Hello...

Hi Anis!

I had the same question..

What XYZ input box shows now is a mouse pointer coordinates, but I believe it should better show selected object(point) coordinates or grayed out if none selected.

It is a common practice for high precision apps to have these input fields for each coordinate (see illustrator or 3ds!).

So my suggestion for Michael would be as I said above to make a few adjustments in the ui to allow for direct coord. input
It looks reasonable for my workflow (of a beginner at least))

Otherwise its display useless - what I need mouse coordinates for?

Lets wait for Michael comments..)

ps we actually can do it now - but this is so awkward! the implication of this change would also be to make yet another input field for commands.. and there's still room for command line input on the right..

The mouse coords are there when a command is "not active".

But when a command is active, it works as you describe.

Draw a circle anywhere. Start the move command and select the "center point of the circle" and type 0 0 0. The circle moves to the coords typed. Much faster than illustrator!

This area is also a command input field. When no command is selected, hit tab and type "move" or any other command.

Yet I still find it very akward..

What you're saying means you delete all the coordinates an replace them with 0 0 0, which is indeed fast, but in most cases you'll need to change just one coordinate and the input field will look like this 131.25 403.02 312.45
- to change something in real you need to invoke a command which will invoke straight snap and other staff and through these you need to move to the input field, select only the portion you need, guess, that the postion is exactly x or y or z (cause no id next to corrdinates exist) and then make the nudge you need, and that not all, you're still in the command which you need finish..

and that all instead of just selecting an object and tweak its coordinate on the fly

Im sorry I just dont see the complication that you make it sound.

Select object, hit Tab abd type "Move" then pick point of object (Any point for that matter. Much more powerful and precise!) then hit tab and "All current coords are there" just change what you like and hit enter.

I think what you miss is an additional UI popup that houses all this functionality.

In your example you show the input field to be "131.25 403.02 312.45". You can change "any" of those 3 numbers that you like! Do you object that there are not seperate fields for each number?

Also, with the Ui you describe, how would you move this point and attach it to the circle?



In MoI I could pre-determine the coords of a point on the circle then invoke the command and presto!

BTW:

With MoI's scripting capabities, one great thing is that if what you desire comes from "existing functionality" it will be easy to make a "Popup window" that has the move command incorporated with the "seperate fields" for the coords. This would just come after the beta is over.

>Select object, hit Tab abd type "Move" then pick point of object (Any point for that matter. Much more powerful and precise!) then hit tab and "All >current coords are there" just change what you like and hit enter.

There's no complication, what you describe hit tab, type move, pick point, hit tab, change number, hit enter.. isn't this just too much for a simple offset? :)) here's a illustartor workflow.. select, change number..

This is not something which need urgent attention.. just a refinement which all other apps already have..

Cheers!)

Hi Anis,

you asked:
> How to move object by input XYZ coordinate.

You can use the "Move" command (in the Transform tools) for moving objects in that way, here is a quick demo for example of moving a line so that its endpoint is exactly at coordinate value 2.1,2.1



Here are the steps:


Select the object you wish to move.

Now run the Transform / Move command.

Click the base point - this is the point that you wish to relocate to a new position.

Now enter your target point (either click it or type in a value) - this is the new location that you want to use.

- Michael

Actually its not select, change number. Its more like this:

Select selection tool, Select object, click in "X" field and change number, hit tab key and change next number, hit enter.

And what are you moving when you do this anyway? Some arbitrary point in space within your object?

Hi igor,

> but I believe it should better show selected object(point) coordinates

Objects are usually constructed out of a multitude of different points, in the general case there is not just one special point that defines an object.

For example, which point would you display for this object:




> It is a common practice for high precision apps to have these
> input fields for each coordinate (see illustrator or 3ds!).

Actually the most commonly used application for high precision drafting is AutoCAD, which does not have separate input fields.

There are a lot of advantages to a single "command-line" input field which would be lost with a separate entry for each coordinate.

- Entering a single "0" <enter> as a shortcut for 0,0,0 would be lost.

- Entering just x and y coordinates (like 5,3) and being able to leave out z would be lost.

- Being able to enter different formats than cartesian like polar coordinates (for example 5<45 means polar coordinates of distance 5, angle 45 from previous point) would be lost.

- Being able to enter in relative coordinates easily, like r5,2 (displace by 5 units in x and 2 in y from previous point while drawing a polyline) would be lost.


These are some reasons why the most commonly used high precision drawing app does not have separate fields.


> So my suggestion for Michael would be as I said above to make
> a few adjustments in the ui to allow for direct coord. input

The adjustments that you are talking about would remove functionality, and therefore be a step backwards.


> Otherwise its display useless - what I need mouse coordinates for?

It helps you generally see what area of space you are looking out at, you can glance there if you want to know if for example you are in some view way off in outer space.


> ps we actually can do it now - but this is so awkward!

Not really! Just run the Move command, pick your base point, and type in your target point, and you're done!

It's really pretty simple and quick...


> the implication of this change would also be to make yet
> another input field for commands.. and there's still room
> for command line input on the right..

I wish that were true, but on a 1024x768 screen there is actually very little room available to the right.

Please don't make the mistake of thinking that your particular screen configuration is the one that is the one seen by every single user... Different users may have smaller screens that yours and the changes that you are talking about could easily make things work very poorly on their screens.

- Michael

I was adjsuting points vertically according to some pattern(rule), and it was mush easier for me to input absolute coordinates than use move tool..

My main point was that coordinates adjastment is a sepatate tool for precise placing objects in space - and move is tool is yet another tool mostly used for placing obj in relation to other objects.. (employing different snaps for that part)

So it happened that access to one tool is through another tool (move) which I personally found not so convinient..

But if most people are happy then there should be something I still dont know))

Anyway thanks for explanations!

Hi igor,

>> There's no complication, what you describe hit tab,
>> type move, pick point, hit tab, change number, hit enter..

> isn't this just too much for a simple offset? :))


Just a quick note here - Burr likes to use the new type-in method to launch commands, that's why he talks there about hitting tab and typing "move".

Most of the time you would click "Transform/Move" instead of that.

The sequence for an offset is not at all difficult, here are the steps:

- Select object you want to offset.

- Run the Transform/Move command.

- Click a base point in your scene.

- Activate distance constraint by typing in the distance you wish to offset followed by <enter> (no click is necessary before typing, just start typing and your keystrokes automatically go into the input box).

- Click the mouse to define which direction you want to offset in and you're done.


These steps are not at all difficult, so I'm not sure why it is such an issue?

There are also other benefits - you don't have to think in advance about which coordinate you have to manipulate, you just type in a distance and get to specify which direction the offset will take place by using your mouse.

That also means you are not limited to only offset only in a major axis direction, you can define the direction between any 2 points that you can snap on to. This can be very important when you are working on a complex model and you want something to have a relationship to a particular existing piece of the model rather than only aligned to x, y, or z axes.


> just a refinement which all other apps already have..

Actually, they seem to be missing the functionality that I mentioned above. For example in your other apps how do you move this square by 5 units along the diagonal direction of the larger rectangle:



In MoI you do it by just following the same steps that I wrote above, just pick the base point on the corner, and the target point for the direction in the opposite corner.

That's the kind of precision control that is good to have - if your other apps can't do that, then how would you possibly categorize them as a "precision" drawing app?

Here is another simple example - move this circle by 5 units along the curve's perpendicular:



Again, easily done in MoI by following the exact same steps above, pick the base point at the circle's origin, and then type 5<enter> to activate distance constraint, then pick the direction with straight snap to follow the perpendicular along the curve.

These are some examples that I hope will show you why the more general purpose offset method that MoI is able to do can be helpful.

The methods that you keep referring to would remove functionality and make it impossible to get these results.

- Michael

Hi Igor,

> I was adjsuting points vertically according to some
> pattern(rule), and it was mush easier for me to input
> absolute coordinates than use move tool..

I don't think I saw your example... If you can post it that would probably help to illustrate it better than just a text description.

But the Move tool in MoI is pretty versatile, you can use it for placing a point at an absolute x,y,z location (just type in the x,y,z value for the target point), as well as for doing offsets.

For doing an offset you just activate the "distance constraint" by typing in a single number (other than 0, that is a shortcut for 0,0,0) rather than a coordinate value.

Similarly there is also "angle constraint" which helps you lock your target point to a specific angle value from the base point.

Both distance and angle constraint work in a similar way through a variety of commands - for example when drawing a line they are also available in the same way as they are in the Move command, to make it possible to draw a line of a specific length or angle, etc...


Probably as you use MoI for doing some more complex models, more of these things will start to make better sense to you - there is a lot of precision control that is gained by the way that MoI is structured to draw things.

- Michael

Hi Michael....

> You can use the "Move" command
Yes, it work also in 3D View, nice.... !

Then how to check the location of an object ?

Hi Anis,

> Then how to check the location of an object ?

Just run any drawing command - draw line, curve, circle, etc... it doesn't matter which one.

Then for the first point, move your mouse to that location so the point that is being picked snaps on to that spot and it will be displayed in that xyz control.

Probably at some point in the future there will be a special "analyze point" command when I get a chance to do a batch of analysis/metric type tools.

A "point object" like you are showing there is just not that frequently used, so it would not really do much good to only display coordinates when one of those special objects are selected.

When you created that point object, that would have actually been a good time to look at the xyz control to see what numeric location it was being positioned at.

- Michael

Hi Michael....

Any of the tools that draw-move-scale that produce the "snap points" will populate the coords field with the value you want.

Hi Anis,

re: Also I need to know the location of a "vertex".

Just use the exact same technique that I mentioned in the previous message (here)

Again - that is to just run any command that picks points within it, for example the line command.

Move your mouse to that vertex of the box, and then the active point will snap on to it - if it doesn't then it means that you have turned "Object Snap" off - turn it on again in that case by clicking on it in the bottom toolbar so that it is highlighted in orange.

When the point currently being drawn is snapped on to that vertex (it will display as "end" since it is at the end of an edge), then the xyz control will hold the value that you want.

- Michael

Hi Burr & Michael...

Thanks for the tips.
Yes, it work !

Ehm, you can grab the object (e.g. a corner of rectangle or point), hold mouse down and and start typing coordinates via keyboard, then <Enter> :)
You can use absolute or relative coordinate - e.g. 3,3 or r1,1

Except the relative doesn't work in V2. Why?

Petr