i think a great feature would be a Z axis view. ie: from the front view you could rotate only in the Z axis with RMB this way you could stay in ortho looking at ZX but you wouldn't be limited to only looking at 90 deg. increments of your model (front, back, left, right); maybe a degree indicator in place of the viewport title, with 0 deg. being front 180 being back etc. With RMB you could rotate the view and see the title update with snaps every 90 deg. Could also be done in top view with Y axis . Image the freedom and accuracy this could add to modeling. you may never have to switch in and out of perspective again. Could be a revolutionary concept in 3D modeling think about it.

What do you think?

Hi xrok1 - I think from what you're describing that would be similar to using the 3D view, but flipping the drawing plane of the 3D view upwards so that it is oriented vertically like the drawing plane of the Front view, is that correct?

I do want to enable more options to relocate and flip the construction planes around for V2, so it should be possible to set something up along these lines at that point.

- Michael

yes it would be similiar to 3D view only ortho and constrained to a vertical axis. actually a comprimise could be to stay in the current view when 3D view icon is selected; ie if you are in front view and you click 3D view icon the screen wouldn't change but you would be free to RMB rotate and the arrow keys could be used to constrain rotation either left/right or up/down. or instead of clicking 3D icon just link the RMB to break out of front/top... view automatically.

I would like to eventually add the ability to switch the 3D view betwen perspective and ortho projections, right now it is fixed to be perspective.

At that point, it sounds like the 3D view would do what you want, except for being constrained to only rotate around the vertical axis.

What benefits do you see for restricting the rotation instead of allowing for free rotates?

You can set up the arrow keys to rotate in a particular direction now if you like, use these shortcut keys:

Key	Command
LeftArrow	script:moi.ui.mainWindow.viewpanel.getViewport('3D').rotate( 'left', 6.0 );
RightArrow	script:moi.ui.mainWindow.viewpanel.getViewport('3D').rotate( 'right', 6.0 );
UpArrow	script:moi.ui.mainWindow.viewpanel.getViewport('3D').rotate( 'up', 6.0 );
DownArrow	script:moi.ui.mainWindow.viewpanel.getViewport('3D').rotate( 'down', 6.0 );

- Michael

thanks for the scripts, works really good, but i changed the increments to 1deg.

to answer your question: i'm thinking of things like an etruded pentagon drawn from the top, now you want to go to front view to project a sphere onto the face ,now you want to project a shape onto each of the other 4 side faces. if you could just rotate the front view left or right to align it to the other faces it would be easy to project to them; now i know there are ways to do this but i don't think they are simpler.

actually a view/align to selection would do just as well, maybe better!

something occured to me as i typed this out; it seems to be more complicated as i think about it because it seems right now that there are only 2 planes in MOI so i guess this would also involve having surface planes too or it would'nt be as useful as i imagine ;-(

With the Array command something who randomize the orientation of each objects during the process
Especially for the circular array or curve array :)
For simulate some organic forms

Hi Pilou, it would be possible to do this as a variant on the ScaleArray script. But it will be a bit before I'll be able to focus on that.

- Michael

Cool :)

Maybe it could be useful to save a selection.
A button to store it and another to recall it.

Just an idea! :)

Marc

maybe a third column in the Options/Shortcuts for a little text description?
because after more 20 it's some difficult to remember what makes what :)

how about a key stroke like shift to lock snapping like in sketchup when your snapping to say Zaxis you hold down shift and the snap can't break and jump to something else?

Hi xrok1 - one way you can do this now is to drag out a construction line along that direction, then click and hold on the little arrow that pops up, and choose "Project next point" on that menu. That will lock down the next point to be projected on to that direction.

Check out the construction line section in the docs here: http://moi3d.com/beta/moi_command_reference2.zip for more information.

I might be able to add a keyboard method for that in the future, but that one will have to wait for a bit.

- Michael

Hi Pilou,

> because after more 20 it's some difficult to remember what makes what :)

For keyboard shorctus that have script code in them, you can put a comment in the code with a note in it. You would put in in surrounded by /* */ , just after the script: part.

For example, if you have a shortcut that has this code in it to remove the last construction line:

script:var gd = moi.geometryDatabase; var clines = gd.getObjects().getConstructionLines(); if ( clines.length > 0 ) gd.removeObject( clines.item(clines.length-1) );

You can modify it to put a comment in it like this:

script:/*Remove the last construction line*/ var gd = moi.geometryDatabase; var clines = gd.getObjects().getConstructionLines(); if ( clines.length > 0 ) gd.removeObject( clines.item(clines.length-1) );

That way you will see your comment when you browse through your shortcut keys under Options.

- Michael

Hi Marc,

> Maybe it could be useful to save a selection.
> A button to store it and another to recall it.

This is one of the types of things that I hope to enable in version 2 along with a kind of object browser / grouping type mechanism.

- Michael

ok! Thx very useful!
does exist a limit of the number of caractere? (text + script itself)

Hi Pilou, there is no special limit on number of characters, but if you put in like 10,000 characters you may reach some limit of what can be stored in an .ini file.

- Michael

Hi Michael,
I have one request.
It could be possible to have an automatic blueprint function? It will be very usefull.
Thanks a lot for your very great stuff !

Hi Nikolas, you mean generating a 2D drawing from your 3D model, with silhouette curves, etc? This is definitely something that I do want to add in a future version. I'm not sure exactly when it will be available though.

- Michael