I've just purchased MoI after researching the field a bit, and I just wanted to say what an awesome piece of software it is (thank you Michael)!

Whenever I purchase new software, I always look for reviews as well as try to do some hands-on testing myself. So part of my reason for writing this post is both to give Michael a nice pat on the back and also hopefully to provide some google-grist for other people looking for package reviews.

In this case, the packages I was looking at were: MoI, Bonzai 3D, Rhino and ViaCAD 2D/3D (which I actually already own). My experience is mostly with 3D apps like modo, XSI, LightWave, etc., but I was interested in adding some of the capabilities that a NURBS-based modeler brings to the table. Now this is not meant to be a detailed review of each app, but at the end of the day I decided that MoI was the one to buy (and use). My top reasons for making this choice were:

1) The mesher (I love it! It absolutely blows away everything else out there. I love the clean meshes it creates, and the fact that you can see the mesh and dial the polys up or down and tweak the slicing and dicing before committing, even though 90% of the time the defaults are perfect).

2) The simplicity and ease of use (I think the "tablet" orientation pays off for mouse users as well. Nice non-cluttered interface, simple work-flow, "smart" tools, fun to use).

3) Good price (Lots of bag for the buck).

4) Good tool set (Most of the other packages have more extensive tool sets, but MoI gives you about 80% of the function with a much smaller set of well thought out tools).

5) Michael Gibson (An experienced, motivated developer who listens to his customers...priceless).

Now, this is not to say that MoI is perfect. In fact, I really liked Bonzai 3D a lot, but it's mesher currently knocks it out of the competition for non-CAD work (produces ugly geometry with lots of flipped polys and other problems).

The other "intangible" thing about MoI is that it is just a lot of fun to use. I spent hours and hours yesterday creating all kinds of "doodles", exporting them into modo (not a single glitch) and rendering them out. I finally forced myself to go to bed at 4:00 AM. Too much fun isn't good for you :-)

Anyway, enough preaching to the choir here. Like I said, I'm hoping this will turn out to be of some use to people googling for comparative information about some of the different NURBS-modelers out there. Now, back to having fun with MoI...

Dave Morrill