Celestial coordinates dataset for use in parametric design in Rhino-Grasshoper

[yllaee]

Hello Starmaking Community
I have been using stelarium for some years nows, and I recently found out it's totally open source! Hurrah!
I'm currently preparing my architecture diploma in the field of computational architecture, and I would like to delve in CA design that integrate stars and celestial phenomenon.

My idea would be to integrate star coordinate and their ecliptic in Rhino-Grasshoper, and then run my script to generate iteration of building geometries that align with celestials bodies. Basically contemporary archaeoastronomy ;)

I'm really new in the field and I wish to set myself this ambitious goal to kick-off my basic knowledge in code, and create a tool that could be used to design future buildings. I'm aware that some contemporary practice exist, such as James Turrel Roden crater, the Giants sun mirror in Rjukan, or the sun tower from OPEN architecture studio in Yantai. I would be really curious if you know more!

My first question is: is the dataset of celestial coordinate available somewhere?
Second question: do you think Rhino-grasshoper is a suitable environment to conduct this research?I foresee that there will be a need of intersection of polar coordinate with XYZ coordinate system, It seemed to me that R-G can handle this well.
Last question: what would be the best way for me to proceed with your data?

I'm very excited to post this first sweaty/messy message here and will be greatly looking forward for our discussion!
Thank you in advance for your time and interest,
Kind Regards
Lucas Tanner

[gzotti]

Hi!

"dataset of celestial coordinates": There are the stars in the star catalog files (The original catalogs are available elsewhere. We have packed them into a format most useful for us,) and then there are moving objects computed on the fly, so not the positions are stored, just the instructions to compute them.

You can interact with Stellarium using the RemoteControl plugin API. Here you can query for positions and other data which you can then probably use in Rhino. The plugin is described in the User Guide, the API is documented on our website. Given the Open-source nature of our project, I'd much prefer to see something funny appearing as well-documented open-source plugin for likewise open-source Blender, though.

I have read of a curious non-observing of natural skies by some architect who designed a curved south facade covered in mirroring glass. It turned out to be a huge concave mirror furnace! (Not sure if a parked car was incinerated or so?)

[yllaee]

Hello!
What a fast answer, thank you!
I will look more into what you have just described. Allow me some time and question since it's really the very beginning of this project!
Obviously, I will render the result of my research open source! I also use blender a lot.

Haha, I've heard about this story of concave mirror. Architects have sometime quite the sense of humour. I'm not going in this direction, promise ;)

Greetings