Full Version: V4 beta May-12-2018 available now

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Hi klaudio,

re:
> Would be cool to see a list of what is planned for features. I know there was a lot
> of talks about it before but plans were also changing along the road so, as far as
> i know, there is still nothing set in stone, so to say. Perhaps now at this point there is?

Sorry no still nothing set in stone. I don't really like to work that way too much. It's probably a good time to try some experimental things which may or may not amount to anything.

- Michael

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I wanted to highlight a problem with the import of a STEP file once imported into Moi all the objects are grouped in the center, with FreeCAD there are no problems. this is also present in version 3. Last thing the STEP files are not assigned colors or layers.

https://grabcad.com/library/raspberry-pi-3-b-1

Image Attachments:
fc_rb.png  moi_rb.png 

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Ciao Michael!

Thanks a lot again for this latest "crucial" beta!

Well done!

With that said...

Since (soon) you will be able to put your hands on new things, you'll forgive me if I remember you the other two "basement" of which we talked about on this forum, when you first announced V4.

That is, (1) INSTANCING and (2) GROUPING.

Two fundamental things that we can't miss.

I hope that soon you will put your hands on these things along with a new "display and mesh engine" that can leverage on the power of the modern GPU.

Thanks.

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Hi Marco, my plans have changed since that time - I'm no longer sure about getting grouping and instancing into v4 at this time. It kind of depends on how difficult they are to implement, there is a possibility that they may require changes to many commands and I'm not too excited about something that requires lots of changes at this time.

Performance work to better use powerful cards with lots of VRAM is probably pretty soon though.

- Michael

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Hi pafurijaz, that looks like instancing transformations not being read correctly. There is an updated version available of the library MoI uses for STEP, IGES, and SAT importing. I'll see what's involved in updating to use that it may be fixed there.

- Michael

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Hi Michael,

Thanks for the new release. Unfortunately there's still the issues with Fedora Linux that it's not possible to properly select objects.
(see http://moi3d.com/forum/messages.php?webtag=MOI&msg=8839.1)

This is with "GraphicsAPI=OpenGL". When applying "GraphicsAPI=Direct3D", instead, then it's not possible to select any objects at all.

Please let me know if I can do any further testing.

best regards

Bernhard

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Hi pafurijaz, it looks like the .igs file of that same model has all the geometry come through ok.

- Michael

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Hi Bernhard, thanks for testing it. I have done a little testing over here with Linux Mint and I am able to reproduce the same selection problems. So that will probably help me figure out what's going wrong there. I believe it to be a problem in one specific area of texture read back from the GPU to CPU, so it may not be too difficult to fix it.

It's a little strange that it works fine on some cards though.

- Michael

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Hi Michael,
I made a Japanese language file with UTF-16, but characters are not displayed properly.
Thanks.
#This is a machine translation.

Image Attachments:
img.jpg 

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Hi knob32 - that means that those glyphs are not present in the default font that MoI uses. You'll need to set the UI font to something that has those glyphs in it. That can be done in moi.ini under:

[UI]
UIFontNameV4=Open Sans

It works ok in the rest of the UI because the HTML part has a font fallback mechanism where it automatically uses a different font if needed. I was thinking of trying to implement that for the 3D viewport text display as well.

- Michael

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OK Michael.

Thanks for your reply.

While I'm happy to read that you want to boost the GFX routines of MOI, leveraging of modern GPU (I have a super powerful Gtx 1080 Ti with 11 GB of VRAM), honestly I cannot hide that I'm rather disappointed to learn that you decided to abandon the development of such important things, that is Instancing and Grouping.

Nowadays these are two very important features in almost all CAD systems.

I can imagine the effort needed to code these things but I really hope that you will code at least GROUPING features, because actually Moi is too weak about managing "object hierarchy" and has an outliner that is too simple, too limited, when you have to deal with medium scenes or even little, very little, assembly.

I hope you will understand my point of view.

Have a nice day.

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Hi Marco, I definitely agree that those are important features! However there are even more basic CAD things that MoI is still missing such as dimensions.

32-bit memory limits and the fragility of the Wineskin based Mac version were causing a lot of problems so those were even more basic things yet.

If you need to do complex hierarchical assemblies, MoI probably isn't the best suited tool for that area right now but there are many existing CAD programs that can do that type of work.

- Michael

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Michael, I understand your point of view and all your efforts.
I do the same job as you (software developing) :)

@You : "...If you need to do complex hierarchical assemblies..."

No Michael, I don't manage complex assembly.

But, actually, with both the current outliner and the absence of true "Parenting and Grouping", it's very hard to manage also very simple assembly.

But...anyway...I hope that one day you will put your hands also on these things.

Have a nice day ;)

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You're right as i did not found more specific examples, but don't forget that if we need to go to poly softwares (like 3dsmax), it is mostly for rendering and more of that for animation... and for light polysets.

- Polygons are easy to manipulate, deform (for animation for ex.), and a light polymesh with OpenSubdiv / Turbosmooth is very fast and usefull when you need lowpoly for VR / RT outputs.
- Exported polys from Nurbs softwares are eavy in polygons count, and sometimes with ugly triangles around chamfers, booleans etc.
> Moi3D has a better polygon exporter (quads), but as you know for sure, each surface is treated separatelly, so the vertices from sides (of a cube for ex) and those from the chamfer are not the same, so they can't be welded for further treatment (deformation, smoothing, nice UV unfolding...)
- Whenever i don't need to deform, UVmap, lowPoly... or when i'm sure that having lots of polys is not an issue for the project, i can use the Moi3D obj exporter.
- I'm done trying to open Nurbs within 3dsmax : it can handle it, but soooo poorly, slow and not really usable, i prefer getting polys.

3dsmax (and Maya and others) can do booleans, and chamfers... But not really both of them on the same mesh, as polygons booleans are almost always very poor in meshing (long flat triangles, non-aligned / non-weldable vertices...

That are the reasons why i'd love to get a clever Nurbs to Polygons exporter, that would know about chamfers from Nurbs and that would create a OpenSubdiv-ready polymesh.

If interested, i could model some examples with both nurbs and polys to show what does not work and what should.

Regards

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@Michael:However there are even more basic CAD things that MoI is still missing such as dimensions

...back and forth from Moi to Fusion...We need it ! :)

M

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If you'd ask me for a new MoI functionality top 5, in order of importance to me personally, I'd say:

1: More robust fillets, capable of handling any complex set of edges.

2: Optimized high-res polygon mesh to NURBS conversion, resulting in as few patches as possible.

3: Fully quadrangular meshing as an export option, similar to ZBrush ZRemesher / 3D-Coat Autopo, with a smooth edge loop structure that follows the flow of a solid, ready for subdivision.

4: An improved History system that remains intact longer, or maybe even better: a modular modifier system like in 3ds Max. For example: a Fillet modifier that non-destructively auto-adds fillets to any sharp edges in a model, and can be adjusted at any time.

5: More flexible solid editing options, such as the ability to manipulate edges and surfaces of solids more or less like polygonal control and/or using adjustable FFD/Lattice cages for object deformation.

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I second all Metin said !!

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All what Metin Seven said! I think it is very important.
I want to clarify that i am constantly annoying about basically all he mentioned especially for point 1 and 5....this is not because i want that features in Moi3d and i am not biased because of it but because it is a major opportunity features that will most certainly bring in a lot more people to buy Moi3D....the same will not happen with dimensions, grouping or instancing features which will be considering as welcomed but not as selling ones, as far as i know(i hope i am wrong). If more people are buying Moi3d perhpas you can even hire someone eventually to help you on other certain features.
Moi3d greatest is in user friendliness but still very cabable combined with ability to add custom shortcuts as well as custom scripts (to shortcuts as well)...the only thing missing is robustness of those same features.


The only thing i would add on Metin list is:
6. Refresh UI design - i am not suggesting changes to how things work but only to have nice looking default UI with all new icons, etc. If possible to bring in some customization tools (like expand the SideBar tabs or choose between dark gray or light gray ui, etc) would be a plus but just nice looking default UI would go very far. While i know you can change that yourself, there is a ton of discussion around it already too and i did changed UI and make new icons for myself...i still think this should be done because the information to do it yourself is really overwhelming.

Best,
Klaudio

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Hi klaudio,

re:
> this is not because i want that features in Moi3d and i am not biased because of it but
> because it is a major opportunity features that will most certainly bring in a lot more
> people to buy Moi3D....

It's not really a goal for MoI to target the largest number of people possible.


> If more people are buying Moi3d perhpas you can even hire someone eventually to help
> you on other certain features.

It is a goal though to not do this - I don't want to hire someone else.

It's also another overall goal to keep MoI simple and easy to use and to not become bloated and complex as is easy to happen when just adding in lots and lots of assorted features. So because of this I like to take a slow and steady approach.


> 6. Refresh UI design - i am not suggesting changes to how things work but only to have
> nice looking default UI with all new icons, etc.

This has already been done for V4 - the icons for stuff like "File" and "Save" have already been updated.

- Michael

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Hi Michael,

thanks for confirming the Linux/nvidia related selection issue. If there's anything I can do in order to assist finding a solution, please let me know.

best regards

Bernhard

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