Equation

Appearance

Grasshopper Plugin ​

The Haskoning Grasshopper Component is made to connect to any of the APIs exposed within the Equation project. It uses the Open API specification to determine the properties of the component such as input parameters, output parameters and the component details. Once the required input parameters are given, the component will solve based on the logic provided by the API. This workflow makes sure the calculations are done using verified centralised business logic running on the back-end of the API.

Since the component is created dynamically based on the Open API specification, there is no need to create a different component for each individual task. This significantly reduces maintenance on the Grasshopper components and users don't need to have any coding knowledge anymore.

Setup Instructions ​

The plugin can be installed using DataFusr Manager:

  1. Open DataFusr Manager and install the Equation Component, make sure you get the latest version.
  1. It will be available in Grasshopper.

Using the component ​

  1. Drag the Equation component into your Grasshopper canvas
  2. It will ask you to authenticate once per session, using SSO
  3. Search and select which API you want to call from the search bar or, if you need more information, from the advanced search form.
  1. Connect input parameters
  1. View results returned into your model

How it works ​

  • The component is created using the Open API Specification to determine the layout of the component (first request). In this request an Open API document is retrieved which contains the information about the layout of the component. This Open API document contains the information to create input parameters and determine if they are optional, create output parameters and set the component details (name, description, etc.).
  • When all non-optional input parameters are provided, the component makes a request to the backend of the selected endpoint (second request). Then the results are returned and can be retrieved on the output parameters.
  • Authentication is handled using Azure Entra ID and the MSAL package, ensuring secure access. An interactive login is required at the start of each session. Once the token is obtained, all subsequent requests are handled silently.