Saola

Grasshopper components for ETABS structural modeling, built on EtabSharp.

Named after Vietnam's rarest animal — the Asian unicorn.

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Prerequisites

• Rhino 8 (uses .NET 8)
• ETABS 21+ installed and licensed
• EtabSharp 0.3.2-beta on NuGet

Setup

1. Copy ETABSv1.dll from your ETABS installation into refs/

   • Default: C:\Program Files\Computers and Structures\ETABS 21\ETABSv1.dll

2. Update Rhino/Grasshopper assembly paths in both .csproj files if Rhino 8 is not installed at the default location.

3. Build the solution:

   dotnet build Saola.sln
   

4. Copy Saola.gha from src/Saola.Plugin/bin/Debug/net8.0/ into your Grasshopper Libraries folder:

   • %APPDATA%\Grasshopper\Libraries\

5. Open Rhino 8, launch Grasshopper, and find components under the Saola tab.

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Components

Connection

Component	Nickname	Description
Initialize	Init	Connect to a running ETABS instance

Frames

Component	Nickname	Description
Draw Column	Column	Draw a column from a line + section name
Draw Beam	Beam	Draw a beam from a line + section name

Areas

Component	Nickname	Description
Draw Wall	Wall	Draw a wall from a closed point list + section name
Draw Slab	Slab	Draw a slab from a closed point list + section name

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Usage pattern

All components pass the Model connection through as the first output, so you can chain them left to right on the canvas:

[Initialize] → Model → [Draw Column] → Model → [Draw Wall] → ...

Wall and Slab components accept a closed point list — the last point should repeat the first (standard Grasshopper closed polyline convention). The closing point is stripped automatically before passing to ETABS.

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Project structure

Saola/
├── Saola.sln
├── refs/                        ← place ETABSv1.dll here (not in source control)
└── src/
    ├── Saola.Core/              ← no GH dep, unit-testable
    │   ├── Core/
    │   │   ├── ETABSSession.cs  ← COM singleton
    │   │   └── GH_ETABSModel.cs ← Goo wrapper
    │   └── Parameters/
    │       └── ETABSModelParameter.cs
    └── Saola.Plugin/            ← GH components + plugin registration
        ├── SaolaInfo.cs
        └── Components/
            ├── Connection/InitializeComponent.cs
            ├── Frames/DrawColumnComponent.cs
            ├── Frames/DrawBeamComponent.cs
            ├── Areas/DrawWallComponent.cs
            └── Areas/DrawSlabComponent.cs