A new beta version Jul-17-2007 is now available from the download page at http://moi3d.com/download.htm

This pretty much wraps up the feature set for MoI version 1.0, this will likely be the last beta for this version.

Thanks very much to everyone who has participated in the beta! Your feedback has helped shape MoI over the course of the past year.

New stuff for this release:

Added Adobe Illustrator (.AI) file export.

Added support for 3Dconnexion devices such as the Space Navigator. Various options are available for this under View / Rotate/Pan/Zoom options / 3Dconnexion options.

New Centerline option for Shell.

Extrude can now handle a multiple selection of many planar objects at once, and each of them will extrude along their own normal. You can force them all to go along a single direction by using Set Dir.

Join can now be canceled.

Updated Chamfer UI to be easier to use and fixed some bugs.

Fixed Edit/Separate to be faster when working with large objects.

Trim can now be used on edges, this will split an edge into multiple edges. This can be useful for some things that work between edges such as Blend.

You can now use the Enter key to repeat the last command, in addition to right-click.

Added dialog to control specific up/down, left/right, and tilt angles of the 3D view direction, this is available under Options / View / 3D view angles.

Added option to turn on an x,y,z axis icon in the lower-left corner of the viewport, this is under Options / View / Show axis icon.

Added sensitivity controls for the Zoom/Pan/Rotate buttons at the bottom of viewports, under Options / View / Rotate/Pan/Zoom options.

Turned on history updates for mirror by default now.

Fixed some bugs in Adobe Illustrator file import.

Fixed several meshing bugs, both in mesh file export as well as the display meshing.

Updated LWO export to write vertex normals, using the format that should work with Modo 301.

Updated LWO export to have a more common ordering of internal chunks, plus fix a bug that messed up Blender and Wings3D's LWO importers.

Updated .3dm file reading so that information in the file that MoI does not directly use, such as dimensions or light objects, will be preserved instead of just discarded. Layer assignments will also be preserved for objects that you do not edit.

The installer now sets up a file association so that you can launch MoI by double-clicking a .3dm file in Windows Explorer. If you already have an association set up, it will not overwrite it but instead add MoI to the "Open With" menu which is available by right-click on a file.

Plus quite a few smaller bug fixes...

Swweeeettttttt, thx alot.

Going to translate now.

Excellent stuff. I can't wait MoI 1.0. MoI will be a very helpfull tool in my workflow. Congratulations for this last beta :) :)

Congratulations Michael!

I'm glad to see you added the sensitivity for the viewport controls - heck, I'm glad you added ALL of these latest changes! :-p

-Will

Another fine update Michael. Thank you.

**checks savings account**

ok...we're cool ;) Waiting for final release.

Hey Michael, great job. 1.0 looks like it has a very, very nice feature set.

Moi is primed and ready to take the spotlight and also fit nice-n-neat into existing pipelines.

I wish you all the best of success. I've really enjoyed the beta program and anticipate the 1.0 release.

-TS-

Hi,

thanks for the new beta. :)

I attached the updated German translation.

MfG
sk2k

Thank you very much Michael Again!!

I have a lot of work now , but I need to test the LWO exporter in this version.
As fast as I can make the tests with the new version I will write to you if I can
see any problem.

Thank you very much.
This program makes my life more easy!!!!


Best Regards!
Josu - Galicia - Spain

Seventeenth beta has released on July 17... hehe...Great!
MoI's beta history is to be found here...

Petr

Thanks Michael, for the new beta
Moi is an optimal tools of job, and also much light one. with a setup of only 4,8 mb. Good job for version 1.0

Nicola

French version added
Replace the file "FrenchStrings.txt" in the folder ...Program Files\moi beta_Jul-17-2007\ui
Have fun!

Thanks everyone! Please let me know if you run into any problems with any of the new stuff. If there are any major bugs to be fixed I'll put out a bug fix update.

Now I'll be switching gears to a pretty different phase of just working on the documentation until that is complete.

So there will be kind of a lull for a little while as far as the software itself goes, I won't be adding any new features until version 1.0 is out the door. I'd still love to hear feature requests, but it will take a little while before there will be any action on any of them.

Thanks!

- Michael

Well I'll mention that twice now, I've installed this latest beta and got an error near the end with the installer complaining that it can't modify the the registry key associated with the .3DM file format.

This is on my XP machine at work and just now on my Vista laptop.

This is probably because I had Rhino installed previously on both of these machines.

I had to run RegEdit and change permissions (something I've never had to do editing the registry before); I didn't have permission to delete the .3dm key! After futz'n with the permissions I was finally able to delete the key.

I clicked retry from the MOI installer and it successfully completed...

-Will

>This pretty much wraps up the feature set for MoI version 1.0, this will likely be the last beta for this
>version. Thanks very much to everyone who has participated in the beta! Your feedback has helped
>shape MoI over the course of the past year.
>

Thank you Michael, discovering Moment Of Inspiration and it's genuinely unprecedented ease of use has been one of the primary highlights of this last year for me as a 3D Modeler, my 3D Modeling workflow speed has truly quadrupled thanks to M.O.I. and after several months of Beta usage now I simply couldn't live without it at this point, nor would I want to!

This last Beta is truly awesome too. What you have done with the multi-face simultaneous normal extrusion issue I was dealing with earlier is great, now I can do symmetrical extrusions at near light speed!

I also discovered right away with this new Beta a fantastic development you just included in M.O.I. which I hadn't previously considered adding to my workflow but now I will be using constantly... the way you just altered Mirror to automatically utilize History updating. This is an incredibly handy thing for me now, since I can use it in realtime within M.O.I. to rapidly visualize mirrored object placement in alternative ways to whatever I originally have in mind when mirroring given objects in a scene.

Given that when I work in M.O.I., I almost always start out with no particular modeling objective in mind (allowing my creativity to flow freeform right from whatever I do first or from some subsequent point as I explore tangential options in altering a scene as I go), now with this New Mirror-Auto-History-Update Feature (I'm not sure what to call it yet!) I can "swing" mirrored objects around the scene in realtime prior to selecting a particular final resting spot for them and then similarly easily "swing" the positions of placed objects which have already been mirrored in an extremely intuitive manner, which for me deeply enhances my imaginative recognition of entirely new and often better alternatives to my original placement thoughts.

This new feature has already led me to create numerous "spinoff" models from my workflow which I export as 3DM files for later exploration in greater depth while I continue to pursue the completion of whetever model I am currently developing within M.O.I.. In a similar fashion I have been exporting unfinished 3DM files for months now from M.O.I. and have developed a library of them in the process which I often revisit on those days where I sometimes don't know where to start with a new modeling idea. Now though, this "unfinished 3DM model library" of mine is already growing exponentially with the introduction of this new Mirroring feature you have just introduced! I love it already!

There remains now only one feature I would genuinely like to see for M.O.I. version 1, and that is OBJ polygonal model import capability. Although I will certainly be investing in M.O.I. with or without it's inclusion, it's inclusion would provide me with the one thing I have always needed within M.O.I.... the ability to import polygonal models strictly for use as solids around which I can then model additional NURBS-based accessories or tangential designs of various kinds which would then be exported from M.O.I. as OBJ models for subsequent inclusion in polygonal scenes containing the original M.O.I.-imported polygonal OBJ model.

I realize there are issues inherent to importing polygonal models within M.O.I. when it comes to any subsequent alterations performed on those models within M.O.I., but I am referring here strictly to imported OBJ format polygonal models which would not be subsequently altered in any way within M.O.I., which would rather serve only as "3D Polygonal Reference Models" if you will, just as images serve now as modeling references within M.O.I..

Given that a vast number of Rhino purchasers over the years have been Poser users who turned to Rhino for the creation of accessories for their Poser human models, it follows that the introduction of this particular feature (M.O.I. import of OBJ format "3D Polygonal Reference Models") could indeed attract a considerably large number of existing Poser and Rhino users to M.O.I. Version 1 which might otherwise find less incentive to switch from using Rhino exclusively in their Poser-related pipeline.

Not that Poser users alone would find this feature highly attractive, no doubt all of us would find many uses for it for sure, it's just that having once been a part of the extremely active "alt.binaries.3d.poser" Usenet Newsgroup myself, I know with a certainty that if M.O.I. were to offer this specific feature a huge number of active "ab3dp" Usenet users would instantly migrate to M.O.I. without any hesitation at all. As it is now, and has been for many years, thousands of these particular people have turned to Rhino specifically for this particular capability (bringing their favorite Poser OBJ models into a NURBS modeler), since viable alternatives to Rhino in this regard have been few and far between all along. M.O.I. could harvest that vast market overnight with nothing else required apart from this specific capability, and a sudden meteoric rise in the success of M.O.I. is certainly something each of us Beta Testers would be very happy to see you achieve with M.O.I. Version 1.

- End of New Feature Pitch Mode - ;^)

I love M.O.I., and when Version 1 is out I'll be among the first purchasers for sure. Thanks for all your hard work these many months Michael, and thank you for providing us all with these many months of opportunity as M.O.I. Beta Testers, the experience has been an absolute delight for all of us.

- 3dvisuals dude

Hi Will, thanks for reporting the new installer issue!

I wonder how your machine got set up so that you didn't have permissions?

Anyway, since MoI runs fine without any file associations set up I've tweaked the installer so that it won't put up any error dialogs if it could not write the associations to the registry, they just won't get written.

Over here I've had Rhino set up and I didn't seem to run into that problem. When Rhino is already set up as the file association for .3dm, the MoI installer is actually not trying to replace the entire .3dm entry in the registry, it is trying to add a new subkey so that it will show up on the "Open with" right-click menu. But that still gets blocked if permission is denied to the whole .3dm key.

Thanks,

- Michael

Hi 3dvisuals dude, I'm glad that MoI has worked to increase your productivity!

I'm glad that you're able to just "flow" with it and let your creativity take you in different directions quickly. That's definitely the idea behind it!

Re: reading OBJ files - I was thinking that one first step for this would be to bring the polygon mesh object into MoI just as a wireframe, with the edges of each polygon being a regular line object in MoI. Do you think that would be useful?

That would be a lot less difficult for me because it wouldn't introduce a new "polygon mesh object type" inside of MoI that would not interact well with the existing set of NURBS-focused tools.

I was thinking that at first I would probably create a stand-alone utility, like Obj23dmWireframe.exe, that could read an OBJ file and translate it into a wireframe .3dm file... If this sounds like it would be useful, I can give that a try in a little while after I get the documentation rolling along a bit.

- Michael

Yes I'm wondering myself since I've always used my systems under an administrator account!??

Granted with Vista, I had to disable user access control (to get XSI to run properly) but I'm still using an administrator account.

I couldn't get Rhino v2 to install properly on Vista so I removed it but there was still an >empty< .3DM key in the registry - after finally deleting it, the installer succeeded...

I don't know about silently failing that step because what if I do want to be able to dbl-click .3dm files and launch MOI?

I'm not even sure if a manual association would have worked in that case...

-Will

PS - Yes, I was going to suggest that Michael, if you could somehow create wireframes off of polygon objects that might be a nice idea.

I'll admit I've never got to the point of trying to use an existing poly object to model from (even Silo's topology tools have never been touched by me for any serious work) but I would think from the concept, that the wireframes should be all that's needed instead of pulling in the whole object (unless its really necessary to have that many points to snap to?)

> I don't know about silently failing that step because what if I do
> want to be able to dbl-click .3dm files and launch MOI?

Yeah, that wouldn't work. But I think that there are a lot of people who wouldn't know what to do to fix it once the error dialog was displayed. For those people, they get a confusing dialog, and then after that, they still can't double-click a .3dm file to launch MoI anyway.

On the other hand, someone who knows how to go in and fix it will probably figure it out when they try to set up the association manually and it fails there too...


> I'm not even sure if a manual association would have worked in that case...

Yeah, I doubt it.

- Michael

3dvisualsdude - If you have Rhino 3 or 4, import your mesh (no n-gons of course). Then run command "MeshToNurb". Copy the polysurface and paste into Moi. That should be a good workaround until Moi can support mesh or has the wireframe utility which Michael had mentioned...
jonah

Hi Michael,

>Hi 3dvisuals dude, I'm glad that MoI has worked to increase your productivity!
>I'm glad that you're able to just "flow" with it and let your creativity take you in different directions quickly. That's definitely >the idea behind it!
>

Well now I'm not only happy I'm happy that you're happy! ;^)

I often wonder if other folks have the same experience with M.O.I. that I do in this regard. From the very first time I used M.O.I. back in the Fall of last year I have nearly always had this same experience... I stare for a second at the blank M.O.I. workspace, reach for a Primitive Tool or a Line Tool, draw a few objects in random 3D space or draw a random freeform sketch line somewhere in 3D space, and then examine the result for a few seconds rotating around in the 3D viewport until something "emerges" in my mind's eye from whatever is there... it's really a liberating experience for my imagination.

Here I am with perhaps 300 3DM files created in M.O.I. over the last few months, and only 5 of those were actually the outcome of a pre-conceived model I had in mind before opening up M.O.I.! It's quite amazing when you consider that I have been 3D Modeling constantly since the very early ' 90's and have never in all that time and in spite of using hundreds of other 3D programs been able to create such freeflowing imaginative works from scratch as I always do with M.O.I.! There is just no other 3D program like it in my book at all, the "minimalist approach" to the interface design is probably the key, having a completely uncluttered workspace and stylus-friendly intuitive toolsets just frees one's creativity in unprecedented ways!

Thanks for keeping M.O.I. "minimalist" in this way, it's a brilliant approach and profoundly appreciated by me every day!

>Re: reading OBJ files - I was thinking that one first step for this would be to bring the polygon mesh object into MoI just as a >wireframe, with the edges of each polygon being a regular line object in MoI. Do you think that would be useful?
>
>That would be a lot less difficult for me because it wouldn't introduce a new "polygon mesh object type" inside of MoI that >would not interact well with the existing set of NURBS-focused tools.
>
>I was thinking that at first I would probably create a stand-alone utility, like Obj23dmWireframe.exe, that could read an OBJ >file and translate it into a wireframe .3dm file... If this sounds like it would be useful, I can give that a try in a little while after >I get the documentation rolling along a bit.
>
>- Michael
>

WOW!!!! This would be absolutely GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sure, since the imported OBJ model is only being used as a 3D Reference Model for subsequent NURBS additions it wouldn't matter at all that the model was wireframe-only just as long as we would all be able to bring our OBJ models into M.O.I. without a lot of related fuss!

Granted, we can now bring models into M.O.I. via IGES but my experience with that import format in M.O.I. so far has been a nightmare (ie: hundreds of redundant duplicate lines, inability to properly convert models to IGES prior to M.O.I. import, etcetera) and just the added time of trying to use other programs to properly convert polygonal models to IGES itself is a hindrance I tend to avoid at all costs!

Being able to bring OBJ models into M.O.I. as wireframes would definitely be a huge workflow blessing for me and probably everybody else here too! I must have at least 6000 OBJ format models I've made over the years and being able to play with those in any fashion within M.O.I. would open up huge time-saving capabilities for me on new projects!!!

I really did mean what I said earlier too about how Poser folks at the Usenet's "alt.binaries.3d.poser" would love this too, and I promise you this, if you make this possible for us all I'll post some awesome (non-spam) threads there showing those folks directly what M.O.I. could do to make their Poser Pipeline a genuine delight!

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

Just when I think you've already made my week you go and do it again Michael!!! When you do officially launch Version 1 be sure to send us all a "snail mail address" first, because I suspect there's a few other folks here besides me who'd like to send you a bottle of champagne when that day finally comes! You've most certainly earned it! ;^)

Thank you!

- 3dvisuals dude