Hi Danny,

> could we then use that planar surface as a sort of datum plane to
> draw on with this new "On Surface" command ?

Yup, that will definitely work - it will be kind of a basic way to set up a drawing plane.

You actually don't have to create a rectangle first and then make a plane second, you can create the plane all in one step by using Draw solid / Plane.

- Michael

Hi Michael,
The 'What's new' in V2 sounds exciting, can't wait! and thank you Michael for being so dedicated to your software, your tech support runs rings around the big guns in the design world.

Cheers
~Danny~

Hi Steve, today I did some experimentation with making "on" snap and grid snap co-exist better.

One thing I tried was letting grid snap override on snap if your mouse was close to the grid intersection point.

That didn't really work out very well, it did let grid snap work but at a pretty normal zoom level there is always a grid point close to your mouse so it basically has the effect of disabling "on" snap entirely.

What I think I'm going to do is for "on" snap I will only let grid snap override "on" snap if the object snapped on to is a line that is actually running along a grid line.

For "on surface" snap - I will disable "on surface" snap in the ortho views if grid snap is also turned on, and maybe have an option for having it disabled in all views if grid snap is on.

I think those tune-ups will help make things work more smoothly when all kinds of snapping are simultaneously enabled.

I've also made a related tune-up to straight snap - both "on" snap and "on surface" snap will now have a lower priority than straight snap.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Could you possibly make it so that the "on" snap is only current for selected objects?


- manz

Hi Steve,

> Could you possibly make it so that the "on" snap is only
> current for selected objects?

It should be easy for me to put in an option for that.

- Michael

Hi Steve, I think I've got the combination of on/onsrf with grid snap worked out now.

If you have grid snap enabled, doing an "on" snap on to a line that is aligned with the grid's x, y, or z axes will also get grid snap applied to it.

Similarly, if you do an "onsrf" snap on to a plane that is normal to one of those axes, grid snap will also be applied there. So for instance if you draw an axis-aligned box, you can grid snap on to points on the box's surfaces.

There are some additional settings (for now just in the moi.ini file) that will allow some control over some additional details:

[Drawing Aids]
DisableOnSrfInOrthoWhenGridSnap=y
DisableOnSrfWhenGridSnap=n
OnSnapOnlyToSelected=n


The first setting (turned on by default), disables onsrf snap in ortho views when grid snap is enabled, except still allowing it on axis-aligned planes which snap to the same grid at that plane's elevation. This should generally allow regular grid snapping kind of behavior in ortho views, but still allow you to place an "onsrf" point on to a surface in the 3D view.

The second setting (off by default) will cause onsrf to be disabled entirely when grid snap is active.


Also the last setting doesn't have to do with grid snap, but instead only enables "on" or "onsrf" snaps on to selected objects only (and construction lines) instead of all objects. That may help you gain some additional control over that snap.


Also "on" and "onsrf" will not kick in if a straight-snap line is active, which is different than v1 for "on".


There are a still a couple of snapping areas that I am going to look in to like avoiding hidden-point snaps if hidden lines are turned off, but I think that the combination of grid snap + on snaps is worked out now.

- Michael

All right, some more progress for on-surface drawing.

Now if you draw a planar object (like rectangle, circle, polygon) in the 3D view and you snap 2 points on to a common plane, it will draw the object on that plane.

So this allows for stuff like this for example:


That's just moving the mouse over different faces to draw on different planes.

There are quite a few changes to help enable this kind of direct surface drawing, still working on a few more related things though.

- Michael

I suppose that the snapping is also valuable if there is another object on the surface?

This will can be also exist when drawing on a sphere or any volume? (hoops it's on first post)

Neeeeeeeeed !!! :)

-Cool

Looking good Michael,

During a building the other day, I was thinking about an option for "project to cplane" or a possible restriction for construction, such as omit x/y/z, it could certainly help, what do you think?


- manz

Hi Steve,

> During a building the other day, I was thinking about an option for
> "project to cplane" or a possible restriction for construction, such
> as omit x/y/z, it could certainly help, what do you think?

That does happen automatically if you're picking in an ortho view, and you have Options / Snaps / Object snap options / Project to plane in ortho views enabled (on by default). It actually projects to a plane parallel to the cplane but going through the first point that you picked.

So the idea for that was to use those ortho views if you wanted to ensure planarity in the thing that you were drawing, but allow more free placement in 3D if you're picking in the 3D view.

But yeah with some new features for drawing on planes in the 3D view it could be nice to have planarity optionally more ensured in there too - while drawing a curve on a face it is pretty easy right now to snap one point of a curve for example to a point on the other side of the box and make a zig-zaggy curve instead of a planar one on a face.

But if I can make object snaps ignore hidden snap points better, that may solve that problem pretty well, so I'm going to take a look at doing that first.

re:
> such as omit x/y/z,

I'm not sure if I follow you on this one - could you describe this part a bit more?

- Michael

The next part is surface normal snap - this is a straight snap similar to tangent/perpendicular snap:



Still a little bit of work to finish this one up, I think for spots where multiple surfaces are involved, like a corner where several faces meet, I will only take the surface normal if only one of those faces is selected. Otherwise I think there will be too many tracking lines to deal with.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

>>> such as omit x/y/z,

>>I'm not sure if I follow you on this one - could you describe this part a bit more?

Sorry, bad description.
It is really just a thought of being able to force an ortho snap in the 3d view, basically as you descibe for the 2d view ortho snaps, so for example, have an option to constrain to a specific axis based on the first pick point, so if I select (or de-select) Z, then all curves would be drawn on the xy plain based on the initial Z in the 3d view. I do suppose anything like that can be seen more as a user cplane.


- manz

Hi Steve, I understand now - yeah I think an actual user cplane may be the way to get this kind of thing working in the 3D view. I think I am going to also take a look at that to see what I can do there during this pass of snapping and drawing related work.

- Michael

Hi Steve, a while ago you wrote:

> As with current snaps for "On" the side/edge of a cube in a 2d view,
> sometimes the snap will be on the front line/edge, sometimes on
> the back.

After much wrangling, I think I have got this fixed now for v2.

In v2, the top-most non-hidden-line edge or curve should now get targeted when there are multiple things stacked right on top of each other, like when you are looking at a cube in the 2D views. This effects both selection as well as "on" object snap.

Similarly if you have a stacked up bunch of specific point-targeted osnaps like End object snaps stacked right on top of each other from a 2d view, the topmost one of those will be taken.

I've also combined the 2 settings for "Display hidden-line curves" and "Display hidden-line edges" into just one "Display hidden lines" setting, and also made it available on the View palette in the side pane. I'll probably be trying to put various view-related settings that you may want to change while modeling inside of that area.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

>>After much wrangling, I think I have got this fixed now for v2.

I think it is worth the wrangling on this.
I do wonder how many new (trial) users have had problems with construction due to the snapping (and not realized what has happened), then simply uninstalled MoI.

Regards,

- manz

Hi Steve, in simple situations that kind of "stacked up" snap going to some elevation other than the top doesn't really tend to cause a catastrophic error, because if you continue drawing in the 2d view all the other points are still going to be planar to that view. If you need to use the resulting curve to do a Boolean for example it doesn't really matter what elevation the thing you just drew was on, and if the elevation was important, when you switch to the 3D view it is usually pretty easy to see that it is at a different elevation and can be moved into place.

So I think it is unlikely that this particular thing was a cause of very many trial version frustrations.

But I still think it is worthwhile though - it is just probably something that will help more advanced users and somewhat more complex projects.

- Michael

Hi Michael, I was not thinking of a polyline or freeform continuous curve etc, I was thinking more where 2 or 3 lines/curves are drawn based on snap points and how easy it is to snap to a far point rather than the end of the line/curve aimed for, which can then leave a constructed set of curves open when thought closed (even if all lines are planer), so then such as extrude will not cap (as simple example)


- manz

Hi Steve, the new "target top thing" will not really always guarantee that won't still happen.

Like for instance if you get an initial line that is at half the elevation of a box, and then switch to the top view and draw another line, you'll get the top of the box, and if you were wanting to have that connected with the other mid-elevation line you will end up with the situation that you describe.

To really avoid that can still require doing the first pick in the 3D view where you can more clearly differentiate between the different points and target the specific one you need.

But the new tune-up will make for a more consistent behavior, and that should help more experienced users be able to use stacked up points in the 2D views with better results when they know that the top-level elevation is what they want to hit.

- Michael