Hi ed,

> Back to the golden ratio, why the golden rectangle cant be a default snap?

Check out here for an answer:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3628.285

It could become one if it gets asked about frequently enough. So far it's only been requested or mentioned quite rarely, and things that are only needed rarely by a small number of people are not great to have as defaults.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

your visualized example now got me hungry for hash browns... ;)

I understand your point in those irreversible restrictions in between the NURBS and polygon worlds,
even though I would go to freeze back the sauce in its original apple shape in this world... ;)

By searching the internet on this topic so far I could only find the NURBS -> Polygon direction and not
the other way around.

Thank you for the link to the converter which I will try out on those bubble skin surfaces from sketchup
for remodelling in MoI.

Jan

Hi Jan,

> even though I would go to freeze back the sauce in its original
> apple shape in this world... ;)

I'm not sure it would really be quite the same as a regular apple anymore, especially when you tried to bite into it! :)


> By searching the internet on this topic so far I could only find the
> NURBS -> Polygon direction and not the other way around.

There are actually some pretty complex tools to do it used for reverse engineering, but they're usually very specialized and expensive.

- Michael

Hi Lejan,
You can look at this website here:

http://www.resurf3d.com/

They have a couple standalone applications that do what you are describing.. The mesh to single nurbs one will fit to an "open mesh" (A sheet if you will) not a closed volume. it works off of stl's.

The obj mesh to solid, will work on closed volumes, but is only approxamating what it works on...

The expensive ones michael mentions will do much better jobs, but again, EXPENSIVE.

Also, you can try these demos for a few days... What you will find, is a nurbs surface fit to some organic shape, at any type of tolerance, will be an Extremly heavy surface created... And then, "What do you want to do with it in MoI?" A very heavy, organically shaped NURBS surface may become "unusable" in any type of situation...

You can check those out to see results, but the higher end ones may really be needed to presnt anything that suits what you want.. Maybe the heavy stuff will be good for what your looking for though...
Burr

Minimal Surface - by maximal effort ... ;)

A small guidline for a sailing trip on minmal surfaces in MoI...



A basic outline of half of a boat hull sketched freely in MoI



Exported from MoI via *.skp and imported into SketchUp



Within Sketchup a plug-in called 'Soap Skin & Bubble' was set to 50x50 resolution to generate a first auto-mesh



By default the plug-in then calculates a minimal surface connected to the intitial outline of the boat profile as if this skin was a
soap bubble



To get a bit more space within the final boat the plug-in was run again with an imaginative inner pressure set to a value of '30'

From there the was a bit tricky to get the final mesh of this minimal surface back into MoI and may vary on your own software.
In this example Sketchup exportes in Collada *.dae into Cinema 4D which exported in Wavefront *.obj into Obj23dmWireframe
wich finally converted the mesh back into MoI's *.3dm format.



Back in MoI the mesh was manually 'cleaned' to get a better view and less snap option for the 'Through points' curve tool



Any other vertical contour curve was then manually re-modeled as well as the overall contour curves based on all end points



Finally all new curves were selected and the 'Network' function then re-created the minimal surface. Mirrowed, merged and 'Full steam ahead!',
which for a sailing boat is probably the most difficult part to accomplish... ;)

Who ever knows a more elegant way to get minimal surfaces to work within MoI is very welcome to give me a note on that!

Jan

Hi Michael,

one notice the order in which you shared your knowledge!

First you let me blunt my teeth on my own re-modeled and frozen apple
and then you name those goodies ...

The bill of my dentist would have perfectly covered those tools!

;)

Jan

Hi Jan, well those tools are not really everyday use kind of tools for general surfacing, they're kind of finicky and advanced tools that can get the job done if you don't mind spending a lot of money and also time involved in learning all the ins and outs of operating them.

That's because the "create apples from applesauce" direction is just not a very natural path to work with things...

So they probably are not a practical solution for you unless you are focused on reverse engineering surface models from laser scanned objects as your primary focus for your work.

-Michael

Hi Jan - re: golden ratio snap onto a line, I've cooked up something for that here:

script: /* Set golden ratio snap on a selected line */ var crvs = moi.geometryDatabase.getSelectedObjects().getCurves(); var pp = moi.ui.getActivePointPicker(); if ( crvs.length == 1 && pp ) { var crv = crvs.item(0); var start = crv.getStartPt(); var end = crv.getEndPt(); var phi = (1 + Math.sqrt(5)) / 2; var factor = phi / (phi + 1); var v = moi.vectorMath.makeVector( start, end ); v.scale( factor ); var pt = moi.vectorMath.add( start, v ); pp.addSnapPoint( pt, 'Golden' ); v = moi.vectorMath.makeVector( end, start ); v.scale( factor ); pt = moi.vectorMath.add( end, v ); pp.addSnapPoint( pt, 'Golden' ); }


Copy that whole thing and paste it into the command part of a new shortcut key.

That will then make it possible to use a new golden ratio snap onto a selected line while you are inside of any drawing tool (like draw line, draw point, etc...).

To use it, before you start the draw tool you must first select the line that you want to use for the ratio and it should be the only selected curve object.

Then start up whichever drawing tool you want and when it is asking you for a point to place, then press the shortcut key that you assigned the script to and it should give you a snap like so:



I hope that's helpful for your work!

- Michael

Hi BurrMan,

that really is interesting! Thank you for that!

It seems this Rhino plug-in does a really good job in creating a NURBS model based on
polygon meshes.

By the named price of EUR 400 for this tool I am not going to ask you or Michael what the
'real ones' may cost.

But I like to try out the demo versions, yet before that I have to get use to Rhino first,
which I just recently installed in its free Beta version. At the moment I have even a hard
time to draw a circle with this program and by this I do not even care about where on the
screen this happens... ;) So first steps first.

A true need for this tool I do not have besides my plain interest. The thought so started
by the initial idea about 'minimal surfaces' within MoI and Michael's efforts to make me
understand why that would sort of 'bust the scope' by the complexity of its genuine nature
and that also a work around by polygon meshing would also run into its own complexity.

But it is always good to know what tools are available, so thanks again for this link!

Jan

Hi Michael,

this is really a beautiful script!

Thank you very much for it, as it will really help to work with the 'golden ratio'!

And because 'G' is already in use for your 'golden rectangular' script, I choose
'L' in memory of Leonardo Da Vinci ... :)

I already played around with it and noticed two interesting effects so far.

If used on a an angeled line both snaps appear perfectly but interestingly the
scrips seems to interfere with the perpendicular help-line from this point, as
this option does not show up in activated 'golden snap' mode.

But this is no problem, as once a marker line is drawn on a golden snap, the
perpendicular help-line reappears in a second step of sketching.

The other interesting effect appears on curved lines:



The 'golden snap' also appears here and indicates the golden proportion of the
projection of that line. I will see if this behaviour will be constant for any curved
line and its projection, as this also offers an interesting possibility to work with!

So thanks again for your 'cooking' as it really makes working with the 'golden ratio'
taste much, much better! ;)

Jan

@Michael
Cool new script: a golden one! ;)
Seems
For a line find 2 golden points: cool
For curve find only one out of the curve (when it find ;)

@Lejan
About Sketchup for all that curves: Loft, NetWork, Surfaces...etc take the free versatile Fredo6's Curvy loft!
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=28586

Fredo6's Curvy loft

Hi Pilou,

thanks for the help with SketchUp, but this program and I are just not made for each other... ;)

The graphics in a modern 3D modeling program should just not remind me on my good old
Atari 600 xl, which pretty much did the same only with less colors... ;)

Jan

< are just not made for each other
It's nevertheless the more easy 3D program that you can find :)

Hi Michael,

I use the curves and the planar command in moi3d to make virtual friskets in Artrage.
It would be helpfull if i could see the Artrage canvas through the Moi3d viewport.
When i have finished the job in Moi,then i use copy-paste to place the result in Artrage.

Question : Is it possible to make the viewport transparent (like a alpha channel color), but not the cuves.

I did get inspired by this application : http://www.ptc.com/product/creo/sketch/

Hi Lejan,

""""""""""""""""""It seems this Rhino plug-in does a really good job in creating a NURBS model based on
polygon meshes.""""""""""

Be sure you are looking at the "standalone" version.. They dont need Rhino and are a bit cheaper.
Here is a link to the open mesh one to try:

http://www.resurf3d.com/mesh2snurbs.htm

This one works on obj closed forms:

http://www.resurf3d.com/Objmesh2solid.htm

But it will be more of a "fitting" than a re-creation... I didnt put enough time into the obj one to really be able to speak to it's output.. Maybe you can make the demo work well and report back!

Added ;)
http://moiscript.weebly.com/golden.html

PS About the Golden Rectangle : Snap Straight must be enable!

Not a list of five, but a one i discovered i needed today - Crash Recovery file ?

Martin

Hi Martin,

> Not a list of five, but a one i discovered i needed today - Crash Recovery file ?

If there is a crash, a dialog will pop up that has a Save button on it which will allow you to save out the current model data to a new file - that would be the crash recovery file right there.

In certain kinds of crashes like ones relating to totally running out of memory it could be possible that the conditions that caused the crash prevent the recovery mechanism from working though. But with a more regular type of crash instead of an "out of memory" type one you should be able to get what you are asking about I think.

Also if you run into a crash there will be a crash dump file created called moi_report1.zip (or moi_report2.zip, etc...) that can contain some information about where in particular the crash happened - if one of those were generated please send those to me through e-mail at moi@moi3d.com so I can try to pinpoint and fix the bug.

If your crash is related to totally running out of memory it can prevent the crash dump report from being generated too though - generally if your crash is related to that the main fix is to avoid overloading things to the point where are close to totally exhausting memory in the first place - that might mean breaking a super huge file into some smaller files instead.

Also if you have a 3DM file where you can repeat the crash easily with a certain operation it can help a lot if you send me that model file as well, since the easiest way to debug a crash is when I can actually repeat it over here.

- Michael

This crash is not related to MoI, something makes this pc go to BSOD whilst it is in sleep mode, and i have never managed to track it down but will build a new toy soon :) just need to get the wedding out of the way first! But whilst on this kind of subject, is there an autosave feature ?

Thanks for the reply

Martin

Hi Martin,

> But whilst on this kind of subject, is there an autosave feature ?

No, not currently. Autosave can tend to be rather intrusive once you get to a fair sized model.

If your computer tends to blue screen when coming out of sleep mode, probably you should go to Control Panel > Power Options, and set it so that it does not ever go into sleep mode, you can set it to "System standby: Never" to do that I think.

Also the blue screen is probably caused by one particular buggy driver misbehaving - if you configure your system to create crash dumps on blue screens (Control panel > System > Advanced > "Startup and Recovery" settings > Write debugging information set to "Small memory dump") that could make it possible to look at the crash dump and maybe get a clue which particular driver is the culprit, then you could disable that particular one or try to update it.

- Michael