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
--------------------------------------------------------

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!