I am now a proud owner of MoI v1 :-) and enjoy using the program in conjunction with Rhino...

Just a few things I miss not having are :-

1) Ability to check volume
2) Option to show surface isocurve density rather than set to zero (This helps determine which one to use for us)
3) When making a line can we have a tick box under repeat for both sides

...I look forward to the start of V2 beta's

TIA

Hi Paul, I've added these to the wiki wishlist (http://moi3d.com/wiki/Wishlist) to keep track of them.

I do believe that #1 and #3 should be easy to get in for v2. I'm not quite sure about #2 yet - can you describe a bit more about the "(This helps determine which one to use for us)" part please?

- Michael

Oh also one other thing to mention - one way to get a line on "both sides" right now is to drag out a construction line.

When you drag out a construction line, the "endpoints" of the construction line are available as snaps, so that lets you build the line like you want.

So for example say you have this line:



And you want to draw another one at the end from the midpoint, making a T shape.

To do that, start up the Line command, and move your mouse to the end, like this:



But instead of clicking the point there to place the start of the line, instead press down, and hold down and drag - that creates a construction line instead of placing the point. Drag the line downwards along the perpendicular, like this:



Release the mouse where you want the start of your "T" cross line to begin. Now that construction line will have an "end" snap right there where you can click for the start point of your line, and then one cool feature of construction lines is that it gives you that same distance between the cline start and end points reflected on to the other side, so you can go over here:



And find another "end" snap there to place your line in the straddling position that you wanted:



This is the main reason why MoI doesn't have all those line options like Rhino does - all of those things can generally be handled by using construction lines instead.

The cool part of this is that construction lines are available to any drawing command when you are placing a point, not just as special options just within a particular Line command.

However, I don't think it is bad to add a "Both sides" option to line anyway, I don't think it will be a problem to add that in for v2.

But once you get used to construction lines, I think you should find it pretty quick to make this kind of thing using them. There are also a lot of other options like capturing a direction or distance and applying it to a new location (kind of like a measuring stick) - setting up divisions like 1/3 of the way between 2 points, quickly getting the midpoint between 2 points, projecting a point to be equal height to something existing object, dragging z-lines to place points at a height above the plane in the 3D view, getting quick extension and intersection lines, .... see here for some details: http://moi3d.com/1.0/docs/moi_command_reference10.htm#constructionlines

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for that and the link to the MoiWiki !

Being able to see how complex a surface is (showing isocurves/isoparms) is a way of checking how successful it will be when adding many more fillets / blends down the linee...I have been quite pleased with some of the fillets from MoI but the only way I can check is when I paste them in Rhino, so that would help in some cases at least if there was an option to 'show isocurves' please.

All the best,

Hi Paul - I see. There is kind of a flip side to that though which is viewing surface smoothness.

I've found that often times kinks or small ripples in surfaces can occur right at those isocurve locations, and when isocurves are displaying it can tend to cover up those little glitches and make them harder to notice until later... With no isocurves being displayed you get a more unobstructed view of the surface itself, that can help when just eyeballing the fairness of the surface.

But yeah with isocurves displayed it does give you an indication of the control point density of the surface though, and overly concentrated density in one small spot is definitely a warning sign.

I'd like to get that in as an option, I'm just not quite sure of when that will happen yet.

- Michael

Hi Michael

Yes, I do plan to study these more carefully as I take your point.

In your example, it is possible to draw a line of length=100 by initiating the c.lines after starting line command then still keeping the mouse depressed coming down to (D)istance inputting 50 then clicking along perp c.lines....is there a better way apart using this facility?

Rgds,

Hi Paul, that one is a bit awkward.

For drawing a line of a particular length, it may be easier to not use construction lines and just draw the line starting at that point, type in "100" for the length (you can just type that directly without clicking, your keystrokes will go in to the x,y,z coordinate box but if you enter a single number in there it will get applied as the distance constraint).

Then grab the line at the midpoint and drag it over to reposition it. That's a bit less mouse gymnastics for that particular thing.

You don't have to use the "Move" command for the repositioning like you would in Rhino - just regular dragging will do it if object snaps are turned on. Grab the line near the midpoint and when you drag it you should see "Mid" highlighted on it until you snap it on to the End of the other one.


One thing that would make that cline maneuver a lot easier would be if you could enter the distance constraint before starting the cline and have it applied to it. This actually works for drawing regular lines (for example you can enter the constraint distance before picking any points and it will get applied when it is possible for it to have an effect), but it does not get picked up in this way for construction lines. I think it will not be difficult for me to patch this up for v2 though.

- Michael

>>One thing that would make that cline maneuver a lot easier would be if you could enter the distance constraint before starting the cline and have it applied to it. This actually works for drawing regular lines (for example you can enter the constraint distance before picking any points and it will get applied when it is possible for it to have an effect), but it does not get picked up in this way for construction lines. I think it will not be difficult for me to patch this up for v2 though.

Thanks for the advice and the above sounds just the job !

Rgds,