Full Version: Preset the color of dimensions

Dear all,

Is there a way to preset the color of the dimensions? There are the options to preset the font and its size and others, but it looks to me that the initial color is always "black".

Background: I like the dark theme a lot and when drawing dimensions for checking i.e. the distance between to objects, it's quite difficult (at least for my old eyes ;o) for me to read the black numbers in front of the dark grey background. Of course when created once, the color can be changed.

Thanks
Joerg

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Hi Joerg,

Set up the styles the way you want them with your preferred style at the top of the list and save a .3dm. Then under Options > Template File choose the .3dm you just saved. Now every time you open MoI your preferred style will be the default.

- Peer

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Hi Peer,

Thanks for your message!

For most parameter/options this works very well, but there is no parameter for the dimension/annotation color available. You only can change the color after you created a dimension.

@Michael Gibson, Maybe you can have a look for the parameter "Mesh Angle". This one is always set to 10 after starting MoI and it is independant from what is defined in the moi.ini file. I recognized that because when checking the smoothness of surfaces or curves, I always set the mesh angle to 1 (°).

Joerg

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Hi Joerg,

Re:
> For most parameter/options this works very well, but there is no
> parameter for the dimension/annotation color available. You only can
> change the color after you created a dimension.

If I create a template file where the only style is Red, then when I launch MoI v5 and start drawing a dimension that dimension is red. I don't have to do anything to pick the color. Also, if I pick a different style in the middle of running a Dim command the color changes immediately. I don't have to wait until after the dimension is created.

- Peer

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Hi Joerg,

re:
> For most parameter/options this works very well, but there is no parameter for the
> dimension/annotation color available. You only can change the color after you
> created a dimension.

When you create a dimension it will be assigned to the "active style". The active style is marked in the Scene browser with an extra ring around its color swatch. It can be set by a right click on the swatch.

For example here the active style is set to Green:



If you then draw a dimension with the active style set to green, it will be green.

That's the same for drawing lines, circles, spheres, etc...

But I'll see about adding in an option for putting dimensions on their own style instead of on the active style.


> @Michael Gibson, Maybe you can have a look for the parameter "Mesh Angle". This one is
> always set to 10 after starting MoI and it is independant from what is defined in the moi.ini file.
> I recognized that because when checking the smoothness of surfaces or curves, I always set
> the mesh angle to 1 (°).

Some info here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=11134.5

- Michael

Image Attachments:
activestyle.png 

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Hi Michael,

Thanks for the explanation!

I know that changing the active style color allows to draw a dimension annotation with the before chosen color. But I am happy with the black color for most of the items placed on the screen, just the annotations should be easier readable by a higher contrast without changing the active color each time back and force.

But there is a solution I did not recognize before. You can set the
AnnotationColorMode=FixedColor
AnnotationFixedColor=255,255,0
in the moi.ini file and you get yellow annotations directly when drawing these. So this solution works for me.

Regarding small mesh angles, I had issues with the system performance some years ago. But with the actual performance of the today's workstations, I don't recognize delays anymore - everything is super fast and fluent in MoI ;o)
So it could be beneficial for some users to compute the mesh-angle number from the moi.ini-file instead of internally setting the number hard to 10 after starting MoI. Actually I always set the number to 1.0 each time I start MoI.

MoI is for me the most intuitive CAD model I know. Mentioning here my findings shall not create the impression of not being very happy with this masterpiece of software!!!!!

Joerg

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Hi Joerg,

re:
> So it could be beneficial for some users to compute the mesh-angle number from the moi.ini-file
> instead of internally setting the number hard to 10 after starting MoI. Actually I always set the
> number to 1.0 each time I start MoI.

It won't reset it if you set this in moi.ini :

[View]
NoMeshAngleLimit=y

- Michael

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Hi Michael,

setting "NoMeshAngleLimit=y" works. Thanks for the hint!

Joerg

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