Hi unclecharlie,

> Are construction lines subject to styles?

Not currently but they could be in the future with persistent ones. The "straight snap" line is a little different than a regular construction line though, I guess that particular temporary line that is drawn when straight snap is engaged could possibly be done in red/green/blue as an optional thing in the future.

But in general I've tried to avoid using special colors to mean things, and instead prefer to use text labels when possible. Text labels just tend to be a lot clearer and easier to understand.


> but colored construction lines would be more noticeable.

Yeah, but also "more noticeable" can also mean "more in your face and distracting" as well, which can sometimes go along with flashing various different colors on the screen.

It would also probably be kind of strange in the 2D views, very non 2D-drawing-ish.



> Those of us that have used Sketchup learn to love that inference engine.

Is there anything in particular that you like about it?

You should be able to get anything that you want from it in MoI with construction lines, plus many other things as well...

The main difference is that MoI's construction lines stay out of your way until you specifically call on them with the drag gesture.

Inference lines that kick in totally automatically are nice for very simple drawings made up just of lines (as you would work with in SketchUp), but having them kick in automatically when trying to draw more complex things like freeform curves can be very frustrating - it is easy for the screen to get kind of locked up with too many automatically activated snap zones which prevent you from freely placing curve control points for control over curve shaping.

Also MoI's construction lines have both a start and end point associated with them (where you begin the drag and release the drag), which gives them some functionality that you can't get with inference lines that only radiate rays out from a single point.

Here's an example - here I am drawing a line and using a construction line I am able to find the midpoint between 2 other points in the drawing:




An inference engine that only radiates snap lines out from a single point is not able to find those kinds of snaps.

The last time I checked, it seemed like SketchUp's inferences had some other limitations as well, like for example I'm not sure if you can use it to make an isosceles triangle like this:




Because MoI's clines stay out of your way until you call on it, it makes it easier for them to be kind of "supercharged" with more additional snaps like this without it causing the "screen all locked up with snaps" problem.

- Michael