Hi Ken,
re:
> I downloaded a few free car models from Grabcad and when I was exporting them from MOI3D as an
> OBJ, I frequently got an error message that I was out of memory. My computer has 32 gbs of DDR3
> memory. Goggling seem to indicate this maybe a problem with 32bit apps. Will the next version of
> MOI3D be 64bit? Exporting each car part as a separate object seemed to be a work around.
Yeah it's because MoI is a 32-bit program currently so it's not able to make use of all your system memory, it can address only something like 3GB of it. Exporting in some separate pieces can work around it and also there are some other tips to reduce memory consumption here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5322.2
The next version of MoI will be 64-bit and won't have that problem anymore.
> When is version 4 of MOI3D going to be released?
I still don't have an exact date set yet but the first v4 beta isn't far off, I have one last remaining area to work on which is for the viewport display.
So the first v4 beta should be out in not too much longer but then the beta test period will start and last for anything like 6-12 more months after that so the final release is a ways off.
> Will MOI3D in the future have the ability to import Sketchup models?
Probably not anytime soon - Sketchup models are made up of polygons which is a different type of 3D model data than the CAD NURBS surfaces and solids that MoI is designed to work with for modeling. For example something like a sphere in a .skp file is made up of a lot of little triangle facets instead of one sphere surface. MoI can export to a polygon mesh format by dicing up large smooth surfaces into little facets but it's not very easy to go the reverse direction.
> I noticed when I brought my MOI3D models as OBJs into Hexagon or Silo3D subdividing models to
> achieve smoothing did smooth the objects.
This may work in a few cases but in general it's not going to be that reliable - the mesh that Moi exports is meant to be used for rendering, not for sub-d smoothing. Sub-d smoothing works best on meshes that have been hand made to be all quads with a focus on edge flows.
- Michael
