CNets: An Interactive Design Framework for Cone-Nets

Planar quadrilateral (PQ) meshes play an important role in Architectural Geometry, with ongoing research focused on developing effective tools for their design. Cone-nets are a special class of regular PQ meshes in which one family of PQ strips forms discrete (projective) cones. This paper builds on recent advances in the study of cone-nets and presents a constructive implementation in an interactive design tool that enables intuitive real-time exploration of the design space of cone-nets within the Grasshopper/Rhino environment. We provide novel theoretical insights into cone-nets, introduce a user-friendly interface, and incorporate a correction mechanism to repair degenerate configurations. Our aim is to make cone-nets more accessible to the broader community of practitioners and to promote their application in advanced architectural design scenarios.