Michael,

I would really like something to be able to group objects together and handle them as a unit. I understand this can become quite complex but I'd be happy even with something relatively simple.

I suppose that ideally a "group" would allow for a group of groups where each individual object and subgroup keeps it's properties. A named group, say a "door" with all of its parts could be tagged as the left, right or whatever "door" and not necessarly become a distinct object. A mechanism to distinguish type of "copies" of a group, say a "cloned group" would be an exact duplicate of the original this would allow the possiblility of editing individual part of a group and update all "cloned group" automatically. Another type of group could be allowed such that edits are not updated automatically but on demand, here I'm thinking of my left and right door again which may not be 100% symmetrical, say for example that the right door as an additional part that serve as a stopper for the left door but beside that part every thing else is symmetrical so edits could apply only to corresponding parts in those groups. Say for these doors again, this time not only the right door as an additional part but some parts are could be distinguish further like say a left and a right hinge and of course at this time we could setup a different style to the hardware parts of the door such that it's easier apply the proper material later on. One last thing I'm thinking of for my ideal doors "groups" again, it would be something like tagging individual part in somekind of hiearchy say

door.right -> right-hinge.001.brass or right-hinge.top.brass
right-hinge.002.brass or right-hinge.middle.brass
right-hinge.003.brass or right-hinge.bottom.brass
crossmember. top.002.walnut *** this part is a mirrored copy of door.left -> crossmember.top.001.walnut
...
panel.top.002.walnut *** this part is a mirrored copy of door.left -> door.top.001.walnut
...
etc.

Then of course, some means to create a bill of material for these doors. This could go on and on but as I said earlier, this would be the "ideal" group thing for me, maybe in another life.

For now I'd be happy with a much simpler grouping mechanism that would be useful both in Moi and on mesh exports.

Thanks,
Felix

Hi Felix,

> A mechanism to distinguish type of "copies" of a group, say
> a "cloned group" would be an exact duplicate of the original
> this would allow the possiblility of editing individual part of
> a group and update all "cloned group" automatically.

This is something that's called "instances" and it's usually a separate mechanism from a "group".

I do want to have instances eventually as well, but I think that it will be a different mechanism than groups - what I'll be trying to do with groups will be more of how they are typically done in other software, just sort of a way to cluster objects together as another organization method, not as a way to maintain a master definition and instance clones.

I do expect to be able to have nested groups though, and if you have a group within a group it will show up as a hierarchy that you can expand in the scene browser, so you could hide the whole group if you wanted, or you could expand the group and go in and only hide some sub-groups of it or whatever. So it will be a way to use it to make a hierarchical organization to your objects with parent/child containers instead of just a flat list of names like object names does now. Then the other part is there will be an option for if you want the group to select as one unit when you click on it.

Maintaining instances and updating them when a base definition changes is a whole different thing than that though. I do want to have that as well at some point but I do not expect to have instances done at the same time as groups, they are different things to work on.

- Michael

Michael,

your idea of group and nested group selectable as a unit is fine with me. Would this mechanism allow for different styles to be used as well? I assume it will but I just want to make sure. At render time this would be very useful.

Thanks,
Felix

Hi Felix,

> your idea of group and nested group selectable as a unit is fine
> with me. Would this mechanism allow for different styles to be
> used as well?

Yeah it should be a separate thing from styles. You might need to do something like set the styles before you make the group, or temporarily turn off atomic selection of the group in order to select different individual objects within the group to assign different styles to. I'm not sure yet how a "drill in" type selection might work.

- Michael

A real "Strecht" function ? (no need to trim / split for avoid deformation who arrive with scale )

IsoCurves with a U and a V value input for frequency and the ability to edit/move them... Thats 4 for me (Less the beer thing).. One to go!

Thought I would finally add my top 5 to wish list:

1.) Deform face feature - similar to NX I-Form, X-Form or Pro-E WF Warp/Sculpt features.

2.) Draft/taper face feature.

3.) Volume and area analysis toolsets.

4.) Parasolid import/export.

5.) DXF (and/or) DWG import.

Not asking much am I? :-)

Michael T.

Hey, I remember this thread...


pssst::: (super blend tool) ;-) you didn't hear that from me.

Michael T: I think you would find the price of MOI going a lot higher if it it had Parasolid import capabilities. I recall Luxology mentioning that they had to pay a high licence fee to Parasolid to create their CAD importer. It was worthwhile for them because of their link with Dassault and Solidworks. They had a clear market to aim at. But that is taking Parasolid nurbs data into a polygon app. In the case of MoI you would just be substituting one Nurbs format for another, at quite a high price.

Hi SteveMacc,

Actually the Parasolid import/export request should have been placed last on my list. Could live without that one, plus there are other translators for it.

Good info to know about Luxology and the costing/license issues.

Michael T.

And finally number 5.. Extend surface tool.. This can be seen in a video here:

http://youtu.be/tv40aawZAY4

You can go straight to 30 seconds in to spare yourself the entire video.

Basially extending a surface continuing the edges curvature. Could be great for patch modeling.

I'll get my own beer, thanks!

As a side note, he has done a good job with his blend command in relation to what I was describing in my previous request about blend bulge. Hes has those options and a couple others.. He also has the UV thing I was just speaking about (Although not IsoCurves. I think he's rebuilding the surfaces) The video shows this just after the extend surface part...

Good luck Michael with your V3 work and future release!

Cool tut about tangency!

What is this seam problem? Haven´t seen it in MoI.

Rudl

Sometime the "seams" of the sphere avoid another function, so just rotate it by 90°

"""""What is this seam problem? Haven´t seen it in MoI""""""""""""

In MoI, those are on by default with a command like loft.. If you loft 2 circles. you can see them.. Sometimes, this needs to be adjusted.



MoI does some good extra stuff to be sure these are aligned well, but with some types of geometry, these are needed..

Hello Michael,

as MOI is meant for designers and artists it may be interesting to those to have an additional snap option on lines which indicates their 'golden ratio'.
This would help to construct according to this aesthetic principle without the need of any additional construction or calculation. And because any single
line will have two of those snap-points such an option should be made optional to avoid to much confusion if this feature is not needed or welcome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

Also interesting would be the implementation of the Fibonacci number within the array option to distribute elements unevenly yet according to this sequence.
Or the Fibonacci spiral within the Helix function.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number

There might be other interesting construction principles of proportion or distribution used by creatives artists or designer which, automatically provided by
MOI, would help rule based concepts and artwork come to life more easy.

Does this suggestion match the idea of MOI?

Cheers

Jan

There is an unofficial script to create Vogels model.

There are two unofficial scripts to create logarithmic spirals, which are related to the Fibonacci spiral.

That snap would be useful!

That sounds interesting, yet I assume that working with scripts does not comes naturally to anybody, especially for the more creative and mainly 'visual' people.

I think if such functionality would be provided it had to be already implemented in MoI for easy and intuitive use. Otherwise all this interesting methods and
models would be accessible for the creative AND 'programming' affine people only ...

The question is, if such mathematical methods could be made 'intuitive' at all, even though they describe 'natural' formations.

@Lejan ;)

You can type an expression or formula into the numeric edit fields that are asking for distance or radius values.

For example when you are drawing a circle for the radius you can type 15/4*2 and the result 7.5 will be calculated for you.

Another example is if you're drawing a line, you can type <360/12 to set an angle constraint of 360/12 = 30 degree angle snap for that line.

You can also use functions like sin - for example typing in sin(45) will calculate the sin of 45 degrees. All trig functions take angles in degrees. Angle input in radians is available by prefixing the function name with an underscore character, for example: _sin(PI/4). Any of the functions on the JavaScript "Math" object are available for use, including: sin(), cos(), tan(), sqrt(), pow(), round(), random(), the constant PI, and also rad() which takes a parameter in degrees and returns it in radians, and deg() which takes a parameter in radians and returns it in degrees.

You can also type in a "relative expression" to modify the value of an edit field that has previously been initialized to some other value. To make a relative expression, start it with one of these symbols: + -- * / which will alter the value by the given amount rather than inputting a completely new value. So for instance in a grid size input field you can type /2 to modify the existing value by dividing it by 2. Note that for subtraction a double minus sign is used to avoid any conflict with entering in a regular non-relative negative value.

You can also use expressions for x,y,z point values. If your regional settings for the operating system uses a comma character as the decimal point separator for numeric values, then surround each coordinate with parentheses to separate them, for example: (2+2)(5/2-1)(5).


So just Press TAB and write (1+ sqrt(5))/2 and you will obtain 1.618034
Moi write only 6 decimals on external but must calculate on more in internal


You can do that before draw a line or after
- Click first point ...draw your formula (1+ sqrt(5))/2 (By TAB ...) click the second point aligned on any direction
or
- Draw any line : Select it and click on the Dialog Info Box (Right top corner pannel) write the formula inside the Length box

So for a Rectangle with a diagonal = Golden number (it's not Golden Rectangle just a construction for apply the formula of the Golden number)
Draw an horizontal line anywhere with the formula above (will be the diagonal)
Draw any Rectangle anywhere
Transform / Orient / Line-Line
Pick 2 opposed corners of the Rectangle
and click the 2 points of the Line ;)
If all is good you must have a Rectangle with a diagonal = Golden Number ;)