Hi igor,

>> There's no complication, what you describe hit tab,
>> type move, pick point, hit tab, change number, hit enter..

> isn't this just too much for a simple offset? :))


Just a quick note here - Burr likes to use the new type-in method to launch commands, that's why he talks there about hitting tab and typing "move".

Most of the time you would click "Transform/Move" instead of that.

The sequence for an offset is not at all difficult, here are the steps:

- Select object you want to offset.

- Run the Transform/Move command.

- Click a base point in your scene.

- Activate distance constraint by typing in the distance you wish to offset followed by <enter> (no click is necessary before typing, just start typing and your keystrokes automatically go into the input box).

- Click the mouse to define which direction you want to offset in and you're done.


These steps are not at all difficult, so I'm not sure why it is such an issue?

There are also other benefits - you don't have to think in advance about which coordinate you have to manipulate, you just type in a distance and get to specify which direction the offset will take place by using your mouse.

That also means you are not limited to only offset only in a major axis direction, you can define the direction between any 2 points that you can snap on to. This can be very important when you are working on a complex model and you want something to have a relationship to a particular existing piece of the model rather than only aligned to x, y, or z axes.


> just a refinement which all other apps already have..

Actually, they seem to be missing the functionality that I mentioned above. For example in your other apps how do you move this square by 5 units along the diagonal direction of the larger rectangle:



In MoI you do it by just following the same steps that I wrote above, just pick the base point on the corner, and the target point for the direction in the opposite corner.

That's the kind of precision control that is good to have - if your other apps can't do that, then how would you possibly categorize them as a "precision" drawing app?

Here is another simple example - move this circle by 5 units along the curve's perpendicular:



Again, easily done in MoI by following the exact same steps above, pick the base point at the circle's origin, and then type 5<enter> to activate distance constraint, then pick the direction with straight snap to follow the perpendicular along the curve.

These are some examples that I hope will show you why the more general purpose offset method that MoI is able to do can be helpful.

The methods that you keep referring to would remove functionality and make it impossible to get these results.

- Michael