Full Version: Michael's Plasticity rants

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Hello,

I doubt you're as weak in that area as you think you are. Apply the same UX/HID principles you use in designing MoI as designing your site. I've done UX/HID on physical and digital product for years and was always hesitant to do the web related stuff until I realized a great effective website is a simplified UX exercise.

You've already done the heavy lift, time to tell people about it.

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I actually like the MoI3d website. ESPECIALLY the forum. I pretty much browse it every day and follow and read through every thread (Except the spam of course)

On my desktop, phone and random devices through the day

If it was one of those "one page websites" like PaQ posted a sample of, I could never make heads or tails of what might be different or changing daily...

Ther site itself? It has all the info. Massive tutorials also. Gallery. And of course, leading into this forum where pretty much REAL TIME communication and Q&A with the actual developer... Priceless!

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For what it's worth, I think there is an underlying aspect at work here: the preference and philosophy of the user. Some are quieter and more reflective, some are harried and distracted (whether by choice or circumstances). I think it is challenging to engage both groups.

When I initially encountered MoI years back I thought the website was unique (maybe a bit quirky) compared to the rest of the web. My use-case was not a direct fit with where MoI was at the time, but with use I began to appreciate just how powerful a tool this was. Other than downloading betas and releases, I seldom look at the website.

Now the forum on the other hand, as Burr mentions, a daily visit to read all the threads. Simple (perhaps elegant) in its form, easy to quickly read and digest. In a way a bit like the better parts of a newsgroup or mailing list of days gone by, but with a simple web interface. I also appreciate that it seldom changes: get it right once and leave it alone which I suspect may be a principle that Michael uses.

All that said, I do think some attention to the website would be beneficial for getting MoI into more toolboxes.

--Larry

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I think MoI could be better 'advertised' in the gallery by showing more mechanical devices & models as well as some dimensioned drawings
I mention MoI on the Model Engineer website, which is usually when people over there are struggling with the complexities of their CAD in some way. What quite often happens then is they visit the gallery here and see lots of rendered models and return thinking Moi is only for artists. They assume it's beyond MoI's capabilities to be used in the workshop, which I assume is due to the paucity of suitable examples here. Meanwhile, I'm happily exporting DXFs to CAM and STLs for 3d printing while they're contending with constraints, assemblies and error messages in a model that doesn't warrant it.


Martin.

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I've been using Moi since version 2. I initially bought it because I read it had the best mesher bar none. I started to play with it and found it far easier to use than the cad software I had at the time (I was using turbocad, blender before it was open source and 3dsMax) I tell anybody who asks me about what software they should use that they should buy Moi. the last group of people I have been selling it to have been people in the house building world (I just finished building my house) as they ask what software I used to make my plans. My toolkit now is Moi and blender for modeling as I dropped 3dsmax when it went to subscription and dropped turbocad completely when moi was capable of dimensions and text. The BMOI import export makes moi and blender seamless.
Personally I don't care about the look of webpages and in this environment I'm not sure they matter as much as they used to. Maybe having a slick webpage helps sell a product but I think what others express about the software sells it more.
my two cents
Val

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aah.. what has Nick Kallen to do with elepant?! I tought it was made by Max Smirnov...

And i'am really suprised by your posts michael! I was thinking "is it him? or was his account hacked?"
I never expect that you could be this "harsh".
I love moi and i have also plasticity, Rhino 8, Alibe expert 26, Freecad, Blender, Cinema4D R18, Inventor (at work). but for my quick sketches, prototypes and analysing Step Files, i allways use moi.

Every product gets copied at some time... if its worth... often people try to make things "better". In this case, Nick asked Siemens for the Parasolid-Kernel.
this was smart... there are other tools like Shapr3d out there, who has done the same. But theyre to expensive with there subscribtion model.
Maybe he get most oft the ideas from Shapr3d? the filliet handler in both directions... most of the Shortcuts from blender.... what i like. i use blender before it was even free.

Years ago you wrote that an external Kernel would make Moi more expensive, you dont like to do it..
If Mr. Kallen had not done plasticity with Parasolid. I'am very shure, we don't had the new Acis features that are coming to Moi now.
So i think this move pushed you to do somethin similar.

And yes, i think a better Webseite would sell Moi better and maybe you need more infuencers. This is how thinks work today.
Give a few keys to good modellers and tell them they have to make content. A few good user were gone from MOI to Plasticity. ;-(

And Plasticity is no more a oneManShow like Moi. You doing everything by yourself. Maybe you know some people who like to help you conding?
At some Point, someone has to dictate the direction and others do the "work".
One Man cannot do it all alone... the UI, The Code, the Support. sometime i think you waste all your "coding-time" for giving support. (please dont stop this!)

What about a plugin-system that download modules/scripts, that other people made. like the elephat editor. This is a great tool. or all this other scripts.
This are also one of the strengths of Moi. People don't like to copy files and search for folders. I can do this. But younger people gettting dumber by AI.
I think moi is on a good way. But its harder with plasticity now. I definitely going to buy the V5 upgrade. This is maybe one of the last sofware that iam going to buy.
because its the one that i use the most. And the Support is better than any on other Software.

And Moi for ipad would be a dream ;-)
i know you will not do it... but.. maybe... if plasticty comes for ipad? *lol*

I wish you all a nice christmas-time. With your friends and families.

And stay healthy!!!!

sorry for they bad english...

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Message 11865.45 was deleted

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Hi BlackBird,

re:
> And i'am really suprised by your posts michael! I was thinking "is it him? or was his account hacked?"
> I never expect that you could be this "harsh".

Well it's in an area that I find particularly irritating - I don't like it when I see poorly designed UX being praised. And especially when it is being marketed as good UX.

Cultivating it is part art and part science and is ephemeral in many ways. It can be lost simply by adding in too many features.

When it is present it's easy to undervalue or not recognize at all because it doesn't draw attention to itself.

So imagine if this is an area that you have concentrated on honing continuously for 20 years of craftsmanship and then someone comes in completely oblivious to it and thinks that it's all about the icons...

- Michael

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hey Michael,

i dont get the point with the icons... did someone told that moi is userfriendly because of the icons?
Can you explain what you mean with this?

I like to work with shortcuts. At the begining its useful to have icons. But in general i dont care that much. (maybe iam to much "cripled" by blender ;-))
My favorite feature in Moi is the SNAPPING / ConstructionLines. I never see a snapping that intuitive and useful like in Moi. I think this is a important reason for me to use Moi.
The consruction lines. they dissapear after using. But you can keep them if you like (shortcut-script). The center snapping and all this ist realy good. no other program that i know is that good.
This "smart snapping" like in rhino or in plasticity is not really controlable... i like to draw my C-lines manually.
If Moi would support different linetypes in the styles, i would use it for 2D-Drawing also. Now i have to use QCad Pro if i like to have drawings from my MOI-models.

And maybe you should add all this script-features somewhere. So the user can easy activate them. Or a database (online) where all the scripts are stored to easy add them to Moi.
I know there is one Website. But its not that convenience.

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Hi BlackBird,

re:
> i dont get the point with the icons... did someone told that moi is userfriendly because of the icons?
> Can you explain what you mean with this?

It's that for some people having the icons styled in the latest fashion trend is the top priority for the UI instead of focusing on how it actually functions.

- Michael

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Here is how drawing a cube is supposed to work. Not surprising that it doesn't work in Plasticity.

If you're going to copy my stuff, why not do a proper job of it?



- Michael

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Image Attachments:
PlasSmallButtons.png 

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Image Attachments:
PlasIcons.png 

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And to make it look really slick let's put a 1 pixel dead zone gutter around everything
to make sure we don't accidentally benefit from Fitts' Law!

Ok, got it here:


And here, check:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wbnf87dGms

A telltale sign of someone playing at UX design but has no background, no research and no skill in it.

- Michael

(trust me, this is a major UX dis although maybe you have to be a UX nerd to get it)

Image Attachments:
PlasDeadZone1.png  PlasDeadZone2.png 

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By the way I will be limiting discussion of Plasticity and ranting to this thread only.

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So what is innovative in Plasticity, other than offering Parasolid and XNurbs at a cheap price?

Is there anything original that works well and isn't just copied from another app?

The only thing I'm seeing for that so far is being friendly to Blender users.

I don't think there is any other CAD program that has structured its UI to be familiar to Blender users, so that is a legit innovation but limited to that user group.

The focus on that probably sacrifices quite a lot of usability to a lot of other types of users especially beginners though.

Also a heavy Blender user would probably prefer to stay entirely within Blender rather than go to an external app so Plasticity seems very vulnerable to SDF modeling plugins running inside Blender.

- Michael

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Why does this brown screen show when trying to chamfer?

Attachments:
crash1.plasticity

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Hi Micheal, I wondering if you're using the last stable one?

You should know that Plasticity is constantly updated: a new stable version comes out every 3 months with new features and bug fixes, while the beta version is even more frequent, usually getting an update every 3 days.

https://github.com/nkallen/plasticity/releases/tag/v25.3.4

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Hi pafurijaz, that's using 25.3.0

> https://github.com/nkallen/plasticity/releases/tag/v25.3.4

That one says "pre-release".

It looks like I should update to 25.3.3 .

- Michael

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5 releases in 1 week!!! Lol

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