Hi Matt, that is on my todo list to work on adding in to MoI, but I don't think that it's going to fit into the v2 timeframe, since I'm in a kind of "wrapping up" stage for that right now.

It tends to take a lot of time to think about issues regarding selection, one thing I tend to worry about is kind of "filling up" all the available mouse operations like double click, etc..., it can get hard to add new functions in the future if all those kinds of things are taken up already, so I tend to be a fair bit on the conservative side before jumping in to filling up things like that.

Do you happen to have an example of a model where this would help?

It tends to be helpful for me to be able to see things like that so I can test with it and get some ideas on how to approach it, instead of just thinking about it "in a vacuum".

There are actually already some helpers in place for selecting a bunch of edges to fillet rather than just clicking on each one - you can use a window selection from the side view after you have picked a single edge to start with, and also you can select faces to fillet instead of selecting individual edges, sometimes it can be easier to grab a single capping face rather than trying to select a bunch of individual edges. When you select a face, all the edges that are attached to that face will be targeted for filleting.

Examples help make these kind of things a lot more concrete though, so if you have an example please post it so I can have an actual test case to look at and think about.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

I understand all the issues you have outlined. All seems fairly logical. The issue would be on the file attached where I only want to fillet the outer edges, for example, while not selecting the inner cut-outs. This is not an active project problem, more a 'would be good to have' enhancement. What do you think?

Hi Matt, so probably on this case I would do a window select to grab all those top edges, and then deselect the ones you don't want since those are fewer in number.

That goes like this:



Sometimes you can also do a strategic deselection window as well if the ones you want to exclude are clustered together - to do that you hold down Ctrl while doing the window. But in this case they are mixed in enough that you have to click on them.


One thing that is fairly common with CAD edge chaining is to target a string of edges that are tangent with one another. But that would actually not help in your example here.

There are actually 2 possible chains that could be generated from your example - starting with this edge:



There is this one which is what you wanted:



But just chaining edges that touch the start one in any way would also make this one a possibility:




Is there some kind of a rule the chaining mechanism would try to follow to choose between multiple possibilities like this?

- Michael

I would think the first loop is probably the more commonly looked for "loop" (being that it's all on a similar plane around the object). The other could easily be hinted at by selecting two of the edges of it, then looping. You could enforce such behavior explicitly all the time when given such a choice, forcing at least two edges along the loop you want to be selected before it can loop. (This is how, for example, Modo figures out what you want when trying to loop poly faces).

Hi, maybe the command could select the chain in the same plane by default, but clicking an edge in another direction would update the chain accordingly.

Marc

When elements have no name, maybe a selection "Similar than" (so a first element is selected) could be useful ?

In the example above say you want only up little circles
Select one little circle : "Select similar than" --> up and down circles are selected
Just deselect down little circles by a box selection +Ctrl

Hi Pilou,

> maybe a selection "Similar than" (so a first element is selected)
> could be useful ?

It's a good idea! But unfortunately difficult to write in the form of an algorithm.

It's hard to write computer code that is able to understand what "similar" means, it tends to be easiest to understand "completely the same" or "not the same". Similar often involves a kind of judgment which is difficult to encode in an algorithm.

- Michael

Hi Marc,

> Hi, maybe the command could select the chain in the same plane by default,

Well, one issue with that would be with edges that are lines which is not uncommon - a line does not have a single unique plane that it is in, it can be in multiple planes.


> but clicking an edge in another direction would update the chain accordingly.

So that sounds a lot more like a kind of special mode that you would go into and wait for you to select more things to chain until you pushed "Done" or right-clicked?

That's a fairly different approach than what something that is a "one-shot" instant application which is more what the double-click method that Matt originally asked about sounded like.

- Michael

Hi Keris,

> The other could easily be hinted at by selecting two of the edges
> of it, then looping.

That's a pretty good possibility... But is this kind of edge loop selection intended to only select edges that belong to just one face, or should it try to build a chain that possibly crosses multiple faces of the model?

- Michael

< But unfortunately difficult to write in the form of an algorithm.
So for ovoid that must be name all thing and selection will be more easy :)

Another thing : a selection by "Array" ?
so in this case you select a little circle (so circle is the "circle box selection" ) and apply a "circular array selection" ;)
(like the function Array circular)
Or you select an "aera box" and apply the "Array selection"

Hi Pilou,

> So for ovoid that must be name all thing and selection
> will be more easy :)

Yup, and if they all have the same name you can already use the Scene browser to select it - use the "Objects" section to select (or hide, lock, etc...) all objects of a certain name.


> Or you select an "aera box" and apply the "Array selection"

It's another interesting idea - that would be more focused on selecting things by their placement in 3D space rather than by clicking on the 2D screen.

But it's not too easy to set that up, it would need some plans on how the "volume" should be specified, like should it be a box, a sphere, a set of lines that are extruded, should it be based off of an existing object that you have drawn, should you be able to manipulate the volume by moving it around, etc... So quite a lot of issues to plan for, probably not possible until a ways in the future.

- Michael

I tried :)

Hi Pilou,

> so in this case you select a little circle (so circle is the "circle
> box selection" ) and apply a "circular array selection"

There's also a danger with having so many complex selection mechanisms, like "circular array selection", etc... - if there are for example 100 different selection functions, that would certainly be very powerful but very difficult for many users to find the most useful and basic ones within that overwhelming list of highly specialized and complex selection tools.

Turning MoI into a very complex program with huge lists of complex options is something that I'm generally trying to avoid...

- Michael

A popup of an entity list after edges are selected? It could be an overwhelming popup, but in some cases would present:

8 Closed curves .375 Radius
8 arcs .25 Radius
22 line .5 Length
16 lines .25 Length
1 closed curve 36.25 Length

Check, check....Ok.

Filtered selection.

Hi Burr,

> A popup of an entity list after edges are selected? It could
> be an overwhelming popup, but in some cases would present:

Well, I am hoping to keep MoI to be easier to use than a 747 cockpit control panel... ;)

Too many huge lists of things whamming the user in the face is just something I have put a lot of effort into avoiding.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

There is a legacy chaining or looping method that some of us still use that's been with our software since day dot, most don't know it's there because they rely on the current chaining Intelligence which sometimes does do what you mention previously, when there are alternate routes.

The way the legacy chaining or looping works is you pick the the begining of the first edge/curve of the chain string you want, hit the 'chain' icon or keyboard shortcut to let the software know you want to do looping, then pick the end of the last edge/curve you want in your loop selection. I guess it's old school stuff but it works a treat.

Cheers

Hi Danny, so one big question I have about the chaining stuff is should it attempt to make a chain that spans across several different surfaces? Or should it only attempt to chain a set of edges along one single face like in the example earlier in this thread (http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3112.3) ?

I think that doing one along a single face like in the example above is pretty straightforward.

If it is supposed to do more than that, I am going to need a bunch of other examples to understand how it is supposed to work with longer chains that don't necessarily hug just one face.


If I did a method where it stopped and asked you every time there was a potential branching juncture, then it seems like for the case above you would be picking a lot of them, unless there were some additional rules involved like once you have several curves on a single plane keep going in that plane, or stuff like that - those rules are an essential part of how it would work, so I would need to actually know those rules in order to make it work correctly.

I can't just make it "chain stuff automatically" - writing code does not allow for any kind of vagueness, the method of how it works has to be very specifically planned out.

- Michael

Maybe also these selections helpers are more "polygons spirit" than "nurbs spirit" ?

Hi Pilou,

> Maybe also these selections helpers are more
> "polygons spirit" than "nurbs spirit" ?

Well, they're probably more heavily used in polygon modeling but many CAD programs also have some kind of edge chaining method in them as well.

- Michael

My Cad/Cam package does chain selecting. It's pretty worthless in any kind of directional chains as it just kindof "spiders" all over in any which way. It is only viable in one continuous selection with no branching. But I think it is used in the cam side as a "directional thing" more than a speed up the selection process thing. a definate start and end by selection thing. :O