When I import the attached STEP file "level 2" has the color black bit the objects that are assigned to level 2 are not colored - they are the default grey. When I try to change the color or create a new style for these elements they remain grey. Any ideas? V4. Thanks.

Andy

Hi Andy, a style of pure black (rgb 0,0,0) is displayed in MOI as black wires but white for the shaded surface.

This is because pure black doesn't really shade very well with a matte display without specular highlights.

If you want a black shaded color to come through, assign something like r,g,b 1,1,1 to it instead of 0,0,0.

- Michael

re:

> When I try to change the color or create a new style for these elements they remain grey.

If you edit the color of Level 2 to have red = 1 instead of red = 0, you should then get black there instead of grey.

You can Ctrl+click on the color swatch in the scene browser as a shortcut to get to the color picker.

- Michael

Hi Andy,

Strangely, my import of your STEP file has the Black-ish color as Level 3, not Level 2.
Does your file use Levels 1 through 13?

For a long time, I have had a black-ish color that I call NearBlack, with RGB of (1,1,1) as per Michael's suggestion.

-Brian

Thanks. Set to it 1,1,1 and it now works, but why is that needed?

Brian - Level 3 is also a near-black. What color do you see for level 2?

Another question - not related to the original but is related to the same file.

"Level 4" is the PCB. When I export as FBX and import into Davinci Resolve this has now become "level 2". Is that a bug in Moi3D changing the name on the export? If not then it must be a bug in Davinci Resolve changing the name on import.

Thanks, Andy

Hi Andy,

re:
> Thanks. Set to it 1,1,1 and it now works, but why is that needed?

It's because MoI displays a color of 0,0,0 as black for wires, but white for shaded surfaces.

The reason it does that is because if it didn't do that then the default style would display a sphere like this:


- MIchael

Hi Andy,

re:
> "Level 4" is the PCB. When I export as FBX and import into Davinci Resolve
> this has now become "level 2".
>
> Is that a bug in Moi3D changing the name on the export? If not then it must be a bug in Davinci
> Resolve changing the name on import.

I'm not able to reproduce any change in the names exporting the PCB object to .fbx and importing into Blender.

Can you please attach the .fbx file so I can take a look at your result?

Thanks,
- Michael

Attached.

Hi Andy, thanks.

So with MoI v4 if I use File > Open on your COIA-CORE.step file, then I'm seeing the PCB assigned to Level 2, not Level 4.

Here's what it looks like over here:



If I select the green PCB part, it shows it has a style named "Level 2":



When I import your file V1.fbx , the PCB part also shows it has been assigned a material of "Level 2", matching the style assignments in MoI:



If you are getting different results than this then are you possibly importing your step file into a model that already has styles in it with those same names? Try using File > Open to bring the file into MoI instead of File > Import.

- Michael

So far I am getting 6+ permutations of Level # color (styles), just with File Open, of the COIA-CORE.step file.
Always 13 of them.

In Explorer, with MoI closed, or open, doing file open of COIA-CORE.step gives at least a couple of permutations.

With MoI open, doing file open of COIA-CORE gives a few more permutations.

I have seen the green style as Level 2, 3, 4, and 5.

- Brian

ps, I do have a very pale blue/white style called Level 1, which was adopted several months ago. (From a Fusion import I recollect.)

Hi Brian, I guess the ordering of the styles may vary with the multithreaded loading.

Does it become steady if you set [Settings] FileLoaderThreadLimit=1 in moi.ini ?

I should be able to improve that by sorting objects into their original order within the file after the multithreaded processing is finished. That's being done currently for 3DM files but not for STEP/IGES/SAT files.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Success!!!

Setting the FileLoadThreadLimit=1 in moi.ini was successful in stabilizing the Styles (colors) from Andy's file COIA-CORE.step, when Opening the step file.
Opened Load Styles were consistently the same, for multiple trials...

It also seems to stabilize the Styles (colors) when doing step file Import. (On the first try, it seemed off, and doing a second file Import added the stabilized version below the first import...)
But additional trials of Import of step, after closing and re-opening MoI were the stable colors. (Unless there is some caching going on???) Additionally, doing a second Open of the Step did NOT add any additional Level Styles.

(My previous setting was ...Limit= (followed by nothing, no number).



I assume that the above Styles (Level #'s styles) are the "correct" Step colors???

Thank you Andy.

- Brian

ps The nearBlack rgb of 1,1,1 is still needed for Level 1

>> You can Ctrl+click on the color swatch in the scene browser as a shortcut to get to the color picker.

I wasn't aware of that. It's really useful for me. Thanks Michael.
I'm just asking out of curiosity, Can we see the color changes instantly without needing to push the "ok" button?
Something like a preview for object color.
That'll save me a lot of trial and error.

Thanks again

Thanks for the replies. Looks like Moi3D export is OK with the style names. Andy

Hi MO,

re:
> I'm just asking out of curiosity, Can we see the color changes instantly without needing to push the "ok" button?
> Something like a preview for object color.

Sorry no I don't think there is any method for this in the cross platform interface to the color pickers.

- Michael

When I load the FBX file into Davinci Resolve it separates out the objects/meshes (there is 20 or 30 of them) and they have names like "COMPOUND" and "SOLID". Davinci Resolve does not like multiple meshes having the same name and it is causing a bunch of issues in that application.

Looking at the Mod3D UI I see "COMPOUND" and "SOLID" but they are only listed once, not multiple times.

How can I separate all of these out and give them unique names?

Thanks, Andy

If I import the same STEP file into Alibre Design all the parts have names, such as HVSON8, which is correct. Andy

Hi Andy,

re:
> How can I separate all of these out and give them unique names?

Do Ctrl+A to select everything, then click on the name line in the properties panel in the upper right which will say "(varies)", press OK on the "Edit object name" dialog without putting in any name there and the name property will be removed from everything. Then when you export that to fbx unique names will be automatically generated.

You also might try a setting in moi.ini :

[NURBS Import]
UseHierarchicalNames=y


That will change the way names are processed in the import into MOI.


- Michael

Thanks for your reply Michael.