Hello Michael,

Thanks for the update! That's fantastic.

I've converted the problematic propeller model to Rhino 5 .3dm as well and testing I found it's likewise not importing correctly in 3.0.

Can you please test your latest v4 beta version with this one as well? I've attached it to this reply.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best regards,

Larry.

Works as solid for obj export in V4 ;)

Hi Larry, yup good news the same bug fix solves that one as well. Here's what it will look like in the next v4 beta with the bug fix:



Thanks for reporting it! I'm still going to investigate the step import some more but it is usually quite a bit easier for me to figure out what's going on with .3dm imports.

- Michael

Hi Pilou,

re:
> Works as solid for obj export in V4 ;)

Nope, it's not working in the current v4 beta, it just looks ok from that angle because the messed up part is on the bottom.

But it will work fine in the next v4 beta though.

- Michael

This ?

Hello Michael,

Thanks a lot for confirming! Can't wait for the release v4 release!

About that, will the release 4.0 version need to be installed over 3.0, in the same folder? As an add-on or expansion of sorts? Or will it be a separate installation?

If it comes as a separate installer which can be installed in a separate folder, if I install it over V3 would it retain the plugins I installed? I'm sorry if these questions were already asked and answered earlier in this thread.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Best regards!

Larry.

Hey Pilou,

That's indeed where the import issue in 3.0 is and it looks similar to your screenshot from the current beta of 4.0 so it was probably the same issue as in 3.0.

Best regards,

Larry.

Hi Pilou, yes that's the problem area, it will be ok in the next v4 beta though.

- Michael

Hi Larry also I should mention that I'm hoping that the next v4 beta will be the last one and after that I'll switch to a very conservative mode trying not to make any more changes if possible to avoid introducing new bugs for the final v4 release. So if you have any other .3dm files that don't come across well now would be the time to send them to have a chance at getting them fixed for v4.

So far it seems that CAD exchanger .3dm transfer is working well other than this one particular bug though.


> About that, will the release 4.0 version need to be installed over 3.0, in the same folder? As an add-on
> or expansion of sorts? Or will it be a separate installation?

It's meant to be a separate installation, it's best not to try and install it directly in the same folder as v3.


> If it comes as a separate installer which can be installed in a separate folder, if I install it over V3
> would it retain the plugins I installed?

I'm not quite sure what would happen. It's best not to try and intermingle a v3 and a v4 installation directly over top of each other in a single install folder. It's intended that v3 and v4 should be in separate folders. Probably what would happen is you would have a v4 that worked and the current v3 installation would be broken. Many of the binaries for v3 and v4 have the same file name like MoI.exe, etc... so if you tried to put them in the same folder the v3 ones would get overwritten.

For plugins, most plugins are installed by copying them into the commands folder, you would just copy those from v3's commands folder into v4's commands folder. Also v4 now supports an additional commands folder located in appdata, outside of the main installation folder. It's good to put plugins there instead because then future versions will find them them there instead of needing to copy them around.

- Michael

Hey Michael!

It doesn't look like I have any more models which don't import correctly either as .step files or as .3dm files, after conversion with CAD Exchanger. From what I can tell, it looks like I'll be able to reliably use this pipeline going forward.

Thank you!

Best regards,

Larry.

Thanks Larry, that's great!

- Michael

Hey Michael!

Me again, just came across another .step model that doesn't import correctly as Rhino 5 .3dm in MOI 3.0. What's unusual is that the .step file appears to import correctly.

I'm fairly sure this is fixed in the latest beta of 4.0 but just thought I'd report it anyway.

Thank you!

Hi Larry, thanks for sending it. Yes that is indeed another case of the same bug and it will come in ok now in the next v4 beta.

- Michael

Will the next Beta contain the dimension tools?

Hi Rudl,

re:
> Will the next Beta contain the dimension tools?

Yes!

- Michael

Hi to all a think this was asked before but with upcoming version a figure out if planed a script or a new command to develop surfaces inside moi like Rhino here https://wiki.mcneel.com/labs/devsrf

thanks..

It seems a lot like LineWeb.
Maybe some of the new crv methods of MoI4beta could be adapted...(?)...coplanar tangents...

- Brian

Hi pafurijaz,

> Hi to all a think this was asked before but with upcoming version a figure out if planed
> a script or a new command to develop surfaces inside moi like Rhino here
> https://wiki.mcneel.com/labs/devsrf

Sorry no there are not currently any plans for developable surface focused tools in MoI. I would recommend using Rhino for those particular tools.

- Michael

Hey Michael!

Hope it's not too late for the next beta but I've found another model of mine which MOI 3.0 seems to have trouble with and it's different enough from the previous ones that I think it might possibly be a different bug than the one already addressed. So I thought I'd upload it here so you can maybe test the latest 4.0 beta with it as well.

I provided the problem model in .sat, .step and .3dm (Rhino 5) format in the attached archive file. Can you please test this .3dm as well? I promise I'll stop bugging you afterwards :)

Thank you!

Best regards,

Larry!

Hi Larry, thanks for sending it in, it is indeed a different bug than the other one. Actually it's 2 bugs, the first one is in display mesh generation and the second one was in the same area of code as that previous bug but in a slightly different thing.

The display mesh bug is the one that looks like this:


So the problem is if this edge here is not refined with enough points:



It's going to cross over the inner boundary like this:



That one will go away during mesh export if you use a tight enough angle like 6 degrees or lower. This one is pretty difficult to fix because it would involve testing a lot of edges against each other to see if they intersect or not which would be a major performance degradation in display mesh generation. In the future maybe I could try something like only do that additional testing if the mesh was damaged. But it's basically a display artifact and the actual model is ok there and will also be ok during mesh export using a tight enough angle. Even without a tight enough angle the export mesh doesn't leak out so badly and the damage is contained just to that small area. So I'm not expecting to fix this one in v4.

All the other messed up areas are from the 2nd bug which I've fixed for the next v4 beta so in the next beta the export will look like this:




> I promise I'll stop bugging you afterwards :)

:) It's not any problem at all in fact I really appreciate you sending them in so I can get them fixed in v4! If you run into any more please go ahead and send them. If it's more convenient you can e-mail them to me at moi@moi3d.com .

MoI itself does not happen to write out .3dm files with the thing that involves these bugs, that's why they've stayed hidden for quite a while.

Thanks, - Michael