Dave is creating documentation of MoI's Scripting interface.

See this thread:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2741.1

Hi Burr,

Then what is the benefit for end user ?
Sorry scripting is not my world.

Michael,

OK, great! Thanks for the explanation about the deleted method. Seeing something disappear from the API this morning is what triggered me to add the extra logic to the script to detect the specific API changes.

I'll add the information about the difference between the low/high precision flavors of bounding box to the doc as well...

> Then what is the benefit for end user ?
> Sorry scripting is not my world.

The benefit for the end user is indirect, but potentially very large.

If you look at how Michael built MoI, it really consists of two main layers:

1) A core C++ class library that implements all of the low-level NURBS functions, 3D graphics, etc. Most of the functionality of this powerful library is exposed via COM interfaces and a Javascript API to the high-level user interface layer that you see while using MoI.

2) The high-level user interface layer of MoI is (in some sense) a very specialized version of the standard Internet Explorer web browser extended with some custom controls (such as the 3D viewports and the fly-out menu controls). All of this functionality is implemented as a series of standard web pages, using HTML, CSS, Javascript and the custom MoI Javascript API.

And that's what this discussion is all about. The standard MoI user interface is really just a set of web pages that William wrote, using HTML (well-documented), CSS (well-documented), Javascript (well-documented) and the custom Javascript API to access the powerful C++ MoI class library (completely undocumented).

What I am attempting to do is to document the MoI Javascript API. With that available, any motivated MoI user with some basic Web and Javascript skills should be able to extend or modify MoI in any number of ways, which eventually translates into more cool MoI functions and capabilities for every MoI user. And perhaps most importantly (in my mind at least), it empowers the MoI user community to accomplish this without having to request Michael to add yet another item to his ever-growing ToDo list :-) . But note that having this new documentation will not allow users to implement any new feature they want. Some features require enhancements to the core C++ library, which practically speaking, only Michael can do. But that still leaves a lot of room for creating all kinds of new user-implemented features for MoI.

I hope this explanation helped...

Anis,
The benefit is for those that want to script MoI. If you dont want to script MoI then it wont be of interest to you.

You've seen Michael write scripts for people to do special things or automate a process. This documentation will be for those that want to figure out and write things for there own purposes or other people.

So even if you dont know javascript, eventually there will probably be quite a gathering of specialized scripts that one could browse and choose from.

If I became very good at it, I could even take requests and write custom plugins for MoI and charge money for them!

William? I thought we owe this/MoI to Michael ;)

Cheers,

. Diego .

> William? I thought we owe this/MoI to Michael ;)

Just checking to see if anyone is paying attention...you pass :-)

Hi Burr,

>I could even take requests and write custom plugins for MoI and charge money for them!
But you need to get MoI SDK before it will happen ? Isn it ?

Thanks

Hi Anis,

> But you need to get MoI SDK before
> it will happen ? Isn it ?

You would need an SDK to do something very completely different from anything currently in MoI, like make a T-splines plugin or complex things like that which do a lot of unique low level processing.

But even without a C++ SDK you can use scripting to create plug-ins right now that work with the existing tools in MoI but package them together in different ways.

There is a lot that can be done with scripting, there are several example plug-ins that you can look at already which are collected on Petr's page here:
http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/


One reason that scripting works well in MoI is that it is not just something kind of "tacked on" to MoI, it is used for all of MoI's regular functions. For example commands such as the line command, curve command, etc... all have a script component to them.

- Michael