Nice update...
Currently, I don't really have time to play with MoI but I will certainly make some tests on the LWO export for Modo and the AI import.
And also the update on the loft command. Is it related to the "problem" I had with mesh symmetry ?

And AI export in the next beta ! Yessss ! ;-) (And I see on French ZBrush forum that Steph3D waits for it too !)

Thanks Michael

Hi Bernard,

> Is it related to the "problem" I had with mesh symmetry ?

Yup! A closed loft should behave better now and not have the slight shift in it that caused your previous symmetry problem.

The quad meshing improvement also helps with symmetry - this enables an n-gon that looks exactly like a single column of quads to be split into quads instead of triangulated (in quads & triangles export mode). This also improves symmetry for that shape you previously posted.

- Michael

>> The quad meshing improvement also helps with symmetry - this enables an n-gon that looks exactly like a single column of quads to be split into quads instead of triangulated (in quads & triangles export mode). This also improves symmetry for that shape you previously posted.

Cool ! I think I'm gonna enjoy using MoI objects inside Modo and ZBrush... ;-) I'll try to find some time to make tests during the next week-end.
The news in another thread about vertex smoothing support in Modo 301 is interesting too... Things are going in the good direction, hehe...

Greetings

Wow Michael! You and MoI continue to impress.Really great work. I've been a bit scarce lately I just wanted to let you know that I'm still lurking waiting for the buy button to pop up. I just wish I would have paid some attention to that geometry class 20 odd years ago.

Cheers!

Matt

Hi Jacobo,

re: Weld setting

> I've noticed that it was disabled by default (I guess for the LWO exporter... I
> didn't try the OBJ in the new beta),

It's one of the few settings (along with display type and polygon type (ngons, triangles) that is remembered between different sessions. So probably in a previous session you had turned it off.


> so I did another test with that option enabled, and I still got unwelded vertices
> (they seemed not so many than before though). And sure, I'll send you an
> example of this tomorrow!

An example of that one would be great, that sounds like a bug. Just one more note - surfaces have to be joined for the weld setting to have an effect.

It could also possibly be a bug in join, if join does not manage to properly glue together 2 edges (even though others were combined), it would result in this kind of a thing too. I can tell that by examining the model though.

- Michael

Hi Josu, thanks for testing the new LWO export!

99% is pretty good for version 1.0 ! :)

On ones that do generate a few incorrect polygons, if you can send any example models to me, that would help me figure out how to solve that. (it is helpful if you narrow it down to the smallest piece that shows a problem).

I would like to get closer to 100% !

But I am glad that the LWO format is working well for you - at least it is quick to fix 5 or 6 bad polys out of 80,000 - it's a lot better than fixing 2,000 bad ones...

I'm almost ready to take a look at some of the other bugs that you sent previously.

Thanks!

- Michael

Hello Michael,

Thanks again for this enhanced version. One question (for me at least) remains however. In several instances you promised us support in V1 for the 3dconnexion navigation devices, such as the spacemouse for example. Will it still be included in the V1? (I most certainly hope so).
Best Regards Hans

Hi Hans, yes I'm planning on including this with the next beta. Sorry I wasn't able to get it into this one.

The main remaining features left to work on are Adobe Illustrator export, and 3D Connexion support.

- Michael

The spanish translation...

Enjoy it!

Bye

Thanks David! By the way, do you remember those boat hull sections you sent to me a few months ago that would not loft?

The new beta fixes this, those now loft fine. That's what the new stuff about the Profiles option is about.

For lofting through a larger number of curves, it is often nice to use Loft Style = "Loose" to get a more relaxed surface, the ones you sent work pretty well if you use the loose style. The regular style can cause sort of bumps when you use many sections.

Another thing that can help get smooth lofts through many sections is to use the new Profiles: #Points option, this will further simplify the resulting loft by using only the number of control points that you specify for rebuilding the profiles. This will only be a somewhat rough approximation of your input curves, but the result will be even more smooth yet.

So for instance using Loft Style = "Loose" as well as Profiles = #Points with 10 points, will generate a really smooth surface from the 13 cross-sections that you had for that boat hull.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Sorry for not sending you some samples about those problems before. The last two days have been a bit crazy.

/*****
It's one of the few settings (along with display type and polygon type (ngons, triangles) that is remembered between different sessions. So probably in a previous session you had turned it off.
*****/

Oh, yeah... you're right. I did realize about that later... it's remembering my sessions settings :).


/*****
An example of that one would be great, that sounds like a bug. Just one more note - surfaces have to be joined for the weld setting to have an effect.

It could also possibly be a bug in join, if join does not manage to properly glue together 2 edges (even though others were combined), it would result in this kind of a thing too. I can tell that by examining the model though.
*****/

I'll send you an example about this. Now, to be honest, I'm not totally sure if I've used 'Join', and then with 'Weld' enabled exported the object, and
that object was giving me those problems. But I think I did... I'll check it out again, and I'll send you some samples.

Thanks!!

Jacobo.

HI Michael,

I just found one issue which bothers me a bit,
when you export to 3DS the uv's created are a mess, in OBJ it is fine,
I attached a picture for you,

Best regards,

Thor

Hi Michael,

I'm having a look at PDF import and it doesn't appear work at all. I have been trying out a lot of file but none of them seems to be loaded although they are processed fine in Rhino. Could you post any PDF file that works?

Petr

Hi Michael:

As soon as I saw the new features, I though to take the hull up. :-)
I´ll tell you about that...thx

to tyglik: Yesterday night I made a probe. The "normal" pdf (like a document) doesn´t work, obviously. :-). After that I tried with an AutoCAD drawing converted to a PDF and it worked.

I send you the file:

Bye!

What is exactly the format PDF who is not the normal "document" format?

Hi Pilou:

I wanted to say with a "normal" document, the text document write in MSWord or any word processor.
The thing is that I have been trying to import pdf, and the most of my pdf are text documents and they weren´t work.
Now I have been using the WordArt and drawings tools of MSWords and they works, but it isn´t very interesting, actually :-)

Bye!

Hi Thor, if you have welding turned on MoI does not write UVs to the .3ds file at all...

That's because .3ds does not have a proper way for 2 faces to share the same 3d point, but have different UV coordinates. .3ds has a limitation that it can only specify one single UV coordinate for each 3d point.

If you turn off welding, then UVs will be written because points are not combined into a single point along common edges.

OBJ doesn't have this limitation. In its structure, it has a way to have polygons share one single 3d point, but have different UV coordinates for each polygon.

.3ds is limited in other ways too, like it has a limitation of only having a maximum of 65535 points for a single mesh. If your program supports OBJ, I would recommend focusing on using that since it doesn't have these limitations. Only try to use .3ds if you don't have any other option.

- Michael

Hmmm... Actually, I have also tried MSWord's drawing tools, but it failed as well... It looks like the pdf driver could cause the trouble. I use Adobe Acrobat 5.0 Standard Edition. -Petr

Hi Petr, can you please send me a couple of the PDFs that don't work? (David posted one that does work)

I had tested this with .ai files saved from Illustrator CS that were set as "PDF compatible". I assumed that PDFs would also follow this same structure, maybe something is slightly different.

PDF is a pretty difficult format to support well, it's structure is pretty complex. It will probably take some tuning for it to work better.

- Michael

Hello:

This is a file created with MSWord and converted with ALLPDF (you can try to convert online here https://www.pdfonline.com/convert_pdf.asp)
Bye!