So far I like it a lot, I like having the browser features - I can't wait till I can export defined surfaces!

Michael, will the LWO exports be able to carry info similar to OBJs or is it more limited over the OBJ format?

I believe LWO supports surfaces and parts - just wondering what this will look like going into LWOs when it's done...

-Will

Hi Will, I'm glad that you are liking it so far!

> will the LWO exports be able to carry info similar to OBJs or is
> it more limited over the OBJ format?

Yeah some similar stuff should be feasible to put into LWO as well.

Right now I'm thinking that Styles will map to Surfaces in the LWO file, and I should be able to cluster each named object into its own "layer" in the LWO file.

I'm not quite sure how to use the "part" mechanism in LWO, from the LWO docs it says that a particular polygon can only belong to one part, so it is not really clear to me how that is supposed to be any different than LWO layers...

But bringing object names and styles over as surface/materials should be a good step forward for LWO export.

- Michael

Hi Danny,

> <...> then the style and object type control is handled by filters,
> but unlike MoI there are more mouse clicks involved, it seems you
> have all this system nicely packaged in one area instead of having
> different popups to control object organisation, <...>

Yeah, when I got to a design that handled the type stuff in the same location and with the same UI as other kinds of batch operations, that's when things seemed to be coming together in a good direction.

That's pretty common in other applications for this kind of functionality to be split out into many different mechanisms like "layers", "named selection sets", "groups", and "commands to select by certain types", each with slightly different interfaces, access points, and capabilities.

It's been a pretty big goal for me to try and make a more streamlined UI that provides those kinds of tools but with a more unified and common access point and interface. I still have some pieces left to finish up for "Groups", but it seems like it is zeroing in pretty well to hit that overall goal now.

One thing that is pretty nice about this approach is that I can add quite a bit of additional power to the mechanism which does not end up being too hard to learn how to use since it is consistent between all the pieces.

Like for instance you can right-click on an eye to do an "isolate" - a right-click on solids will hide everything else except solids, right-click on the eye for "the Red style" will hide everything else except the red things, etc... That consistency helps with not needing to learn too many different kinds of things or navigate to too many different places to do batch operations, and it helps to provide some convenient capabilities like "isolate all curves" can now be a very natural single-click action rather than having to use a combination like "1: Select all curves, 2 : Invert selection , 3: Hide", which is what you would normally have to do if you had a types mechanism that only focused on selection and not other actions.

I had previously been thinking of dealing with types batching by having a select menu with stuff on it like "Select solids", "Select curves", etc... , but now the browser handles that job plus more direct actions like show/hide, isolation, deselection, - these would have added up to a lot of different menu items spread out through a few places.

It is kind of a new system not quite 100% following existing patterns, so there may be some kinks to work out. But I think it is based on some good principles so hopefully it should work out well...

> then I won't be able to handle it any more, then I'll
> quit work and stay home and just use MoI, but then
> no money will be coming in! then the wife will leave
> me and take everything and I'll end up on the streets
> like a bum! OMG!! what have you done Michael!!
> :)

:) If you're lucky it will just end up leading to general malaise and wistful thoughts of "if only I was using MoI", kind of only making your life more unpleasant and unhappy instead of putting you out on the streets. You are welcome. ;)

(just kidding of course, but if it does work out well there is an element to truth in there that you may very well get more grumbly about dealing with other UI as a side effect!)

- Michael

Awesome beta!!!!!!!

I see that you have the option to put the scene browser adjacent to or inside the side panel. You also have the option to put the entire panel on the right or left side. Would it be possible in the future to incorporate and option where the scene browser could be on the left side of the screen and the tools on the right (or vice versa)? It's kind of a nitpicky thing, but it takes less time to mouse over to the commands if you only have to move over one column of commands instead of two.

Hi Michael,

Another slightly goofy thing. When you copy an object from 1 layer, from MoI to Rhino, it inserts all the layers found in the MoI dwg to the Rhino dwg.

BTW, will MoI get a purge feature (for layers)?

-Nick

Hi Rado, I'm glad you like the new beta!

> Would it be possible in the future to incorporate and
> option where the scene browser could be on the left side
> of the screen and the tools on the right (or vice versa)

Actually you can make a small edit to the UI if you would like to give this a try right now.

Find the file named MainWindowLayout.xml, it will be in the \ui subfolder inside of MoI's main installation folder. Open this file in a text editor like Notepad.

Go to line #13 which says:
<UIPanel dock="right" src="moi://ui/BrowserPane.htm">

Edit it to change the dock= property to dock="left", like this:
<UIPanel dock="left" src="moi://ui/BrowserPane.htm">

Save that file from notepad and then when you run MoI it should have the browser pane on the left side as you want, when you are not in "inside" mode.


I'm not so sure that you are really going to save any distance traveled with doing that though - I mean the position of the main tools are in the exact same spot of the screen with either the regular configuration or with the browser-on-the-left...

You have to travel the same distance from the center of the desktop screen to the "circle" button in either configuration for example.


At any rate, that one tweak above should do the trick for you!

- Michael

Hi Nick,

> Another slightly goofy thing. When you copy an object from
> 1 layer, from MoI to Rhino, it inserts all the layers found in
> the MoI dwg to the Rhino dwg.

Yup, that's one that still needs some tuning up.

Also at the moment if you Copy/Paste between 2 MoI sessions that have different styles set up in each session you will get the kind of reverse problem where none of the copied styles come into the new model.

I'll be fixing up these things for the next release.


> BTW, will MoI get a purge feature (for layers)?

Probably yes at some point in the future but not likely for v2 though.

- Michael

Script copier utility for this beta release is attached as ScriptCopier_Apr_12_2009.exe

You can run this utility program as a shortcut way to copy any custom commands / plugins that were added to your MoI 1.0 installation into the new Apr-12-2009 v2 beta's installation folder.

- Michael

hi, Michael

Sorry, I had not thought about using the styles.

Thanks

Hi marcorhino,

Michael is trying to do something different,
let's give it a chance.

>> Hi PaQ, also a quick question - is the way that the Types show their status making sense to you?

>> You've probably noticed that some things are interconnected.

>> Like if you hide faces but not edges like you were describing, then Solids will show as that half eye "mixed status", since it has some of its sub-objects shown and some hidden.

>> Let me know if anything seems odd in how that part works.

No probelm with the half eye system here !

I can't wait to have a full color shading for the style (looks like styles will be my favorite managing system !)

Do you plan to add a way to select every objects from a style with a [key]+click combo ? I know I can use the browser for this of course, but that will be a nice 'visual' shortcut.


...

(where can I pre-order Moi V2.0 ? :):):) )

Ciao Paolo,

Di dove sei ?

Marco (Marcorhno)

Yeah styles rule but reserving my full judgement untill we get groups! Loving the types switch on/off function, great for selecting objects but not acidentally selecting edges, curves etc. great function. Will we get an option to lock a style so it's there but we can't select it? - useful for blueprint backgrounds. It would be nice to have a choice to select an objects style before drawing it - say for example as far as i can tell I have to draw a line in the default style and then manually select it and assign a style after which is a bit frustrating - but it maybe in your plans already just not had time to stick it in yet! One non style related point but have you considered some sort of polygonal/freeform lasso selection tool? Im finding the rectangular selection a bit cumbersome at times and often think a polygonal selection function would be much easier.

Great progress can't wait for the full v.2!
Rob

EDIT: found out how to preselect a style before drawing.....doh!

Very cool upgrade, congrats Michael

Ciao Marco,

Camisano (Vi)

Michael - this beta is brilliant!
Thank you very much.

I'm not sure about the graphic solution for the Groups, Objects, Types and Styles headers though.
So far MoI had a very consistent look but these "tabs" I find somehow disturbing and not fully fitting in.
Do we really need the little tails on the right?
Would a rectangle do that is sharp-cornered at the bottom and only rounded at the top?
ATM I find the header graphic too strong and distracting - most of the time I will have the browser open and all the categories expanded - I wouldn't need such a strong divider.
I like the darker/lighter background and all the other UI elements, but always "bounce" against the headers ;-)

Well, I guess this is W.I.P and I'm sure you will find a good solution!

Thanks a lot for your work!

Thomas Helzle

A small request, if it has not been done before:
can you add an option so that the shaded objects display the style color (not just the wireframes of the objects)?



Also, I found a nice tip for working with 'locked' layers:
Turn the display of surfaces off, so that all objects are shown as wireframes, then turn on any named objects or specific styles you want to work on.
The other objects are still there if you need them as visual references, but you cannot select them, and they don't get in the way-

Hi Michael,

Love the new beta with the browser, congratulations!
It`s almost depressing to go to work every day and have to use Autocad for 8 hours a day when you know how fun Moi is to use.

One comment on the browser though,
For me it feels more natural when in ajecent mode that the browse is on the right side of the tools.
People tend to use the tools far more than the browser, so it would be great if you move the cursor the shortest distance.
Maybe a switch if you and most people disagree with me :)

Can`t wait for the next beta!

There is one things that I would want to see before you finalize V2, one rail sweep with mitered corners, PLEASE...

Another thing that would be great is a Merge Edge command (don`t mind if it`s a script).
I encounter situations on a regular basis where this tool would be handy.
I currently use Rhino for this at the moment, no biggie, would jst be cool if you implemented it.

As others have mentioned, a lock style/groups/objects etc. would also be nice.

What about the thing I suggested earlier for fast selection without the browser visible,
type the object name directly and the object would be selected.
You mentioned something about hitting the TAB key first and then type the object name.

Final wish/suggestion (maybe V3 or further down the line):
I like to think of Moi as a concept tool to generate geometry fast with many variations (though i have used it to make polished models too).
Wild idea: Have a simple pixel based sketcher inside Moi with just a few brushes, nothing extensive.
And the ability to set up a sketchplane with the Cplane tool maybe...
Would be cool for us tablet users. No more pencil/paper and scanners :)
I believe Alias has this, correct me if i`m wrong.
Don`t get me wrong, I`m not asking for Moi to become Alias, I love the simplicity and don`t want to loose that :)

Long post, haha, been saving up comments ;)

Anyway, love what`s been implemented/improved so far, keep up the good work!
Can`t wait to buy the final V2, my plastic is waiting.

Eric

Hi PaQ,

> Do you plan to add a way to select every objects from a style
> with a [key]+click combo ? I know I can use the browser for
> this of course, but that will be a nice 'visual' shortcut.

I haven't planned on doing that with a built-in key combo - the main method for selecting by style is to use the browser by clicking on the text part of the style name.

But if I understand you correctly, it is possible to set up a script on a shortcut key, that will expand the selection to include all objects of the same style as one that is currently selected.

Here is the script for that:

script: /* Expand selection over same styles */ var objects = moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects();var styles = new Array();for ( var i = 0; i < objects.length; ++i ) { var obj = objects.item(i); if ( obj.selected ) styles[obj.styleIndex] = true; } for ( var i = 0; i < objects.length; ++i ) { var obj = objects.item(i); if ( styles[obj.styleIndex] ) obj.selected = true; }


So to use that, first select an object from the style you want to target, then hit the key to trigger that script and all the other objects of that same style will be added to the selection.

Is that the kind of thing that you were thinking of here?

This script currently will only look at "top-level" objects, it won't go into sub-objects like faces or edges that may have different styles on them. Let me know if you want a version that handles those, it will be a slightly longer script.

- Michael

Hi Rob,

> Will we get an option to lock a style so it's there but we can't
> select it? - useful for blueprint backgrounds.

Yeah I do want to add in a lock/unlock method for objects, with also a way to do it in the browser as well (probably Ctrl+click on the eye area).

But I still have quite a bit of things to finish up just with the existing stuff though, if that runs on for a whole lot longer I may have to postpone locking until v3 but I am not sure about that quite yet.


> It would be nice to have a choice to select an objects style
> before drawing it - say for example as far as i can tell I have
> to draw a line in the default style and then manually select
> it and assign a style after which is a bit frustrating - but it
> maybe in your plans already just not had time to stick it in yet!

It sounds like you already figured this out, but just to make sure - the "active style" is the one that will be used for newly drawn objects, it is the one that is displayed with an extra ring around the outside of the swatch.

You can set the active style by clicking on a swatch when there are no objects selected (when objects selected, it will set the selected objects to that style), or you can also right-click on the swatch.


> One non style related point but have you considered some sort
> of polygonal/freeform lasso selection tool?

Yup, that is something that I'd like to add in the future, but that one will definitely be sometime after v2 though.

Thanks for the feedback Rob!

- Michael