Thanks Michael, good explanations.

One thing that can be tricky is if the scaling rail doesn't go past the profiles, then you can get a sharp kink. Just wanted to mention that.

Oh.
- wasn't there a way to capture the viewport image? (I'm using my fathers old pc here and it doesn't have any photoshop or anything, so printscreen won't do.)

-Fredrik

Hi Fredrik - right the scaling rails are expected to run the entire length of the sweep, and it doesn't hurt any to actually extend them a little further past the ends even just to make sure they cover the full area.

If an area is not covered by the scaling rail it will basically revert to "regular sweep" in those areas which is kind of a very sudden shift in shape which isn't good.


> - wasn't there a way to capture the viewport image?

It is possible to set up a script to do it, but actually probably your father's old machine still has the creaky old Windows paintbrush which will do the job for pasting and saving a jpeg file. Try Start/Run and then type "pbrush", and try not to laugh.

Please let me know if that is not working and I can cook up a MoI script for you for doing it.

- Michael

Hi Michael

Scaling rail is neat, I haven't seen this before in other CAD software.

Yes, the good ol' machine has paintbrush:)

Whish:
view capture (since its effective for communication of ideas, it ought to be always fast to do)

Ok, when you go to File>Export, there you could have PNG file option that saves the current Viewport as a PNG.
It wouldnt lead to any more buttons or anything.

-Fredrik

Hi Fredrik,

> Scaling rail is neat, I haven't seen this before in other CAD software.

Thanks! :) Yes, as far as I know MoI is the only one that has it.


re: view capture by File / Export - that's definitely a good idea, I have added it to the wishlist. A few questions kind of pop up for it though, like for example Export is actually short for "Export selected", which lets you write out only the selected objects to a geometry-based file. But I guess for saving to an image it would not do just selected objects... that would sort of be mixing the meanings up a bit, but maybe that is not a big deal.


In the meantime, here is a script that you can use to save a screenshot out to an image file by using a shortcut key, without needing to run any other program. To set it up go to Options / Shortcut keys, add in a new entry with whatever key you want to trigger it, and add this in as the Command part:

script:var img = moi.view.screenshot( 'viewpanel', false ); var name = img.getSaveFileName(); if ( name != '' ) img.save( name );

- Michael

>Thanks! :) Yes, as far as I know MoI is the only one that has it.

There are couple of small (and big) things in MoI which you dont't find anywhere else. That's a good achivement, its not just different; its different and useful, :)
I'm using moi right now to sketch out some ideas about a bicycle seat, and since it's portable i can do it at my dad's pc.

>re: view capture by File / Export - that's definitely a good idea, I have added it to the wishlist. A few questions kind of pop up for it though, like for example Export is actually short for "Export selected", which >lets you write out only the selected objects to a geometry-based file. But I guess for saving to an image it would not do just selected objects... that would sort of be mixing the meanings up a bit, but maybe >that is not a big deal.

True indeed
You could concider to have a new button in the View Tab too, it would be the most "logical" place I guess. There is just space for one more button there, but you might have reserved this space for something else? ...If you did use a whole new button for Screen Capture though, you might concider to have other associated things like "Print to scale" in its window., (hehe another whish there..)

>In the meantime, here is a script that you can use to save a screenshot out to an image file by using a shortcut key, without needing to run any other program. To set it up go to Options / Shortcut keys, add >in a new entry with whatever key you want to trigger it, and add this in as the Command part:

wow! that's perfect :)

-Good summer!