Full Version: Hidden line removal progress

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Zero things left on the list! I'll see if I can make a build before I fall asleep...

- Michael

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Suspense!

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New Nov-19 beta is up: http://moi3d.com/beta.htm

It will take me a bit to assemble the release notes and make the regular main announcement.

The main new thing is hidden line removal when exporting to AI, PDF, and DXF formats.

- Michael

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If you make some nice hidden-line exports to PDF / AI / DXF, it would be cool to see some posted here!

- Michael

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Some quick notes:

Shift while drawing now works for an enhanced straight snap. When you hold down shift straight snap will have priority over object snap, and the current straight snap line will stay locked on for as long as you hold shift. Also when you hold down shift straight snap will activate to the closest straight snap line regardless of how far away it is to the mouse.

AI format for clipboard transfer should work on on OSX.

Some bugs fixed in surface/surface intersection, some cases that didn't work before with things like 2 pipes crossing each other should work better now.

Layers are exported to DXF format

Bug fixes to Blend between 2 edges that touch each other at sharp "pole points", and to order sorting for loft to point.

- Michael

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Thanks Michael! Very cool outcome.
Here's one straight off the bat without delving too much, piece of cake with professional result :)

Just at first glance a couple of things; an option to open the file after generation for PDF I guess don't know about the other two formats they'd have to be associated to a program.

Landscape/Portrait option?

That's all for now.

Cheers

Attachments:
Final_assembly_01.pdf

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Thanks Danny - that's a good looking result right off the bat! :)

I think I see a couple of spots where some silhouettes may have been missed, can you please e-mail me that model to moi@moi3d.com so I can test some with it?


> Just at first glance a couple of things; an option to open the file after generation for PDF I guess don't
> know about the other two formats they'd have to be associated to a program.

Maybe just for PDF only I guess? The other formats are kind of more editing oriented...


> Landscape/Portrait option?

Yeah some page setup stuff would probably be good. I'm not entirely sure if I'll get that in quite yet, I am a little burned out on wrestling with PDF. But it would be good to be able to get a final PDF generated straight out.


Thanks for testing it!

- Michael

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@Michael
French version on your Email! ;)

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Hi Michael,

The output is amazing. Top quality, even better than top Cad applications i've seen.

There's one question: i'm only able to output the 3D view, even when i choose to output some other view, Moi still output allways the 3D View. Maybe there's a bug or i'm doing something wrong.

Cheers.

Carlos

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Attached is a screen shot of my PDF. Works great!

This is a desk-top CNC milling machine I just spent three months modifying to greatly increase its accuracy. I used MoI to help me visualize how the new components and custom-machined parts would integrate into the machine. With MoI I did a lot of design modifications "on screen" before custom-machining several parts. As a result, it worked perfectly the first time.

My choice of colors is weird, but the output is very nice.

Ed
Marysville, Washington

Click images to enlarge:

Image Attachments:
Milling Machine 2.png  Milling Machine.png 

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Hi Michael,

thanks for making the new Beta available. Here's a quick PDF export of one of my models. If there wheren't some important missing lines it would be perfect. Is this my fault (bad modelling) or are you able to tune the export to avoid this? If you want the 3dm file let me know.

-Martin

Attachments:
vise.pdf

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Tried it, and it works good! Just one thing, that maybe its my fault, but lets say, for example, I make a cylinder, and export the front view in dxf. It should be a rectangle, and indeed it is, but at some corners the lines are not touching exactly. Am I doing something wrong?

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Awesome Michael,

here are two simple model of mine, as .pdf output with standard settings.





Best regards
Stefan

Image Attachments:
d.png  it.png 

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Hi Michael,

> Maybe there's a bug or i'm doing something wrong.

Yep, i was doing it wrong, so no worries. I was saving instead of exporting it.

The control of the output is perfect. Thanks.

Carlos

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I'll just put all the replies in one message here...



@Carlos
> There's one question: i'm only able to output the 3D view, even when i choose to output
> some other view, Moi still output allways the 3D View. Maybe there's a bug or i'm doing
> something wrong.

Are you setting it by the "Projection view" option in the export dialog? (as opposed to for example just maximizing a particular view)

Do you possibly have a custom CPlane set that has altered the Top/Front/Right views to make them look as if they were a 3D view?

Do other settings on the dialog like enabling outlines on/off work ok?




@Ed
> With MoI I did a lot of design modifications "on screen" before custom-machining several parts.

This is a really cool way to use MoI and the PDF output looks great too!





@Martin
> If there wheren't some important missing lines it would be perfect. Is this my fault (bad modelling) or are you
> able to tune the export to avoid this? If you want the 3dm file let me know.

I think what you're seeing there is if 2 objects are just sticking partially through each other, they just end up hiding pieces of one another and no separate curve for the intersection between the parts is generated. Basically the hidden line removal engine will only generate silhouettes as new things to display, not intersection curves. That's mostly because it can be highly time consuming to try and generate intersections between everything. So usually to get a totally clean output you need objects not to just stick through each other but to be booleaned together so they have edge geometry where they run into each other. You can also use Construct > Curve > Isect to generate intersection curves before doing the output as well. If that doesn't describe what you're running into there, can you please send the 3DM file to me at moi@moi3d.com so I can take a look?




@Max
> Just one thing, that maybe its my fault, but lets say, for example, I make a cylinder, and export the
> front view in dxf. It should be a rectangle, and indeed it is, but at some corners the lines are not
> touching exactly. Am I doing something wrong?

Whether things are hidden or visible is determined by an internal pixel grid, so the resolution of that grid has something to do with the accuracy of how tightly a hidden spot matches up to other things. You can increase the density of the grid to get better accuracy, try adjusting the "Canvas megapixel resolution" parameter up to 30 or 40. Note that this will also generate a higher resolution shaded background image which will increase file size too.

I have a couple of ideas for some things to try to increase the accuracy of this (separate from the pixel grid density) for the cases of edges being hidden because they're crossing over a silhouette. Can you please send me the 3DM model file with the particular cylinder that you were looking at so I have a good known simple example case to work with?

For the moment though increasing the "Canvas megapixel resolution" parameter should help.




@ Stefan
> here are two simple model of mine, as .pdf output with standard settings.

Wow these are looking mighty nice! Crisp and clear. Being able to get this kind of output really easily now opens up a lot of possibilities!





Looking good so far! :)

- Michael

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Hi Carlos,

> Yep, i was doing it wrong, so no worries. I was saving instead of exporting it.

Actually it's supposed to work the same no matter whether you're doing "Save As" or Export...

But one thing to note is that the view is controlled by the view setting on the dialog, not whether you have a particular view maximized in the modeling UI or not. Is that maybe what you were running into?

Please let me know if you do see a difference in behavior between Save and Export for the view handling, it's not supposed to be like that.

Thanks,
- Michael

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Hi Michael,


thanks for the (as always) helpful and spot on reply. Yes it is as you say: two seperate objects close together. I can't boolean add them because they are different materials therefore I tried your Isect suggestion. As you can see in the attached PDF Isect does the trick very well.

One question though, when I export the model for use in Cinema4D how should I deal with all the Isect lines. They're not required and shouldn't get exported. Or don't they get exported because they are no 3D objects? You see I'm missing some basic understanding of these things. It's the same with all those control curves which I always delete after an operation because I'm afraid that they make a model too complex.

Attachments:
much better.pdf

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Awesome drawing Martin.

Hi Michael, what I am talking about is: I made a simple cylinder and exported as DXF the front view. Then I open the DXF in MoI or AutoCAD. I notice that in some corners the lines aren't touching if I zoom closer. This brings me some issues for later, for hatching etc.. So first I have to fix the exported drawing myself and extend those lines to join them togheter. This new hidden line feature is a huge step forward that is going to change my workflow in better, it will improve with time. For now, you really did an awesome job. Thank you!
M.

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Woohoo!

Quite amazing. One test got line segmentation with a model. It's a quick sketch though and maybe the edges are grazing.

One detail that might be nice: auto detection of a fullscreen viewport for the projection view dropdown menu.




Marc

Attachments:
test.3dm
test.pdf

Image Attachments:
Capture.PNG 

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Exceptional work Michael!! :)

Did some testing with copy/paste into Illustrator CS6 and it works perfectly!
If anyone missed it it's here:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6099.1

Tried scaling into Illustrator which worked as expected.

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