Cool news Michael, Thank you

in fact for Google Sketchup from Moi there is now 2 direct possible formats 3DS & SKp ;)

Hi George,

> Comparing time with Rhino SKP export for the same model,
> which is the difference?

The Rhino SKP export is definitely much faster. However, there are a lot of problems with the resulting data - it looks like the Rhino exporter does not fuse together faces so for example a box comes in as 6 disconnected pieces (and actually each face piece is made up of multiple polygons instead of one) and push/pull on those faces does not behave like a normal solid box made natively in SketchUp would.

I think it's probably better to have the "high integrity" but slower exporter instead of one that is fast but has bad structure to it.

But I'll take a bit more of a look at it today though, there is a possibility I could do more of the joining/fusing work in my own code instead of relying on the SketchUp library code to do it.

- Michael

Hi Pilou,

> in fact for Google Sketchup from Moi there is now 2 direct
> possible formats 3DS & SKp ;)

That's certainly true, but really you will want to avoid using 3DS format, since that format can only contain triangles. 3DS will give you a result like this:




While the SKP export will give you a result like this:





- Michael

Yes but...
Clean plug is Menu Tools / D.B.Tools / Clean Selection
then Soften edges

Hi Pilou, that's certainly not bad that there are some plugins and extra steps that you can use to help to clean up .3ds imports...

But it is much better to just have all the data clean right from the very beginning without the need to do extra steps.

I've also heard from people who have had problems getting just the built in automatic soften edges to work completely right on a more complex model.

That's one thing that tends to be a problem with relying too much on extra steps like this, they can sometimes not work quite properly on complex shapes.

If you want to continue to use .3ds export instead of .skp you are certainly welcome to do that though! ;)

- Michael

Sure soften edges is just a view not a geometric transformation
I don't prefer 3DS, it's just an another possibility if the time of produce an Skp file is too long ;)
test will be possible at the next beta :)
And if the number of poly of an object overpass 65 535 SKp format will be better ;)

Hi Pilou, I will see if I can reduce the time for producing the .skp file - at first I thought I would not be able to do but now it looks like I may be able to if I handle all the logic for how to fuse together points myself instead of letting the SketchUp toolkit do it.

- Michael

So keep the good work!

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your answer. In my case, after exporting an SKP file from Rhino, I use a ruby script (delete coplanar edges) to reduse the extra geometry. So is there a possibility selecting your method (much better of course) in small models and like Rhino's in case of large models?

Regards,

Hi George - actually there will be no need to worry about that, I've been able to rework the new exporter so that what was taking 10 minutes with a larger model now only takes 10 seconds. So it should be suitable for handling large models now as well.

The main limit will be that SketchUp does not really handle models of a much larger size very well itself, so if SketchUp is sluggish with the model you may have to try lowering the density that you use for curved surfaces to avoid creating too many polygons.

I think you'll be really happy with it though, you should get optimal results right away without any need for cleaning things up. Please let me know how it works for you once you get a chance to try it after I have wrapped up this next beta.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Thank you very much for your answer. Can't wait to test new beta.
Keep on the great work.

George

Hi Michael ...
When might we see the next beta?
cheers,
eric

Hi Eric - nearly there, I think I should be able to wrap it up tomorrow.

- Michael

Great news!
thanks,
eric

Great work on this one, Michael!

-Will

From where can I get this plug-in for SketchUp?Sorry,I just do not find it.I am a new user of moi 3D,it is a fantastic little gadget:)

Hi Alex - I'm glad that you like MoI! :)

The SKP exporter is one of the new functions for MoI version 2.0, you can download the v2 beta to test the new functions from this page: http://moi3d.com/beta.htm

Also there is a patch for the current v2 beta to fix a mirroring bug:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2177.10
You can apply that patch after installing the v2 beta to fix a bug in it.

There is also a lot of other new stuff in v2 aside from SKP export!

There are some notes on the new stuff so far here:
http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/doc/V2releasenotes.html
and for the newest one here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2170.1

- Michael

Hi Michael,

I haven't read the whole thread yet but i want to ask a specific question that accrues to me at this point.
Is there an option to determine the resolution of how the curved faces are being split up (how many increments in the curve) when importing the skp file?

This geometry would be quite simple to do in sketchup from scratch, but I'm worried about the amount of resulting faces. In sketchup I would be able to determine how many segments the arch will be made of, e.g. 12 sides or 24 or 36, depending on the required detail.

I'm new here and I love the MoI already great software! Thanks for doing this!

Hi Bruell, welcome to the forum and to MoI!

> Is there an option to determine the resolution of how
> the curved faces are being split up (how many increments
> in the curve) when importing the skp file?

Yes - when you export to .skp format, the Meshing options dialog will be shown which has various options for controlling the density.

More details on how the meshing options work here:
http://moi3d.com/1.0/docs/moi_command_reference10.htm#meshdialog


By moving the slider or adjusting the other options you can generate either a coarse low-polygon version of your MoI object to the .skp file, or generate a higher detailed but heavier version for something like a final rendering.

MoI works on curved objects so it is kind of different than SketchUp - when you create a circular type object in MoI it is an actual circular object so you don't have to decide at creation time how many sides you want it to have, you can decide that later on when you export to a polygon-based file format.

That allows you to export many different density versions of your same base MoI object, you don't have to specify the density at creation time unlike what you are used to doing in SketchUp. The bad part about doing it at creation time is that it kind of "locks in" that density for that shape and it is not typically easy to go back later on and change it since SketchUp only knows about lines, it doesn't know that a bunch of lines actually initially came from a circle...


> This geometry would be quite simple to do in sketchup from scratch

Yeah, it's not a complex model so doing it from scratch in almost anything is certainly not out of the question.

However, a model like this that involves cutting several pieces by profile curves will come together extremely fast in MoI, probably something like only 1 minute to completely finish that shape from scratch. Maybe I will have to make a video to really show what I am talking about here...

But don't get me wrong - SketchUp has its own different kinds of strengths and speed in different kinds of situations as well.

- Michael