📐 Getting Started

In your very first step into the Semio workflow, we’ll start with a simple, hands-on example 🧱

We’ll model the Semio logo as a custom brick set and use it to explore the basic Semio tools, concepts, terminologies, and workflows 🖼️

From sketch to final design, you’ll learn how to break down your sketch into modular parts and lay them out — then snap everything together, just like building a LEGO model 📐

Before we jump in, we’ll take a quick look at the Semio workflow and the platforms you can use to do this 🛠️

🛠️ Designing with Semio: Your Platform Options

semio offers two main platforms for designing you modular systems:

🦗 Grasshopper Plugin

You’ll always start in Grasshopper, using the Semio plugin to model your Brick Set 🧱
This is where you define all the core elements of your modular system:

🧱 Create your Brick Molds
- Model Types — the custom molds that define your bricks

🧩 Create your Design
- Place Pieces — the bricks you use in your design
- Define Connections — the rules for how your bricks snap together 🔗

Perfect for advanced workflows, parametric logic, and integrating with existing Grasshopper setups 🧠🔧

🌐 Sketchpad

Use Sketchpad when you want a more visual, intuitive way to assemble designs 🎨

In Sketchpad, you can:

🧩 Snap together Pieces using your predefined brick set
🔁 Define Connections between Ports
🖼️ Visually lay out and iterate on your design with speed and clarity

Ideal for early design studies, collaboration, and fast iteration

🔄 Use One or Combine Both

Semio is designed to be platform-flexible 🔄

🧱 You can create Kits in Grasshopper and assemble Designs in Sketchpad
🧩 Or keep everything in Grasshopper

No matter how you work, your Kits and Designs stay ** reusable, and editable** across both tools ♻️

📝 Sketch Breakdown

Normally, you’d create your own design instructions from scratch ✍️
But for this tutorial, we’ve provided the steps you need to follow to reach the final design 🧩

📤 sketch drawing

Your sketch is split into two parts 🖼️:

🔲 Creating the Brick Molds
🔳 Creating your design

Each part helps you understand a different layer of the design logic 🎯
We’ll go through both in detail, step by step 🪜

🔲 Creating the Brick Molds

📤 sketch drawing

The mission in the beginning is to look at the Logo sketch and start spotting patterns 🔍
You’ll notice five shapes that look nearly identical — just with different lengths 📏

🧱 Think of them like LEGO bricks:
A 2-stud brick 🟦, a 4-stud brick 🟪, and a 5-stud brick 🟥
Same shape logic ✨ just stretched or scaled 📐

In Step 1 🔧 you’ll see the base shape and instructions to reach the desired outcome
A rectangle cut at an angle ✂️ with four docking points on each side ⚓
That’s the blueprint for creating your custom building block 📘
In this step, you are creating your Type — the unique mold for your bricks 🧱
In Step 2 📏 you’ll see three repeated Variants of that shape:
2️⃣, 4️⃣, and 5️⃣ units long
Here you’re defining the variations of your Type
Each Variant is like a different size of the same brick mold 🧱
In Step 3 📦 you’ll see your final casted bricks — the total number of bricks you need to create 🔢
In this step, you are creating Pieces, which are instances of the Type 🧱

🔳 Assembling the Design

📤 sketch drawing

In Steps 4 & 5 📐 you’ll see the final assembly of your bricks into a design
This is where you snap them together to form your structure 🏗️
Each number (2️⃣, 4️⃣, 5️⃣) shows which Variant is used where 📍
◯⟶ Circles with arrows = Ports ⚓ — the snap points where pieces connect
🖋️ Black guidelines = Assembly instructions 🧭 — showing which Port connects to which, and how 🔗

We’ll explain all these parts as we move step-by-step 🪜 through building the design