Hello,

in the last days there was a post at the Rhino forum, that MOI3D 2 will get a multicore high speed mesher. ;)
It's known, that the Rhino mesher is quite old and not the best. Could it be possible to use the MOI3D mesher per plugin at Rhino? The info from McNeel is, that the current rhino mesher will not be improved for Rhino v5, no big steps forwar can be expected.

I'm sure that many users are interested to get a better mesher for Rhino, for rendering and RP.

An other question: is there a way to buy MOI3D v2 now, so that a new user could be part of the beta testers. I'm curious to test the mesher and to help to improve it.

Best regards,
Micha

PS: If a plugin isn't possible, maybe it could be possible to improve the workflow between Rhino and MOI3D. For example it could be nice to copy a object to MOI3d and create the mesh to the clipboard, so that it can be inserted in Rhino at the same place like the NURBS object befor.

In this thread there's some impressing speed records - http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2333.17

The minute you buy Moi v.1 you are able to download the latest v.2 beta.

/Lars

I'm interested on the new mesher of v2 and I like to avoid to buy MOIv1 + v2 upgrade one or two months later - I need it for meshing only, because I use Rhino for rendering most, seldom modeling. But I suppose if v2 is ready, than a trial version will allow to test it and suggestions for improvements are welcome everytime. ;)

Thank you for the link - sounds impressiv. I wished, MOI3D and Rhino3D could work together more.

Hi, I had pretty much requested the same when I first started using MOI - not so much that I still use Rhino (I left off at v2 for this exact reason; the exports into my rendering apps were too ugly for me to bother and try and clean to up...)

MOI with its NGon exports create some of the nicest exports out there for a NURBS app!


But as Michael had mentioned to me - the typical cost of Rhino plugins are more than the cost for the full version of Moi! :-P

So while I had suggested the same as perhaps a way for Michael to make more money, for him to release a plugin that strips all of MOI's functionality just down to the exporter prolly isn't worth the time and effort...

Better to just buy MOI as is, and use only what you need!
(The GUI will probably have you avoiding the use Rhino more and more anyway LOL!)

-Will

Hi Micha, there is already a very easy workflow for using MoI in combination with Rhino, I mean it uses the same .3dm file format so it is easy to open Rhino data in MoI, and you can even Copy and Paste NURBS objects back and forth between them.

So if using MoI's meshing function is important for you, I am kind of confused why you are not already using MoI together with Rhino right now.

There are plenty of people (both Rhino users and non-Rhino users) that use MoI for this purpose of getting higher quality (and now with v2 much faster as well with multi-core!) mesh output from NURBS/CAD objects.


> I'm sure that many users are interested to get a better mesher
> for Rhino, for rendering and RP.

Yup, a bunch of people already use MoI for this particular purpose, it works really well for this! :)


It tends to be more practical for me to focus on developing the stand-alone version of MoI rather than focusing on a Rhino plug-in. There are also quite a few people who want to use the mesher who are not Rhino users, like people who want to convert CAD data from SolidWorks/Catia/etc over to Modo, etc... By focusing on developing the regular stand-alone version of MoI I am able to help the largest number of people since both Rhino and non-Rhino users can make use of it, while a plug-in is only of use just to Rhino users.


> An other question: is there a way to buy MOI3D v2 now, so
> that a new user could be part of the beta testers. I'm curious
> to test the mesher and to help to improve it.

There is no way to buy v2 yet, it is not finished yet. But you can use the v2 beta during the development period if you purchase a v1 license, and there will be an upgrade discount license available for v1 users to purchase a v2 license. And actually the total cost of v1 + v2 upgrade I think will be the same as the cost of v2 standalone - the v2 standalone will be going up in price a bit I think.


> For example it could be nice to copy a object to MOI3d
> and create the mesh to the clipboard, so that it can be
> inserted in Rhino at the same place like the NURBS object befor.

You can get something extremely close to this already by setting just a couple of keyboard shortcuts. In MoI set a keyboard shortcut with this: SaveAs c:\meshfile.obj , and in Rhino set a keyboard shortcut or make a button with this: Import c:\meshfile.obj .

Then the workflow starting from Rhino is: Select your objects to mesh, Press Ctrl+C to copy the NURBS data to the clipboard. Go to MoI, press Ctrl+V to get your objects. Press the key that you assigned the "SaveAs" command. Switch back to Rhino and press the key that you assigned the "Import" command.

So basically 4 keyboard shortcuts can be used to complete the entire process, it should be very quick to complete this process.


- Michael

Hi Michael,

thank you for the infos and the suggestion for the shortcuts.

"And actually the total cost of v1 + v2 upgrade I think will be the same as the cost of v2 standalone - the v2 standalone will be going up in price a bit I think."

That sounds like an userfriendly upgrade price policy. I afraid buying the license now cause to pay much more than the v2 price only. Can you say, when v2 will be released - in days, weeks or months?

A question to the Rhino workflow. I remember me, that the reimported meshes was turned to the side allways - is it still so? Could it be possible that the imported mesh is placed at the original NURBS layer?

I understand that it is much work to write a plugin for Rhino and it's better for MOI3D, that you focus your work on it. An other idea: could it be possible that you open MOI3D for plugin developer, so that a plugin could be written by a Rhino plugin developer? The MOI3D interface could be used by other CAD user to write a plugin too. So, you would not need to think about the plugin codeing, the people would buy MOI3D and the plugin could be an open source project or could be bought additional. I think on that the moi3D can be used per command line like "moi3d.exe -parameters original.3dm mesh.obj". Sounds quite easy for me, but I don't much about programing. ;)
It could be great, if at Rhino all rendermeshes would be created by the MOI3D mesher.

Doe's the current mesher support the option "max distance/error NURBS to mesh"? If not, is it planed?

Regards,
Micha

EVERYBODY want Michaels new mesher!!!! Seems it may be a highly sought after licensing pack!!! :)

Hi Micha,

> Can you say, when v2 will be released - in days, weeks or months?

There isn't an exact fixed date yet, but it is probably something like 2 months from now.


> I remember me, that the reimported meshes was turned
> to the side allways - is it still so?

For OBJ files you mean? It may still be like this by default, but there is an option to choose the orientation for OBJ exports from MoI under Options > Import/Export > OBJ options / Orientation - you can choose between Z-Up and Y-Up.

If it is turned in the wrong direction for you, just flip that setting and it should be solved.


> Could it be possible that the imported mesh is placed
> at the original NURBS layer?

It doesn't do this currently, but this area of layer management is one of the main areas that I have left to work on to complete v2. However, I'm not quite sure if there is a way for Rhino to create layers from an OBJ file so this may not be very easy to resolve right away.


> An other idea: could it be possible that you open MOI3D
> for plugin developer, so that a plugin could be written
> by a Rhino plugin developer?

Yup, I am planning on doing this eventually. Unfortunately both documenting a plug-in system and also supporting other programmers who are using it tends to be a very time consuming area of work, so it is not easy for me to add this in currently while I still have a lot of other more basic areas that I am also working on. So it will probably be a while yet before I am able to focus much effort in this area.

I tend to have to be careful right now about entering areas of work that will consume a large amount of support time.


> I think on that the moi3D can be used per command line
> like "moi3d.exe -parameters original.3dm mesh.obj". Sounds
> quite easy for me, but I don't much about programing. ;)

Actually this type of automated command-line meshing is already possible, you can give MoI the name of a .js script file on the command line and the script file can call various functions to produce the meshed output also passing parameters such as angle, etc...

Some details on that here:
http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/#Batch

Also another discussion here on how to use this mechanism to batch convert all files that can be found in a particular folder:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2100.1

So I guess that actually already provides the basic stuff that you would need to make a Rhino plugin that would call moi.exe to do the meshing... The plugin would basically need to create a temporary .3dm file, and a temporary .js file with some calls in it to control what MoI does - it would call some script functions to load that .3dm file and then do a SaveAs to a polygon file (details on this are in the links above), this can either allow the UI to show or it can decide to have the UI hidden and pass specific parameters in. Then the plugin would wait until that moi.exe program ended and it would then be able to load in the generated mesh file.


> Doe's the current mesher support the option
> "max distance/error NURBS to mesh"? If not, is it planed?

There is not currently a "maximum chord height" type option, but I have been planning on adding one.

- Michael

Hi Michael. Why not just create a method to export the mesh objects to a 3DM file. then we import 3DM to Rhino and all layer names, groupings, etc can be preserved?

jonah

"Better to just buy MOI as is, and use only what you need!
(The GUI will probably have you avoiding the use Rhino more and more anyway LOL!) -Will"

But as Micha said, he's using Rhino as his rendering platform. Not really modeling in it. So MoI would not be much help to him for that purpose... For someone like me, I can understand his perspective. I use Rhino for nearly everything I do. I can imagine the advantage (especially for the real-time display mesh) of having a MoI plugin to Rhino. Having a multi-threaded, clean mesher directly in Rhino would be something I would pay for. And I think working together with McNeel (they offer assistance to all plugin developers) it should not be that difficult to implement. For example, Tsplines 2.0 WIP now disengages Rhino's mesher and uses their own mesher for all TSplines objects. Also TSplines mesh can support n-gons. So all this can be possible for a MoI plugin as well... But I won't argue Michael's point that he doesn't have time to handle the support for it.

jonah

3dm files would be great for layers and other attributes, but there is one downside of 3dm for meshes - they don't support n-gons, only tris and quads. I think this may change for Rhino V5 or V6, but if n-gons is a big selling point of MoI's mesher, 3dm is not the ideal format.

Then again, if you're importing back into Rhino for rendering, the obj would be converted back to quads and tris anyway, so it would probably work for Micha's workflow.

Our T-Meshes are sort of an overlay onto Rhino's meshes, adding support for n-gons, T-Points, and knot vectors. But if you render a T-Mesh, or load one of our T-Meshes in Rhino without the T-Splines plugin, it'll just be quads and tris.

I think it's the right moment at the right place :

!!!! We need T-spline for MoI !!!!




:)

As a MoI user Ill say that all the focus should go to MoI's development. One of the reasons I chose MoI over Rhino is that MoI is "CLEAN".
Dont give me wrong I like McNeel's "Democratic" approach to support every single format, every single Rendering app. etc. BUT from what I have experience there is not many formats supported that you can say "Yes It Works".
On the other hand MoI supports few formats BUT they are all do the job. (also one of the main reasons why I choose MoI).So yes MoI is not just a pretty face.
I also think is very very early for SDK or Plugins, that could lead to the same problems Rhino or Others have. After all as we all know MoI have one of the best meshers, there for you can export to any app you wish for UV, Paint, Rendering etc.(is not always perfect but the best you can get).

That's just my personal thoughts and I think MoI should develop to a Hard Core Modeling Tool. I have also asked in the past for a rendering plugin but happily I could trade my wish for more modeling tools...hehe.

Paq, Don't be afraid to ask for what you want... ;)

Hi PaQ I think what Jonah suggesting it really makes seance, what are you thought on a that? Do you think a plugin for MoI will be better? I will like you opinion on that before I contact the
Tspline guys.

 

Hi jonah,

> I would think the best hope for non-Rhino users is
> for ts to build a stand-alone conversion app which
> eats OBJ and spits out 3DM...

That's a really good product idea for the T-splines guys, I forwarded that to one of their developers who I was talking to recently.

That would work well with MoI but there are also all kinds of other scenarios where a stand-alone simple conversion app could be helpful, like someone who wanted to use Modo and SolidWorks in combination with each other, etc....

It would possibly not take too much effort for them to set up a product like that, it would be able to have a very minimal UI, just something like a viewer window to view the imported mesh.

- Michael

Yannada - To replace Rhino's mesher, MoI won't need an SDK of it's own. The plug would have to run inside of Rhino, using Rhino's SDK. I'm sure Michael is already quite a master of Rhino's architecture. So how difficult would it be to port the code? That's something I have no idea. I'm just a dumb software user... :P

jonah

>> Hi PaQ I think what Jonah suggesting it really makes seance, what are you thought on a that? Do you think a plugin for MoI will be better? I will like you opinion on that before I contact the
Tspline guys.

Hi Yannada,

Sorry, I was not talking about the meshing plugin question for Rhino, I just take the opportunity that Tom Finnigan was there to say 'hello, I wan't T-spline for MoI' =)
I know it was allready discussed, and I understand the 100 reasons it will not happend soon, I just didn't resist :P

Hello Micheal,


>the v2 standalone will be going up in price a bit I think.<

With full respect of your ability, please be cautious of the pricing. I would agree that V1 was sold under -priced but that gave the base price based on its functions. I know you have worked hard and many many hours on the update, but would not like to see maajor increase in price which may put off new users/ or owners of V1

Many will look at what functions are in V1 and compare to V2 and then associate the pricing.

Please dont jump up and down on me for this comment, it is just my thoughts.

Regards and respect,

- Steve

Ooops I missed this one (yes sir we want it too)

Hi Jonah,

> Why not just create a method to export the mesh objects
> to a 3DM file. then we import 3DM to Rhino and all layer
> names, groupings, etc can be preserved?

That would solve that particular problem, but possibly cause some other confusion about exporting in 2 possible different ways to the same format.

MoI is able to determine which file format to use based on the file extension - for example if do a "SaveAs" you can just type in c:\test.obj without altering the file type dropdown in the filename dialog, and MoI sees that you are using an .obj extension and therefore knows to export an .obj file.

But if you have 2 different formats using the same extension.... That mechanism will not work to differentiate between them.

Another difficulty is that MoI will not read polygon mesh objects out of a 3DM file, so writing polygon mesh data from MoI could pretty easily lead to confusion as to why some 3DM files that you save cannot be loaded back into MoI. This could be particularly bad since 3DM is the primary file format for MoI.

Note that Rhino does not itself have a method to do a "SaveAs" to a Polygon-only 3DM file (with the mesh conversion done during the save process as per other poly file formats) for these same kinds of reasons.

I suppose it is something that could be added that was only available for scripts and not as a normal part of the UI. But that would probably only be of use just to a Rhino plugin and not really for other general purpose use, that means it will probably be difficult for me to make that work a priority anytime soon, compared to other functions that are more widely used - same as how making a Rhino plugin myself is hard for me to make a high priority.

- Michael