "Floor Height", "Bottom Floor Rotation" and "Top Floor Rotation"

Just select the Rectangle and the point and twist away.....enjoy.....

You can take this much further by adding floors and facade elements, but playing with the form is so much fun!!!

Twisting Tower Script

Turning Off Everything

If you need to turn off all of the Model Categories, Annotation Categories, Analytical Categories or the Imported Categories in your model view, there is a really fast way without having to select Categories individually.

(This process can be very useful to determine what is modeled and what is annotation in the view.)

If you open the Visibility/Graphics Overrides dialogue box. In the top left corner of each Category Tab, there is a tick box ‘Show model categories in this view’. If you untick this box it will hide everything listed below in that tab. (For this example I was using the Model Categories tab, the other tabs tick boxes are named accordingly)

Alternatively for model elements you can use a parameter in the View properties dialog box, that will allow you to change Model Display from "Normal" to "Do Not Display"

You also have an option to "Halftone" model elements.

Selection Filter Alternative

When you have multiple elements from multiple categories selected in your model, an even quicker way to filter your selection is to select the pull-down menu just below the Type Selector. This will show the categories that have been selected and you can pick the category to filter.

This filter should be primarily used for smaller selections in your model.

It doesn’t work like the traditional filter, but it allows you to filter to a Category and alter the Parameters only. If you try to move or copy it will alter everything initially selected.

Another limitation to this filter selection, is that you can only select one category to filter.