Hi Danny, yeah I understand what you mean. But yes that is probably tied into the "2D sketch plane" nature of MCAD type stuff.

Possibly in the NX case that you are talking about, the object is defined by an underlying 2D sketch that only has 2D coordinates in it, and then that is associated with a plane.

MoI doesn't really work like that, objects in MoI are always full 3D objects. Even when you draw 2D shapes in MoI, those are just 3D objects that happen to have z = 0.

Like you mention, that's similar to AutoCAD (and also many 3D animation systems) where there is just one large environment that you work in and not a separate "Part modeler" and "assembly modeler" as 2 different applications that you switch between.


Construction planes in MoI are not necessarily only used as a "part modeling" coordinate system, they can also be used as just a general modeling aid to help you draw stuff in a particular spot. Someone that had set a construction plane in some location to just help with some drawing could easily get surprised if they then decide to copy and later paste some other object that happened to be off to the side somewhere. That's why I don't think it is safe to reorient objects automatically when pasting as a default way of doing things.


I was thinking about it some, and what seems like it would work would be to have an additional "PastePart" command that would work the way you want. It could be set up on the right-click on Paste. There could also be a similar "ImportPart" that was set up as a right-click on File/Import for doing a similar thing but bringing the pieces in from a file you pick.


That seems like it could give you the tools to make things work similar to the kind of thing where there are separate "Part" and "assembly" workspaces like you are probably used to.


In Rhino, the way I set up cplanes originally was that they were per-viewport, where every viewport had its own cplane. In MoI I wanted to simplify this and I shifted to having just one global cplane, which seems to be working well since it should make it easier to have a "part modeling" kind of support like you had expected.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

> Possibly in the NX case that you are talking about,
> the object is defined by an underlying 2D sketch
> that only has 2D coordinates in it, and then that
> is associated with a plane.

I'm doing all this in 3d space just like MoI, the planar surface was an example, I can copy and paste this way with anything modeled no sketch involved.

> MoI doesn't really work like that, objects
> in MoI are always full 3D objects. Even
> when you draw 2D shapes in MoI, those
> are just 3D objects that happen to have z = 0.

Yep, same in NX.

> Like you mention, that's similar to AutoCAD
> (and also many 3D animation systems) where
> there is just one large environment that you work
> in and not a separate "Part modeler" and "assembly modeler"
> as 2 different applications that you switch between.

That's partly correct, NX also works in one large environment, the modeling and assembly are done under 'Modeling' then you have a 'Sketcher' and your 2d 'Drafting'
One of the main reasons I use MoI is because of the same functionality and feel to the MCAD programs that I've used, especially in their earlier days before they were bloated.

> I was thinking about it some, and what seems
> like it would work would be to have an additional
> "PastePart" command that would work the way
> you want. It could be set up on the right-click
> on Paste. There could also be a similar "ImportPart"
> that was set up as a right-click on File/Import for
> doing a similar thing but bringing the pieces in
> from a file you pick.

Those two functions would be a great addition to MoI.

Thanks again for looking into this.

Cheers

Hi Danny, I've still got some stuff to finish up but I thought you might be interested to see how "PastePart" is working so far:



You can see there that it's based on the "Orientation picker" that is currently used for the CPlane command.

There are also some refinements to the orientation picker which will affect the CPlane command as well - there is now a concept of a "primary axis" in the picker, which has a marker at its tip like this:




When you drag an axis other than the primary one, it is restricted to only rotate around the primary one. You can change the primary axis by clicking on an axis rather than dragging on it.

If you snap the initial base point to be aligned to an object, then the z axis starts out as the primary axis. Otherwise if you did not align to an object (there is a new "Align to objects" checkbox that you can turn on or off) then no axis is primary to start with and the first one that you drag will become the primary one.

When you drag the primary axis, it gets to move more freely to orient towards any point rather than being restricted in its rotation like the non-primary ones are.


Here's a demo of how that looks like in practice when using the updated CPlane command. Here you can see how the primary axis changes when I click on one instead of dragging on one:



- Michael

Oh beautious!!! I love this! Congratulations!

Useful!

Here's a kind of interesting quick experiment with PastePart:



You set the "Repeat" checkbox to make it really quick to drop in a whole bunch of them . With Repeat activated, it's two clicks for each instance, one to place the base point and a right-click to accept the orientation.

- Michael

This is great stuff Michael!

"PastePart" looks fantastic, actually, more functionality than expected :) it's more like "AssemblePart"
How is "PastePart" activated, new icon or command via keyboard shortcut, is it going to act like Import where you choose an existing part as you mentioned and where will the origin be for the part that your bringing in, position as modeled?

Sorry for the barrage of questions but this looks so good, well thought out, well done Michael.

Cheers
~Danny~

Some things are just soooo easy now:



- Michael

And help lines are always possible between each drawings?

Hi Danny, yeah it seems to be working really well.

It looks like it will be useful for several different things - certainly for sticking planes and circles together, but also for plopping down objects perpendicular to a freeform surface as well.


> How is "PastePart" activated, new icon or command via keyboard shortcut

It's by right-click on the existing Paste icon, or by keyboard shortcut. I've added in a new default shortcut for it: Ctrl+Shift+V .

So Ctrl+V to get the regular simple paste, and if you want an "paste + set position & orientation", use Ctrl+Shift+V.


> is it going to act like Import where you choose an existing
> part

PastePart just uses whatever is in the clipboard, so use Copy to put whatever part you want in the clipboard first, that's how you control what will be used.

There is a separate companion command though called "ImportPart" which you can activate by right-click on the File/Import icon. Instead of using what is in the clipboard, ImportPart prompts you for a file name, and then sucks in that file and lets you position and orient it in the same way. So if you want to set up a library of parts, you would use ImportPart to bring in one of your library items by picking its file name. In the file you can either position the part relative to the world origin and world axes, or if you have set a CPlane in the file it will use the CPlane as the source/base position.

For using the clipboard, you can either position your object being copied relative to 0,0,0 or you can set a CPlane to set the base point, before copying it to the clipboard. I think that I'm also going to make a companion command CopyClipboardBasePoint which will go as the right-click on Copy, which will prompt you to pick a base point to use for the clipboard origin point, that may be more convenient for some simple cases rather than setting the cplane.


> and where will the origin be for the part that your
> bringing in, position as modeled?

The current plan is: if you have set a CPlane, the cplane defines the part's origin and axes. If you have not set a CPlane (either in the file for ImportPart, or at the time of Copy for copy/paste) then your part origin will just be 0,0,0 with world axes.

That's the current plan anyway, I think I should have the remaining pieces functional by tommorrow.

- Michael

Hi Pilou,

> And help lines are always possible between each drawings?

Sorry, I don't quite understand.... Do you mean those 3 axis lines that are part of the orientation picker?

Yup, those axis lines show up on every individual paste, so you can adjust the rotation of every instance.

You do a right-click or press "Done" to signal that you are done adjusting the orientation.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

> I think I should have the remaining pieces functional by tommorrow.

Until tomorrow then :)

Hi Pilou,

> And help lines are always possible between each drawings?

Do you mean is it possible to use construction lines, if so, that will be helpful for positioning also.

-

Also for ImportPart, you will be able to give the file name in a keyboard shortcut if you want, like:

ImportPart "c:\some folder\my filename.3dm"


If you do that, it will just use that given file instead of putting up the dialog box.

So you can set up some keystrokes to plop in and orient some predefined pieces.

- Michael

Hi Danny,

> Do you mean is it possible to use construction lines, if so,
> that will be helpful for positioning also.

Construction lines work normally for when you're placing the base point (the first pick).

They are not quite so easy to use for the orientation step where you are dragging the axis lines around - since the orientation step works by dragging axis lines you already have the mouse down so you can't easily trigger a construction line at that point although it is possible if you move off the viewport and release the mouse button and then come back into the viewport.

But since they work easily on the first pick, you can just put in whatever ones you need for the orientation step then, before finishing the first pick.

- Michael

One thing I don't like too much is the axis triad lines tend to get obscured by the object you are pasting in.

It's not too bad because they highlight with a glow around them and a text label appears when you move over top of them.

If I make the lines longer, they kind of have an unwieldy feel to them and longer ones make it harder to see which is the primary one with the dot marker at the end of it.

I could make them display as always on top lines instead of being hidden by surfaces... But that then kind of messes with depth perception of the triad origin point though.

- Michael

Here's one on the end of a booleaned cylinder:



- Michael

< Construction lines work normally for when you're placing the base point (the first pick).
Cool that is the more important!

I'm commin to join ya Weezy!!!

Excellent!

Woaw !
That's gonna be a useful feature. :-)
Can the user choose which face of the pasted object he wants to use. For example what if I want to snap the top of your rocket object instead of the bottom ?
Nice addition to the toolset.