Hello MoI friends!

I have a question that I'm hoping someone may be able to help me with please?

I love the Dimensions functionality of MoI, however, I'm experiencing some UX issues when trying to save my work as an Adobe Illustrator file. I understand that the dimensions digits scale with the viewport when zooming in and out and I understand why this would be extremely useful when using within the MoI UI. This becomes a problem though when trying to save as an Illustrator file as the scale of the digits and arrows mess up and are too cumbersome to resolve in the ai file.

I'm wondering of there is a way of locking the scale of the dimensions at the point of saving (exporting) the file as an .ai to have better control of the appearance when loading into Illustrator? A toggle for this function would be even better if a little wishful!

Hi Tim,

re:
> This becomes a problem though when trying to save as an Illustrator file as the scale of the
> digits and arrows mess up and are too cumbersome to resolve in the ai file.

Can you post an example 3dm file that has the problem you describe when exported to Illustrator?
Or you can e-mail it to me at moi@moi3d.com if you want to keep it private.


re:
> A toggle for this function would be even better if a little wishful!

There is a toggle for that currently in MoI, it's the "Scaling" property which you can set to either:
Scaling: By screen size
or
Scaling: By model size

You can set the property on an existing dimension by selecting it and pushing the "Details..." button to bring up the detailed object properties dialog. Or you can set it to be the default for newly drawn dimensions by setting the preset values under Options > Dimensions.

The default is "Scaling: By screen size" which keeps the text the same size on screen and on a printed page regardless of the current zoom factor.

The other options is "Scaling: by model units" which makes text have a size in model units and it will shrink or grow on screen when you zoom in and out.

If you have a small number of annotations then scaling by screen size is usually easiest because you don't ever get really large or really tiny text depending on your zoom level.

But if you have a larger number of annotations and they are intermixed with being contained in other geometry like inside a table you've drawn in with lines then scaling by model units can be better because it makes the text behave the same as the geometry and scales up and down with it.



- Michael

Hey Michael,

Thank you very much for kindly taking the time to read my message. I knew there would be a simple solution! That's awesome Michael and I'm grateful that you preempted this feature request! ;)

Have a great afternoon!

Tim

Hi Michael,
A few more questions about Text in the Dimensions menu please.

Where is the documentation for Dimensions?

Dim>Text brings up Text options box, with Preset: Default.
Is there somewhere to define more Presets?

The desired Preset would define Font Size as 16,
Scaling: By Model Units,
Height: 0.25 units

The Open Sans font is nice.

Select a created Dim Text, and press Details shows the Object properties.
But entering a second Dim Text reverts to the default settings, as far as I know.
Would creating a new Preset cause the second Dim Text entry to match the first one?

Does the regular old Text command create more or less the same text as the Dim Text?

I could do a little more searching the MoI setups for the answers...
In the Moi ui folder:
I see DimPreset.js (But it is in MoI4 ui folder already...)
I see the AddPreset.htm and AddTheme.htm (Where is the AddPreset button?

I found the Property preset: add preset under Options > Dimensions...
Can the Font Size be set for MyTestPreset property ? Without disturbing UI Font setting? ???
(Looks like yes:-)
Works great!

Thank You

- Brian

Hi Brian, documentation for Dimensions is here:
https://moi3d.com/4.0/docs/moi_command_reference8.htm#Dim

Some info for how presets work is in there:

re:
> Would creating a new Preset cause the second Dim Text entry to match the first one?

Creating a new preset doesn't affect any already created dims, the presets control what properties to apply to a newly created dimension object.

re:
> Does the regular old Text command create more or less the same text as the Dim Text?

Well the old Text command under Draw Solid > Text creates text as curve, surface, or solid objects in Moi. You can then use that text in part of a model like use booleans to cut an object with the text.

The Dim > Text creates an annotation text object in MoI. It can't be used as model geometry like you can't boolean with it but it works better as a label.

- Michael

Thank you very much Michael.

I like the looks of the Dim Text as Label. (Annotation object)
I was thinking of creating an array of Plane rectangles, and setting the Style of each, sequentially, according to all of the current Styles, and placing the Style Name as a text Label to the side.
(The Dim Text size will match the size of the Style rectangle.)

I think that I have all of the code bits to do this. (More or less anyway.)

I am up to 72 Styles, which is perhaps a bit too much.
So I need to delete some that are too Yellow, or too similar to others in color.
Maybe I should arrange them according to the main color hues: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Brown, Black, Grey, and White?

- Brian

Hi Michael,

for me it makes no sense to save a dimension-preset in a project file. It is possible to save it as a global preset, so that it is always available without having to open a specific file. It would also be nice if you could simply copy and paste the properties.
Maybe it would be possible to create a template file that contains the presets and is available in each file?

So far it's a bit awkward and rigid.

Hi pixelhouse, yes you can do that with a template file.

Save a .3dm file with the property presets how you want them and then set that .3dm file as the startup template file under Options > General > "Template file".

Then the dimension presets from that file will be there when you start up MoI or do a File > New.

- Michael

Thank you Michael,

thats sounds good! I never have try to work with a startup file.

Jörg