Hi Tony,
> The on the fly construction lines are a powerful feature of
> MoI that I haven't seen anywhere else. Have you patented
> that system Michael?
No, it kind of tends to be a pain to get stuff patented, you have to hire a lawyer that's experienced in it and jump through several hoops.
Also the US Patent system is really a big mess when it comes to software patents, and it is frequently abused. I am happy to stay away from it as much as possible.
But yes, MoI's construction line system is unique as far as I know. There are several other systems that create guidelines on the fly, but every one that I have seen is similar to Ashlar-Vellum's original Drawing Assistant mechanism, where the lines radiate out from a single base point, rather than being more generally defined by 2 distinct points like MoI's construction lines are.
That's why the ones in MoI have so much additional functionality - stuff like the reflected endpoints as shown in the above screenshots, getting the midpoint between any 2 points, capturing a distance and using it elsewhere, etc... - much of that additional functionality is enabled because of having having 2 points defined for each guide line so that there is an actual distance associated with it and not just a location and direction only.
The other problem that tends to happen with the "Drawing Assistant" style lines is that they tend to trigger pretty easily and can quickly fill up your whole working area with snap zones, which is fine for simple mechanical drawings but really gets in the way if you are trying to do more subtle drawing with freeform curves and such. One other nice thing about MoI's system is that it stays out of your way until you want one.
> However, I also like to use permanent construction lines and
> use that script A LOT. It is very good and I had hoped that this
> would make it permanently into MoI V2 as you really need both
> systems.
There are still a few unresolved UI issues about making an "official" permanent construction line mechanism, like should you be able to select construction lines somehow so you could remove a particular one? At the moment there is not any infrastructure in place for that part.
Also, in addition to that custom command, you can also set up some keyboard shortcuts to keep the clines you have created in the current command:
http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi/#KeepCLine
- Michael