Been playing around with moi on a cintiq and it is really refreshing.
One thing i miss in moi is inferencing. It will be great to be able to infer point placement, lengths and geometric features(midpoints etc.) from existing shapes as well; rather than resorting to value input dialog or drawing consttuction lines everytime.
Moi feels awesome though. Great to conceptualize a model without touching a keyboard

Hi skello, could you please give an example, like a small drawing with an annotation showing where you would expect for it to kick in?

I've actually tried to avoid too many automatic snaps kicking in that span across the whole workspace, because it can tend to lock up much of the drawing area into snap zones, preventing more freeform point placement for curve drawing for example.

That's why MoI is set up to make those things happen only when you choose by dragging out a construction line instead of popping them up without any intentional triggering action.

But maybe I am not quite understanding the type of thing that you want.

- Michael

Hi Michael,
Here is a demo video link showing a cool implementation/workflow using inferencing. It seems to kick in when you hover over the component or hint you want to infer from.
http://sketchup.google.com/gsu5vtviewer.html#id=12

-isaac

Hi isaac - in MoI you can do the same kind of thing, move your mouse over to the same location, then click down and drag out a construction line.

The advantage to this is that the inference only kicks in when you make this definite gesture to activate it.

Just moving over top of something with no other gesture tends to cause a lot of "false activations", where inferences start popping up because you just happened to hold the mouse still for a moment somewhere while you were thinking or whatever, instead of actually intending to activate the inference.


There are also other advantages to MoI's construction line system - those kind of inference type systems radiate directions out from a single point. MoI's construction line lets you give 2 points, a base point and a release point - this gives other abilities like mirroring points or getting the midpoint between any 2 points all with the same mechanism, which the single-point inference is not able to do...


Are you finding it difficult to create construction lines in MoI? I mean you don't have to hold down special keys or click a button to activate them, you do one click and drag motion with your mouse and it should make one.

- Michael

Hi, Michael,
I have tried using moi's construction lines. They just don't seem to work well for some tasks. especially in the 3d view (which is the view i like to ideally work in 80% of the time).
I can't seem to draw say a rectangle that is 24 inches tall exclusively in perspective view as easily as i can in application X using its inferencing mechanism. I'll make a quick video this weekend showing what i mean. It is difficult to explain without images.
However i may be missing something or not using the construction lines in moi properly. I have never been able to draw constuction lines freely in 3d view; they always seem to be constrained to the xy plane no matter how much i tumble the view before drawing.

-isaac

ps. Maybe try drawing a similar shape as seen in the begining of this ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=rDvwHon6-zY&feature=user ) video using moi's construction lines in a similar 3D view orientation. I tried this and it took me quite a few more steps to do.
Also in the previous exercise i failed to specify drawing the rectangle without making use of any other tool but lines and or polylines in association with construction lines.. (extruding is prohibited hehe! ... it defeats the purpose of the discussion )

I think my main problem is drawing more complicated shapes in 3d view

cheers
-isaac

It's just the fact that you have not enough training of the "helpers lines" in Moi ;)
You can use them inside any graphic command and even between Click of this command ;)
Just training is necessary, after you can make any positions from one to another point with anything ;)

Hi issac,

> ps. Maybe try drawing a similar shape as seen in the begining of
> this ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=rDvwHon6-zY&feature=user )
> video using moi's construction lines in a similar 3D view orientation.
> I tried this and it took me quite a few more steps to do.

Is this the thing that you're talking about near the beginning of that video:



It's really pretty straight-forward to do that same thing in MoI - every spot in there where the tutorial hovers over a spot to activate the inference in MoI you would instead click down and drag to activate it instead. But I mean you move the mouse over the exact same areas of the screen, it is very similar...

Maybe your problem is you have Straight Snap turned off in the bottom toolbar? To pull out construction lines aligned with an axis direction you're going to want to have Straight Snap enabled, you should click it in the bottom toolbar to make sure it is highlighted in orange.

Here's a screen recording showing how to do the same thing in MoI - I've tried to use the same 3D orientation, etc... The first click sets the base point of the line, then to get the "inference point" you move your mouse up there, click down and hold down and drag away from it, creating that construction line. Then there is an snap available at the spot you want:



Are you doing something a lot different than this to end up with many more steps?

- Michael

Hi isaac,

I'm not sure if maybe you have some snap settings turned off which may be preventing you from getting the things you want?

For some of the stuff you'll want Straight Snap enabled in the bottom toolbar, and if you want to be able to track in z make sure that you have not turned off Options / Snaps / Straight snap options / Vertical snapping.


> I can't seem to draw say a rectangle that is 24 inches tall
> exclusively in perspective view as easily as i can in application
> X using its inferencing mechanism.

In MoI you wouldn't normally use construction lines to do this - instead the rectangle tool has built into it "Width" and "Height" options that let you enter specific values there.

I mean it should be very straight-forward to get a rectangle 24 units tall - you just enter 24 for the Height option (command options show up in the upper-right corner of the screen) and that's pretty much it. If you want one coming vertically up off the plane in z, then use the "3 pts" variety of Rect which lets you orient the rectangle more freely, then use straight snap in z for the 3rd point.

Here's a quick demo:



Is that the kind of thing that you are asking about?

If not, I think I will need some images or something more to understand what you're trying to do that is not working well.

- Michael

Hi isaac,

Is it possible that you're using you're using the Polyline command to try and draw your rectangle?

I don't think that SketchUp has a "3 pt" style rectangle tool in it, so maybe you are used to drawing lines manually for a vertical rectangle like that?

You can use a polyline for that in MoI too (I can show you a clip for that if you want), but MoI has a kind of wider variety of drawing tools that can be useful in different situations - try the "3 pts" variant of rectangle to draw a rectangle at a more free placement than only on the x/y plane. There is also a "square" snap available in that tool to make it easy to create a square in a more free orientation as well, you can see that kicking in near the top in my last screencap.

- Michael

Hi, michael,
Sorry for the typo. i meant to say a rectangular "box" 24 inches tall.
Drawing the rectangular box with lines alone in 3d view was just to try and illustrate a point. Seems it was a bad example.
I'll check to see if i have any of my setiings wrong. If i do then i'll just have to use construction lines much more to get comfortable with it as Pilou mentioned. Otherwise i'll make a video to point out why i suggested inferencing as a feature.

Yes i was drawing the rectangle box with just the poly line tool in the 3d view. ( note that this is just to illustrate a point. ultimately to illuminate my reason for sugesting inferencing... i have no problem at all modeling any shape i want in moi).

I conceptualize a lot in 3d view only and almost always love to draw my lines/curves/shapes/solids manually in that view if i can help it.

Thanks
-isaac

Hi isaac, well definitely it saves a lot of steps using the Box command to make a Box rather than manual line drawing... There is also a "3pt" variant of that similar to the 3pt rectangle (for more free orientation), and you also can easily enter any value for width, height, or extrusion - those options will show up in the upper-right corner of the window. Just type in "24" where you want a width, height, or extrusion of 24 units and you'll have it.

But you can still do what you are describing with just the polyline tool in MoI plus construction lines, here is a demonstration of that:




Here is a walkthrough:

I placed the first 2 polyline points just at arbitrary locations on the x/y plane to make one edge of the box.

Now for the 3rd point, you can see that moving along the z-axis will let you snap in that direction - this is not exactly a construction line yet - this is "Straight Snap", if you don't see this part it means you probably have Straight Snap turned off in the bottom toolbar, it must be turned on (highlighted in orange) to get this kind of axis snapping from the base point when drawing lines.

Now you wanted that 3rd point to be 24 units above the plane, so for that you can use distance constraint - type "24" and hit enter (or click on the "d" text box in the bottom toolbar to use the little pop-up panel with the mouse), now the distance from the previous point is locked to 24 units. Now click to place the point 24 units up in z.

For the 4th point, you want it to be an "inference" above the initial one, for this one you will need to create a construction line. Basically any time you would want an "inference", that is when you will create a cline. To do this, move your mouse to that original point and click and drag and use straight snap in z to make a z construction line, snap perp to it, and then close the polyline.


So to make the vertical rectangle, just type in 24<enter> when you want a height of 24, and just drag out a cline where you want the inference, and that's it...


Then if you want to continue drawing the box, each spot where you want an inference, drag out a construction line, here I did 3 perpendicular ones to make a kind of scaffolding along each inference point that you would want, to set them all up for drawing it.


Just every place where you would want to make an "inference", drag out a construction line there and you should be able to get the exact same behavior...

Does none of this seem to work for you? I mean there is a lot of stuff in there for drawing in the 3D view, snapping in Z, etc... just like you are asking about.


I would recommend zooming in a bit so the screen is larger than in my screencap here, I have done the drawing here in a kind of small area on the screen to make the video a smaller download size.


Also again just to be clear, I would also recommend using Box 3pt to do this with far less messing around for this particular shape, this is just to show you how to do the same thing by direct drawing in the 3D view using clines.

- Michael

Hi isaac, I've been experimenting some with SketchUp, I can't really seem to follow the same steps that I showed above. I can draw the first vertical rectangle (note that it is at an arbitrary angle and not aligned to the base x/y plane), but I can't seem to activate an inference that tracks perpendicular away from an existing vertex to start drawing the second rectangle... (I can get it if a draw an actual line going perpendicular, but not just trying to track away from it to start the next drawing away from it).

I think that is generally a problem with that kind of "automatic" hovering based inferencing, it can need to be rather conservative about how many things it snaps on to because it is just too easy to automatically fill the screen with inferenced snap lines.

The nice thing about MoI's method to do this, is that I know for sure when you want to activate the "inference", so I don't have to hold anything back at that point, I can give all the same snaps that you would have for drawing a real line at that time, instead of only just some subset of them...

I don't think that there is anything you can do with inferences that you can't do with construction lines, if you're still having problems with getting a particular thing, please let me know.

On the other hand, there are a lot of things you can do with construction lines that inferences can't do, like quickly get the midpoint between 2 points, do a perpendicular extension at an arbitrary spot on a curve instead of only at an endpoint, rotate the construction line by a particular angle, mirror points around a axis, get a point 1/3 of the way between 2 existing points without having a line already there, capture a distance and re-apply it from a different base point, capture a tangent/tangent line between 2 circles, .... and more... I mean it is actually a lot lot more feature rich for doing the kind of dynamic 3D drawing that you are asking about.

It may take some practice to gain a comfort level to access all of these functions, but they are all in there... There are a bunch of examples in the documentation here: http://moi3d.com/1.0/docs/moi_command_reference10.htm#constructionlines

- Michael

Hello Michael,
I know it saves a lot of steps using the box command etc.. app x also has all those tools including construction lines... That is not the point i'm trying to make.
I was just using that as a drawing example to show where inferencing has its strengths. There are a lot more complicated shapes that i like to draw in 3d view without having to draw constuction lines first. Imagine drawing a full house in 3d view without using a single construction line...
i made a similar vido with inferencing(attached)
Starts off just like you did but then all the steps after entering the height were inferencing perpendicular/parallel or lengths by hovering over existing lines no grid snap only point snap and inferencing

Sorry i posted my last message before i saw you most recent reply.. You can infer to draw a line perpendicular to another in sketchup by hovering for a moment over the existing line. if you are just experimenting with sketchup it is not that obvious at first. Its cool of you to go out of your way to experiment with it though. Don't let me bug you with fancy feaures ... i'd rather settle for the layer system you are working on so ignore this request.

Cheers!

Hi isaac,

> app x also has all those tools including construction lines...

Are you talking about SketchUp or something else?

SketchUp has something that it calls construction lines - they are not exactly the same thing as MoI's construction lines - as far as I can tell you can't create one while in the middle of drawing something, it is a special dedicated command/mode to do it which switches off drawing mode. Also you can only create one along an existing line direction, not between any 2 points. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

Is just the term "construction line" bothering you?

In MoI a construction line is what you use for inferences - maybe it would help if you just considered everywhere you see the term "Construction line" in MoI to mean "inference" instead?


> Imagine drawing a full house in 3d view without using a single construction line...

That's like saying that you want to draw a full house without doing using any inferences.

The construction lines in MoI are what you use for inferences.

You just use one additional gesture to activate it - you move your mouse to the inference location just like you would in SketchUp, the only difference is to activate it you additionally click down and drag away - that's it.

It lets you do all the same things as inferences - just think of them as "gesture activated" inferences...


I have not checked out your vid yet, I will take a look now.

- Michael

Hi isaac,

> Sorry i posted my last message before i saw you most recent
> reply.. You can infer to draw a line perpendicular to another in
> sketchup by hovering for a moment over the existing line.

Yeah, I have seen that part, it is kind of awkward but possible.

However, that is not what I was talking about, I was talking about drawing a line, with the start point of the line tracked away perpendicular from an existing point. Just the start point, not the whole line perpendicular.

Here is an example:




This is one part of the steps I happened to use above when showing how to do the polyline drawing of the box in the 3D view in MoI. When I tried to repeat the same sequence in SketchUp with inferences, I was unable to draw this line while staying inside the line drawing tool only.

- Michael

Hi isaac, I checked out your vid.

> Starts off just like you did but then all the steps after
> entering the height were inferencing perpendicular/parallel
> or lengths by hovering over existing lines no grid snap only
> point snap and inferencing

I guess I'm not quite understanding, this is the same result (wireframe anyway) as I showed previously right? (shown here).

You do it in SketchUp by using point snap and inferencing.

You do it in MoI by using point snap and construction lines.

If the result is the same, I just don't really follow what the problem is - use the construction lines in MoI to get that result and you will have what you want, right?

You can use construction lines in MoI to do all that kind of stuff that inferences lets you do in SketchUp.


Also, following your video there is one line segment that is shooting out too far, there doesn't seem to be a way to get that one aligned to the intersection from 2 from-edge perpendiculars in SketchUp. If you notice in the screencap I showed above doing it in MoI, every single point was precisely snapped into place without any overshoot anywhere...


Do you need me to go more step-by-step to show how to use the Clines to do the kind of stuff you want to do?

- Michael

Hi. Michael,
Yes i am refering to sketchup . you are right they are not called construction lines it is a tape measure tool but can be used in a similar manner.
Yes i agree 100% moi has a better construction line tool and it does a lot more than sketchup's can, but you sure can create one between any two points/shapes/curves etc.
What bothers me is having to clutter my view with lines other than what i'm working on(if i can help it) its just a personal preference and i also feel it saves a few more steps.

I must admit i had the straight snap toggle of a couple of times Thanks for pointing that out. I'll get used to it one wy or the other

The line that was overshot in my video is easily avoidable i was just a tad sloppy. I could have infered it better but i did not want to restart the recording. lazy me!

Ha!
I should not have made the statement about the house. It is possible to do without infrencing and without it i'd have to use the tape measure tool which also creates the clutter i want to avoid in the first place.

Please do ignore the request though...really. i will get used to moi's method.

Michael,

I really like your animated examples to explain various topics and features.

Maybe over time they will migrate to the online manual?

Ed