Full Version: V5 Wish List

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Hi Chri,

re:
> my question is only to view them, on the screen, near the last point

Sorry, no - Moi is intentionally designed not to do that, because displaying a lot of stuff overlaid on the viewport can get in the way of seeing your actual model.

That information is instead displayed at the bottom so you can glance down there to see it very easily yet it does not obscure your modeling area:



- Michael

Image Attachments:
chri_distance_angle_display.jpg 

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I understand your meaning Thanks for your quick answers Michael.

Chri

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A couple of requests...

- Integration of the .obj executable (Obj23dmWireframe) would be really handy
- Maybe a few more Rhino integration tweaks concerning import of groups (if not blocks) would be a great time saver for those of us who have to run both softs.
- Some form of clipping plane for quick sectional views would be really useful to interrogate complex parts.

Thanks!

(actually, this may be crazy, but is there a way to use the current obj importer to just import obj's at 0 subdivisions?)

- Rich

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Hi Rich, re: #2 import groups, I'm not sure if that will be feasible because Rhino's grouping mechanism is kind of limited. The way it works is group membership is more like a tag on an object and there isn't any parent/child relationship set up between groups. It's fairly different from how groups normally work in 2D vector type programs.

So because it's limited I'm probably not going to try and just adopt the same system in MoI, I think it's going to be important to be able to have parent/child hierarchy betwen groups. So it may be difficult for them to go back and forth between MoI and Rhino.

The same thing might apply to blocks as well, Rhino adopted the Autocad block system and it has some really weird interaction with layers. It's also probably not going to be something that would be good to just exactly replicate in MoI.


> (actually, this may be crazy, but is there a way to use the current obj importer
> to just import obj's at 0 subdivisions?)

Sorry, no it doesn't work very well to represent object in CAD/NURBS with a large number of individual planar facets. The way CAD geometry is structured there is some more overhead for each face compared to a poly modeling program because of how there can be an "underlying surface" with trim curves on it marking different areas as active or as holes. it doesn't work very well to have a high face count like you can in a poly modeling program.

There is a separate OBJ import plug-in that Max Smirnov wrote that does that though, you can find it on his file archive here, look for ImportObj:
http://moi.maxsm.net/media/files/

Generally i don't recommend trying to do that kind of import though, MoI is not designed to work with polygon models for modeling. Trying to simulate a poly model by having a large number of trimmed NURBS surfaces usually does not work very well.

- Michael

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Great thanks Michael I'll definitely check out Max's import plug...Yes realise the way groups are treated probably wouldn't work out (as I'm sure you'd develop a superior system haha) just wondering if groups could be ignored when importing to MoI, currently having to explode everything in Rhino first (meaning you inevitably get a lot of split up polysurfaces)....Is this another workflow possibly?

- Rich

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Hi Rich,

re:
> just wondering if groups could be ignored when importing to MoI,

Do you mean blocks in Rhino? Groups in Rhino should already come over with the grouping just ignored unlike blocks.


> currently having to explode everything in Rhino first (meaning you inevitably get a lot of
> split up polysurfaces)....Is this another workflow possibly?

Try using the "ExplodeBlock" command in Rhino instead of just plain "Explode". I think ExplodeBlock will only convert block instances in to regular geometry, it won't break apart polysurfaces into individual surfaces like regular Explode.

- Michael

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Hnmm yeah just doing some tests, perhaps it was nested blocks inside the groups that were giving errors - I'll wait for a test case! Usually given mega files that have been passed down through many hands so hard to work out what might be causing issues - great to know groups are just passed over...Thanks for "ExplodeBlock" also will go into the arsenal...

- Rich

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Probably a low priority:
How about a "make copy(s)" option on the Align tool?

MindSet

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I hope V5 has the function of material mapping. In addition, objects can display ground shadows

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It would be useful and presumably straightforward to provide the full filename to the clipboard.
It would also be useful to provide the recent file list to a popup.

Thanks,
Mindset

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Hi Mindset,

re:
> It would be useful and presumably straightforward to provide the full filename to the clipboard.

If you hover your mouse over the filename at the top of the side pane, it will show a tooltip with the full path.


> It would also be useful to provide the recent file list to a popup.

The file menu is a popup that uses the recent file list, so you can look at FileMenu.htm for an example of this.

- Michael

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Thank you Michael,

>The file menu is a popup that uses the recent file list, so you can look at FileMenu.htm for an example of this.
<

Great, I'll see if I can conjure up a popup from that example.
If successful, I'll post the results here to share.

Such a recent file list popup will be useful for import.

Additionally, I would be nice to have the option of importing only visible objects from a source file.
Any hints on doing that, or about how to remove hidden objects added by an import?

Separately, I'll try to get the current file-path by using the Save command as an example.

Mindset

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Sorry if it will be an unrealistic wish.

I would like to have the ability to put there some global variables which would be put together into one chart where I could change f.e. change hole size globally. This should work globally for every element and allow change parameter of that element (in some cases it is length in some cases radius or overall dimensions). This variable could be assigned same as name and colour (assigned name could be the binder of those properties). This could be limited to dimensions of a whole solids if the internal lines and circles would be too hard.



I would like also to have a dynamic copy of a whole solid body (instance), dynamic array (array of instances) and dynamic mirror (mirrored and copied instance).

This should be done in a minimalistic way with easiness of use (like rest of GUI). It could be done also very limited to work only on most used cases.

That is my dream about MoI 5 :)

Image Attachments:
global_variables.jpg 

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Hi Mindset,

re:
> Additionally, I would be nice to have the option of importing only visible objects from a source file.
> Any hints on doing that, or about how to remove hidden objects added by an import?

For removing hidden objects that were just imported earlier in the same command, try this (warning untested code):

var objs = moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects();
for ( var i = 0; i < objs.length; ++i )
{
    var obj = objs.item(i);
    if ( obj.hidden && obj.databaseRevision > moi.command.lastCommandRevisionEnd )
    {
        moi.geometryDatabase.removeObject( obj );
    }
}

> Separately, I'll try to get the current file-path by using the Save command as an example.

You can use moi.geometryDatabase.currentFileName to get the full path of the current file , and if you want to copy it to the clipboard pass it to moi.copyTextToClipboard();

- Michael

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Hi mdesign,

re:
> I would like to have the ability to put there some global variables which would be put together
> into one chart where I could change f.e. change hole size globally.

There are other programs called "parametric CAD" that are very focused on this type of work. If this is an important feature for you, i would strongly recommend using one of those programs for this work rather than MoI.

SolidWorks would be a good one to check out, I think they have a way to link a parametric variable to Excel.

The focus on MoI is on making things quick and fluid to draw. It's not focused on this kind of process control that you need.

- Michael

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Hi mDesign,

A hobbyist level CAD option might be Alibre Atom3D.
It has the parametric feature, so you might want to check it out.

Just FYI,
Mindset

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Hi Michael,

I might have missed your reply to this request, but just to be sure you didn't miss it... :)

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=10114.223

Thanks!

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Hi mdesign, maybe you could use Node-editor for some of the effects you are looking for. :-)

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Hi Metin,

re:
> I might have missed your reply to this request, but just to be sure you didn't miss it... :)
>
> http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=10114.223

Sorry I didn't know you were wanting a reply to that. One of the initial focus areas for MoI was to make it possible to use without touching a keyboard at all, so something like that very focused on typed in input is not going to be a high priority, sorry. But it's here on the list for future reference.

For the general area of keyboard input, enabling multiple shortcut keys in sequence is currently a higher priority than auto-complete for typed in command names.

- Michael

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Thanks Michael!

I understand, although I hope the auto-complete feature will be added in the near future. :)

An alternative might be a drag and drop option to easily add custom commands to the MoI UI, with automatic button and text label creation.

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