http://www.inventorfusion.com/

article here http://www.develop3d.com/

Note the User Interface,also radial menus at cursor. Ill keep an eye on inventorfusion even thought I said in the past never Autodesk again, I can now see they have been working hard to create some new cool tools...

direct modelling is not new but is the way forward IMO, SpaceClaim, CoCreate, Siemens, Catia... they all have it, So it seems to me is more than a trend.

Also Autodesk Sketch coming "also running on a Mac" http://vimeo.com/2419011?pg=embed&sec=2419011

Lets see, Autodesk Sketch + inventorfusion could be a dream come true workflow,

Note: a similar workflow is MoI + SpaceClaim and they are up and running not a tech preview.

Micheal is good to see you here http://www.spaceclaiming.com/forum/topics/spaceclaim-release-5-ideas?x=1&id=2118765%3ATopic%3A9821&page=2#comments SpaceClaim LTX for MoI could be great

Hi Yannada, yeah one cool thing coming for the next service release of SpaceClaim (as discussed on that other forum) is easier compatability with MoI since they will support transfer of 3DM data through the clipboard in the same way that you can do Copy/Paste between MoI and Rhino currently.

It was really cool that they were extremely responsive to that suggestion!

- Michael

I've looked at spaceclaim before and it does have some of the most impressive features I have seen. It looks like it is a bit pricy and not too accesible for whatever reason, wish they did just a payfor and download cut-down version for general modelling, im sure they would get tons of sales. I love their history implimentation - it looks just like how i imagine the ultimate program should work with editable fillet radius's etc and on the fly constraint based parametrics. Is this a direction moi could take further down the line? Or does that sort of flexiblity need to be designed in from the start?

EDIT: I've just looked again at the spaceclaim website - which offers very limited info on the LTX version! It doesn't say anything about needing rhino to run it and yet is is called spaceclaim ltx for Rhino. It looks like its a separate program that you can just switch the model between rhino and ltx. If so does anyone jnow if it's possible to use it / buy it without owning rhino and use it as a stand alone or in conjunction with moi? I don't know why they bother with resellers - it just makes it more complicated and more expensive for everyone - crazy!

Is been some time since I demoed spaceclaim so Thinks may different now but when i did I cant say I was impressed.
1:RealDWG support = Not So Real (that's were inventorfusion will do a better job)
2:3DM Import = No support for polygon mesh data and very poor support with nurb surfaces.(hope MoI will do a better job there)
3:LT and LTX are limited in terms of data exchange capability and the lack of API support.
4:Not Mac or Linux support
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Direct-modeling is for sure the new trend.
Direct editing is great because it allows more interaction with the 3d model and is better in the conceptual stage of design where the design may need radical changes.

MoI integrate solid modeling with free-form surfaces really well and if Michael could explore the possibilities of Direct editing that could turn MoI to power house.
(Currently CAD systems like that can be counted on one hand but None of the has MoI Factor).

> Is this a direction moi could take further down the line?
> Or does that sort of flexiblity need to be designed in from
> the start?

I do expect to add more stuff in MoI for editing the history of how you created an object, but that is kind of a different thing than the "direct modeling" mechanism used in SpaceClaim.

That direct modeling stuff kind of requires a lot of fairly specialized code for analyzing and categorizing shapes. It's not so much about just planning for it, it is just a lot of work to make stuff like feature recognition function well.


> wish they did just a payfor and download cut-down version
> for general modelling

Yeah, as you found they actually have this now with their LTX version.

They focus on marketing that version as a companion to Rhino but I doubt that it requires Rhino to actually run, and since MoI uses the same 3DM file format as Rhino I would think it should work with MoI as well.

I'd suggest asking the Novedge people to make sure: info@novedge.com

Or also post a question in the forums here: http://www.spaceclaiming.com/

- Michael

Thanks Michael,

I think i'll stick with moi for now as i already use archicad and c4d for modelling as it is! I just admire the apparent intellegence and flexibility of the direct modelling approach. Would be great to see some more history based model update features in moi, like adjusting fillets at a later date etc. Currently is it right that not all sweep opperations update automatically? I have experimented with paths that are besier based which do update the sweep object as the points are moved but if the path consists of straight lines the sweep object wont update when the paths points are moved. Will this sort of behaviour be fixed when you come to look at auto mitering of sweep shapes?

Cheers
Rob

Hi Rob,

> Currently is it right that not all sweep opperations update
> automatically?

One of the limitations currently is that if your operation produces multiple separate output objects from one input object, that history updates won't work in that situation.

When you have a segmented path with sharp corners in it (like a polyline), then it will produce multiple separate output objects for each segment with the current sweeper.


> Will this sort of behaviour be fixed when you come to look at
> auto mitering of sweep shapes?

Yeah actually I think it should because the mitered result will be one solid (which will count as one output object even though it is made up of multiple joined surfaces) so it should then work with history updates in the current system.

- Michael

Sweet, thanks as always, moi v2 sounds like it's going to be awesome!