Ok - finally here are some notes on the new stuff that is in the Jul-3-2008 beta.
Probably the biggest thing is the new edit frame that shows up around selected objects, I think that all the details for that have been covered already here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1743.2
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1742.6
Another major area is drawing and snapping directly on to surfaces. This is made up a few related pieces.
First there is a new "On srf" object snap that lets you snap a point directly on to a spot on a surface that is under the mouse. In v1 it was only possible to snap on to edges and curves and not directly somewhere in the middle of a surface, but for v2 you can now do that.
On the Object Snap menu (it is a pop-up menu that will show up if you move your mouse over the Object Snap button in the bottom toolbar), there is a new "On surface" checkbox there to allow turning this kind of snapping off or on if it is getting in your way.
Another related area is surface normal snapping - this is an additional kind of straight snap similar to perpendicular or tangent straight snaps, except coming off of a surface.There is a new checkbox option for turning this off under Options / Snaps / Surface normal snapping. There is a demo of how this works here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1621.27
To avoid over-snapping, there will only be one surface normal straight snap line at a time. If your base point is snapped on to an area common to more than one surface (for example the corner of a box), you will only get a surface normal snap if just one of those surfaces is selected.
The last piece of on-surface drawing is surface snap plane alignment. This is when a surface gets used as a temporary construction plane for a drawing command, aligning the drawn object to the surface instead of to the default world x/y/z planes.
Snap plane alignment will only happen when you are picking points in the 3D view. Using your mouse in the 2D views like Top, Front, and Right will keep their alignment to their regular view plane.
Different commands can have slightly different intensities to which they align to surfaces. The draw commands that are symmetrical around a center point like Circle from center, Rectangle from center, Polygon center, Polygon Star, will align to a surface if just their center point is snapped on to any surface, including both planar and curved surfaces.
Most of the other commands such as line, polyline, rectangle, curve, etc... will only align their snap planes (which for example with polyline controls which direction straight snaps will go in) if you have both the base point and the current point snapped on to a planar (not curved) surface.
If the base point and the current point are snapped on to areas that are common to more than one planar face (for example, drawing a circle by center point, with the first point at the corner of a box and the second point at the midpoint of an edge below that, those points are common to 2 faces of the box), then the planar face that is pointing most towards the eye point direction will be used. So for example if you snap one point on to a corner of a box, rotate so that you are facing more towards the face of the box you want to draw on to control which face will be used.
There is a new setting in the moi.ini that can be used to disable surface snap plane alignment:
[Drawing Aids]
UseSurfaceSnapPlanes=y
So there are a bunch of subtleties about how snap plane alignment works but generally you should not need to worry too much about it, if you want to align to a surface just snap your points on to it in the 3D view and there you go.
Some other stuff:
Improvement for hidden point targeting - there is a new checkbox on the View palette for "Display hidden lines" that lets you turn the hidden line view on or off easily. When it is off the object snaps for points that are hidden will not be targeted anymore, in v1 those hidden points would remain as snap targets and could easily get in the way a lot more. Some description on this here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1621.35
Grid snap now can work in combination with object snap on lines or construction lines that are running the same direction as the grid. Previously in v1 object snap would always override grid snap if they were both turned on at the same time.
There is a new moi.ini setting you can turn on if you want to try only allowing "on" snap to selected objects only instead of all objects:
[Drawing Aids]
OnSnapOnlyToSelected=n
Improvements for targeting stacked up points and objects - now when you do an object snap on to a spot where there are many stacked up points (for example the corner of a box when viewed from the Top/Front/Right views), the topmost point towards the eye point will be taken. Similarly the topmost curve in a set of stacked up curves will be taken for selection or for "on" snap.
Int snap now works with distance constraint - if distance constraint is active there will be additional "int" snaps where a circle of that radius intersects nearby curves.
New relative point placement available on the first pick of a command. Now entering a relative point (example: r6,4) when there is no base point will define an offset distance for the current point. This allows placing the first point of a command (for example the center of a circle) at some offset distance from an existing point.
New "Delete input objects" option for the Mirror command.
New "Distance from edge" option in Move command allows moving a point to be at a specified distance away from a line, see here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1727.31
Also a variety of minor tweaks and bug fixes.
- Michael
