Hi Anis,

> Michael, is it difficult to add a "double line" tool that will
> very helpful when creating a wall ?

It is quite a bit of work to do one that does the full "wall stuff", like integrating pieces with existing walls when you draw new pieces, etc ...

I have added it to the wishlist though (http://moi3d.com/wiki/Wishlist).

In the meantime probably the best method would be to draw a polyline for your pieces, and then use Offset to create the "thick lines".

For example if you have an outline like this:



Select it and then run Construct / Offset to create an inner piece a constant distance away from the original:



That combination of Polyline + Offset can give you much of the same type of thing as a double-line tool would.

- Michael

Hi Burr, Hi Anis - the nice thing about using Offset for creating your doubled lines is that it is more general and can be used with any kind of curve that you have drawn, not just single line segments.

Here is another example where the base curve contains a freeform curve segment and an arc:



To create a double-line out of this, select the pieces (they just need to touch, you don't have to join them first Offset will join them automatically for you), then run Construct / Offset.

There are 2 modes for Offset - "Through point" where you pick a point and the offset is calculated at a distance that passes through that point, or "by distance" where you specify a particular distance and then pick which side of the original curve to offset to.

For doing different pieces you'll probably want to use the "by distance" method so it is easy to have a consistent distance when working on different parts separately. You can either switch the mode for this manually, or just type in a distance value which will switch the mode automatically as well.

So for instance in this case after running the Offset command, I typed in 3 <enter> to set the offset distance to 3, then clicked once on the inside of the shape, to produce this double-line result with just one shot of the Offset command:



It's the primary tool to use if you want to get double-lined type results.


It is possible to go to a 3D solid shape before this and use Shell like you were talking about earlier Burr, but it can often be a pretty good idea to do as much work in 2D as you can first before punching things out to 3D. There are just less pieces involved while you are working in 2D and that generally makes it easier to trim things, etc...

- Michael

Hi Michael....

>> It is quite a bit of work to do one that does the full "wall stuff", like integrating pieces with existing walls when you draw new pieces, etc ...
It will be cool to have a architecture tools inside Moi in the feature, at least some basic tools like 2 lines / double line.

I know, we can use polyline & offset. The only problem is below :

Hi Anis - I would like to add an option in for Offset to add "caps" at the ends between the offset and the original, I think that would solve the problem you are showing there where you need to draw lines to connect the pieces when offsetting a curve that is not closed?

But actually if you want to clean up those corners, you don't really need to draw in those extra lines at all, just leave it like this:



Then select all the pieces (with no extra line drawn in):



Run Edit/Trim. At the prompt which says "Select cutting objects or Done for mutual trim", just right-click or push the Done button - this signals that you will be using all the pieces to cut each other.

Then at the "Select pieces to remove" prompt, select these bits:



And right-click or push Done to remove those and clean up that intersection:




If you are just going to trim away those areas, there is no need to draw an extra line there to connect the open offset pieces.

- Michael

Hi Anis,

> It will be cool to have a architecture tools inside Moi in the feature,
> at least some basic tools like 2 lines / double line.

The thing that isn't so good is that a specialized double-line tool would not be able to do curved type outlines like I showed previously.

It seems like things could end up being more powerful and more generalized if instead I focused on making Offset handle more stuff within it, like capping and maybe automatic corner cleanup type stuff...

That would then let you more easily process any kind of curves in this way instead of only straight lines.

- Michael

Thanks Michael,
Doing all the stuff in 2d is the better process.

Thanks,
Burr

"It seems like things could end up being more powerful and more generalized if instead I focused on making Offset handle more stuff within it, like capping and maybe automatic corner cleanup type stuff...

That would then let you more easily process any kind of curves in this way instead of only straight lines."


I think that's a great idea, Michael!

I would love to see offset beefed up in that fashion.

-Will

Hi Aris,

>>I have look at Steve/Manz 3D Villa and looks very cool.

Thanks,

If you have any specific question (such as, how was a certain part made in MoI), then ask away, or, if you need help with a certain part, them post a pic or drawing so I or others can help show the various ways to build.


- Steve

Hi Steve...

First, would you like to give me a tips how you create wall of your villa ?

Thanks !!!

Hi All....

I just got info about this good architecture tutorials : http://en.wiki.mcneel.com/default.aspx/McNeel/GeometriaInformaticaArquitectonica.html. I dont know yet exactly the content of tutorials, I am try to reading it now ( I dont understand spain language ). Just follow the pictures.

Hope this help...

Hi Anis,

>>First, would you like to give me a tips how you create wall of your villa ?

The main walls? Just as being shown on thread, drawing the main shape and then offsetting the lines for the wall thickness. Then boolean out for the windows etc


- Steve

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your tips on how create the wall and window. I think it will be interesting to have door & window standard collections.

Here are the steps :

1. create window & door in 3dm
2. just import when we need window or door than do boolean

Do you know where I can find window and door collection that can be import to MoI ?

Thanks !

Hi Anis,

>>Do you know where I can find window and door collection that can be import to MoI ?

There are many free models on the internet, unfortunately most are usually in Obj or 3DS format so they cannot be imported directly into MoI. You would need to search about, I just build what I need.


- Steve

Hi Steve & All....

One of the solution I think is search for IGES library parts.
One of the great resource is www.3dcontentcentral.com Attached below is a window from those site. The cool thing is very editable inside MoI.
You can register for free ;)

Any body know another website that more specific for architecture library ?

Thanks !!!

Hi, I've been working in the architectural modelling and visualization to teach my students here in México, MoI is great for that purpose, here is the result of a test project where the whole scene was modelled with MoI an rendered with Indigo.
-Rafaello

Hi Rafaello...

Wow...very nice result.

1. As I know Indigo run under sketch up, so after create whole model in MoI then import to Sketch up, render with indigo inside Sketch up ? Is that correct ?

2. Have you some tutorial for newbe architecture like me ?

Thanks !!!

Hi Anis, I am new in architectural design too and used Revit for the projects, but you have to export to dwg and then erase a lot of stuff in Autocad to import the model in Max, and then I thougth that MoI could be better to do the work and you saw the result.

I used all of the tips in this post to make the model.

- First draw the lines of the walls axes then I use Offset



- Then I hide the axes and extrude the lines to make the walls

- I use booleans to create the windows and door openings

- For the floors just pick the base lines of a room and make a plane with them

- for ceilings it's the same as creating floors or use booleans if they aren't flat

Now:

1. Yes Indigo works with Sketchup, but with blender, 3dsMax and others too, I use 3ds Max and import the models as obj to it, you can do it to Sketchup either.

2. Indigo has amazed me It works almost like Maxwell or Fry without the fancy things, but it's easy to use. I'm not familiar with Materials or rendering in Sketchup, if you are Just pick the Indigo materials and play with them, every Indigo exporter is different, but I promise to play with the Sketchup exporter for a while and see what happens.

- Rafaello

Hi Rafaello...

Thanks for your tips...
So you have Max with Indigo. Export from MoI as obj. How about export from MoI as 3ds ? have try it ? how's the result ?

Thanks !!!

-Anis

Hi Anis - I haven't tested .3ds export specifically to Indigo, but I just wanted to mention that typically OBJ export is a better way to go since OBJ format can contain additional smoothing information called "vertex normals", which are not able to be stored in the .3ds format.

Having the accurate vertex normals tends to make a much higher quality smooth shading on curved surfaces in the final rendering.

Some programs may have difficulty dealing with n-gons in the OBJ file though, so if you have any problems with OBJ try turning the option for "Output: N-gons" to "Output: Quads & Triangles" instead.

Also some programs may handle the vertex normals better if you turn off welding, to do that expand the meshing options dialog by the little arrow in the lower right corner and uncheck "Weld vertices along edges".


In addition to not having vertex normals, .3ds format also has other limits too, like only being able to have a maximum of 65535 points or faces in a single mesh. It's a much older format and I would usually recommend it only as a kind of last resort if there is no other way to get your data over.

- Michael

Hi Anis and Michael, I agree completely with Michael, because in some cases Max doesn't recognise the 3ds object exported from MoI, Don't know why, just be sure to split large faces of the model specially if they are part of curved objects.

If you want I'll try to help with the settings and materials of Indigo using Max.

- Rafaello