Hi isaac,
> but you sure can create one between any two points/shapes/curves etc.
I see - it works in combination with the Ctrl key somehow for that, like you have to push and release Ctrl to switch to construction line point-to-point mode? Something like that anyway, I got it to do it a few times but it is a bit weird.
> 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.
Yeah, I definitely agree that clutter is bad - that's why MoI's construction lines by default disappear after you finish the current command.
You could create 50 of them to help draw the one line you are working on, and when you finish drawing the line your workspace will be completely clear again and clutter free...
Does that not solve the clutter problem for you?
> i also feel it saves a few more steps.
Once you practice it a bit, you can do the additional "click down, drag, and release" gesture really pretty quickly, it becomes basically one motion.
You don't have to click on a special toolbar button, or hit a keyboard key to activate it, and you don't have to exit the drawing tool.
The benefits to having it stay out of your way are pretty big, especially when you are trying to draw curved things and don't want a whole bunch of snaps locking up the workspace.
> its just a personal preference
Certainly I can understand this part. It's unfortunately quite difficult for me to make MoI work exactly along every individual's personal preference. I try to add in options for things where possible, but construction lines are a major mechanism in MoI - it is not easy to just implement an option to turn them off and use hovering instead, that is a major change in how the UI works, not just a variable that is easy to change in an option one way 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!
I was following your steps, and I can't see how to make that one happen in SketchUp - it would require getting 2 perpendicular inference lines going at the same time and finding their intersection, like for example this in MoI:
The SketchUp inference seems to only be able to track along one perpendicular at a time and not 2 together to find the intersection... At least I can't seem to figure it out!
Anyway, I don't mean to attack you or anything, I just want to make sure you know about the stuff that is already in MoI to get this kind of precision alignment and snapping type points. It will let you get the results that you are looking for, it just may take some practice to get used to since it activates slightly differently.
The construction line stuff in MoI is kind of hidden away a bit (part of the problem of making something that tries to stay out of your way) so a lot of people don't discover it at first.
- Michael
