Hi Michael,

Thank for your answer. I played a little with mesh angles, and yes, it works. Also, I found a script that allows to quickly change the mesh density, that definitely solve the problem of 3D navigation on detailed models.

Regarding rail revolve, I encountered the problem working on a violin.
The first picture is an example of a rectangle revolving on a spiral in MoI, while the second is the same operation made in Rhino.


About deformations: yes, I know how is problematic to deform polysurfaces with a different distribution of control points. I personally do not think that these tools are so useful, since they normally produces very complicated and not so "ideal" surfaces. I was speaking simply about deformation tools for single curves (bend, twist).

BTW, working with MoI is so pleasant, that even if Rhino has many useful commands, and I know well how to use them, after spending few days modeling in MoI, switching back to Rhino interface is hard!

Hi Artaud,

> I played a little with mesh angles, and yes, it works.

Great! Hopefully this should get handled better more automatically a bit later on in v2.


> Regarding rail revolve, I encountered the problem working on
> a violin.
> The first picture is an example of a rectangle revolving on a spiral
> in MoI, while the second is the same operation made in Rhino.

I see, that is an interesting way to think of Rail Revolve for that!

Normally the rail revolve type function is more intended to produce something more similar to a simple revolve but kind of stretching it out to match the path curve.

Here are some examples:








The kind of thing you are showing where the profile kind of drags out along a path is normally something that is more the job of the Sweep command rather than Rail revolve.

You should be able to get what you need there in MoI currently by using the Sweep command, but you have to orient it along the z axis direction and use the "Twist:Flat" option, like this:



It is slightly different though, one side effect of the rail revolve is that the profile shrinks in size as it approaches the revolve axis, that is due to the way that Rail Revolve generates its result by applying a kind of scale factor to the shape.


I'll take a look and see if rail revolve can be tuned up in moi v2 to do the same as Rhino though.


> I was speaking simply about deformation tools for single curves (bend, twist).

I see - that is definitely easier than for polysurfaces, but it still might take a while before I'm able to get to this area even for curves. For a while you'll need to move things into Rhino for doing these deformation tasks.


I'm glad that you're enjoying using MoI!

Have you had a chance to try version 2.0 yet? There is quite a lot of new stuff there as well... Some notes here:
http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/doc/V2releasenotes.html
and for the most recent release here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2170.1


- Michael

Probably way off beam---does this "in principle" look anything like what is wanted to be obtained in MoI?

Brian

PS/edit
But then I had no need to go scale array either--did I!

Hi Michael,

Yes, in many cases it is possible to obtain the same result of a Rail Revolve operation using the Sweep command. But I think there are some exceptions.

The following example uses a 3D path, and the results produced by MoI and Rhino are different:





Rotating the curve 1 by 90° (2), then scaling it by 1 direction twice (3-4), you get the curve for a sweep.



Unfortunately, the surfaces have some artifacts, but in principle this works.



Anyway, as people often says, "Rome has not been done in a day....". And I think that MoI, as a joung product, is much more than expected!

Hi Artaud, yeah the sweep alternative is more for things that follow a longer path instead of being like a dome, more like the scroll shape that you were asking about originally.

MoI's sweep will not work for a dome-like shape currently but I do want to add a kind of pivoting sweep mechanism in later on.


Can you please post the .3dm files of the curves and the results from Rhino so I can use them for testing?

Thanks,
- Michael

Hi Michael,

... I just abandoned the file, without saving it. But it is fast to recreate. You will find it attached.

Notice that the curves (the ellipse and the curve) have been done in Moi then pasted in Rhino.
Then I used RailRevolve command, with ScaleHeight option = On.

BTW, I just published a small article on modeling the Fender guitar on my website. Below is the link:

http://www.robotale.net/joomla/component/content/article/130-test-drive-moi-hendrix-reflections.html

Sorry, the article is in Italian. But maybe someone can use the pictures.

Actually I am playing modeling a violin. It is an interesting challenge... and I have a lot of fun modeling with MoI.

BTW, did you publish Italian U.I.? I used Italian screen dumps for the article, and it would be better that people that will download the software find consistency between images and the version.