Ok, so this is a pretty dumb question, but - I'm not quite sure how I can use numeric inputs to set things like object positions (using the move tool I assume).

Also, another silly question - isn't there some way to view and modify the history of objects?

eg. if I boolean object 1 - object 2 to make a hole in object 1, but then later want to reposition the hole by moving object 2

Do I have to keep the original objects to do this?

Thanks!

Hi NightCabbage,

> I'm not quite sure how I can use numeric inputs to set
> things like object positions (using the move tool I assume).

The easiest way is to place the object into your desired position when you first draw it - just directly type in the x,y,z coordinate you want and push enter and it will be placed there.

So for example if you are drawing a rectangle and you wish that the first corner point that you are placing would go at x = 6 and y = 22, then just type in 6,22 <enter> and it will go right there from the beginning.

But yes, you can also use the Move command to relocate an object later on - the Move command lets you pick 2 points, a base point and then a target point for where to move to.

Often times the base point would be snapped on to the object that is being moved, and then enter an x,y,z value for the target point to place that point of the object into that particular target spot.


> Also, another silly question - isn't there some way to view and
> modify the history of objects?

No, there is nothing like a history tree available in MoI right now, it is something that I would like to attempt to explore in the future though.

The focus in MoI initially is much more on being able to rapidly draw things from scratch, and not so much on tweaking already existing stuff, although there are some more things for editing size in v2 by clicking on the size readout in the upper-right corner that shows information about selected objects.


> Do I have to keep the original objects to do this?

That tends to be easiest. It is also possible to do some operations like "untrim" to recover underlying surfaces.

There's a tutorial on object repair techniques available here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=446.17
which shows how to do some low level reconstruction of an object where a boolean was done in an incorrect spot - that goes over techniques like untrimming and retrimming and does not require the original objects to have been saved.

But by far it is best to pay attention to what you are doing initially and place the hole in the right spot right from the start.

- Michael

Thanks Michael!

I think that's mainly just a problem with my mindset that I'll need to change :)

Next question - I'm mapping my shortcut keys...

But I'm not sure what the best place is to find all the commands?

(ie. I can't find show/hide grid)

Thanks!

-EDIT-

Another question - if I create a rectangle, and I want it to be a surface - I'm not sure what to do, as network doesn't work...

Hi NightCabbage,

> I think that's mainly just a problem with my mindset
> that I'll need to change :)

Yeah, it's a bit different from what polygon programs tend to do.

Really any generic object does not really have just a single "position" point to it, usually objects are made up of a lot of different points.

Some polygon programs add in a kind of arbitrary "local axis center point" or something like that, but MoI does not use that - instead things like the Move command ask you for that reference point and you can pick it wherever you need right at that moment, as the base point from where to move.

That helps you to precisely reference which spot on the object you want to relocated, rather than it just being based off of some kind of arbitrary "center-ish" point.


> But I'm not sure what the best place is to find all the commands?

All the commands are listed in the help file here:
http://moi3d.com/1.0/docs/moi_command_reference10.htm#shortcutkeys

Show/hide grid is done from a dialog box so it isn't quite the same thing as what is referred to as a "command" in MoI (like it doesn't have its own UI that shows up in the upper right command options area), but it can be set up on a shortcut key by putting in the following:

script:moi.grid.display = !moi.grid.display;


> Another question - if I create a rectangle, and I want it to be
> a surface - I'm not sure what to do, as network doesn't work...

The easiest way is to use one of the "Plane" commands rather than the Rectangle command - the Plane command makes a surface right from the start.

It's located in here under Draw solid:



I'd recommend spending just a few minutes browsing through those different palettes to get an idea of what commands are available in there.


re: Network - Network requires a grid of individual curves. When you create a rectangle, it is a single curve made up of 4 segments. If you use Edit/Separate to break it into 4 individual curves, those 4 curves would then work for Network.

But also if you have a planar curve rather than using Network, there is a special Construct > Planar command that can be used to build a trimmed plane surface out of any planar curve that you have selected.

- Michael

Brilliant, thank you again Michael :)

1) So, is there a place or a way I can find out all of the potential commands or objects with which I can manipulate?

I'm a programmer so I'm happy to get my hands dirty :)

But I'd like to be able to write scripts (Javascript, right?) and create shortcuts, etc.

2) Also, I remember back when someone was creating a plugin/mod that let you write a script to create procedural geometry - where could I find that?

3) And last but not least, are there any 3rd party scripts that are commonly used that I should find?

Hi NightCabbage,

> 1) So, is there a place or a way I can find out all of the potential
> commands or objects with which I can manipulate?
>
> I'm a programmer so I'm happy to get my hands dirty :)

There isn't any full documentation but you can find all the object model and properties and stuff available to script in the moi.idl file - there is a link to it here:

http://moi3d.com/wiki/Scripting


> 2) Also, I remember back when someone was creating a
> plugin/mod that let you write a script to create procedural
> geometry - where could I find that?

The thread for that was here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2922.1

But I don't think that Dave ever actually released it, you may want to try and contact him to ask about it.


> 3) And last but not least, are there any 3rd party scripts
> that are commonly used that I should find?

Yup, there's a good collection of them on Petr's MoI page - go to the main http://moi3d.com web page, hit the Resources link there and then the link to Petr's page is the 7th item down on the Resources page.

- Michael

Hmmm, bringing up an old thread here (created by me :D)

So, I've now been using MoI for quite a while, and, of course, I completely love it.

I do still think that it would be handy to have numeric input for position, rotation and scale...

At present, you have the properties box (which currently contains the name, style, size / radius, etc.) - I'd love this to also contain the position and rotation (given, I guess that the scale is already accounted for by the size?)

Is this a possible add-on feature? I think it'd be extremely handy :D

Hi NightCabbage, well the problem is that objects don't actually have a single "position" point as such, they are made up of a lot of different points.

So it's not really that clear what you mean when you say "set the object's position" - what do you expect to set exactly?

Some programs associate a kind of additional "local axis" with each object and then that's the thing that you set the position of. But MoI doesn't use that "local axis for each separate object" though.

- Michael

Good point. A fail idea of mine, I see :P

Hmm, I guess you can already specify some numeric input for the move command...

Maybe this is enough after all.

Hi NightCabbage, well it is something requested quite a bit I guess because people are used to it from their animation program.

But it's not something that's commonly done in a CAD program because it's often not really an accurate thing to just set the position of some totally arbitrary point.

But yes with the Move command you can set the exact position of whichever specific point of the object that you want - for the first step of the Move command snap on to the point on the object that you want to position, and then for the target point you can enter in an x,y,z coordinate. I think in MoI v3 I'll also be adding an option to the Move command to let you use the centroid of the object as the "from" point.


Rotation is kind of a similar thing - a generic object just doesn't really have a specific rotation, for example what would you say is the current rotation of this shape here:



Similar to "position", rotation is something that just is not a built in natural part of geometry (other than with simple unmodified primitives like a cylinder or something), it is something that has to be tracked by some kind of local axis type system.

Those local axis systems are great for animation, but for modeling only there is a lot of potential for them to get in the way.

Like for instance I know one CAD program that used a local axis for things, and it was pretty weird - every time you drew a line it would ask you to pick 3 points, one for the start of the line, one for the end of the line, and one for the "axis point". It's kind of inconvenient to make all kinds of extra picks like that when you're just trying to draw something... If you were trying to make the lines fly around, then having markers like that would start to serve a much better purpose. Of course MoI is focused on drawing and modeling and not on animation.

- Michael

NightCabbage,
You can acheive your poor mans Bounds data with 2 commands in MoI. "BoundingBox" and "BoundingBoxCenter".

If you use these while you create your objects, then use the object managment system to group these 2 things to be selectable as one, then you can manipulate your objects with these values. (Just no GUI).

FYI

Thanks guys :)

Michael - yes, I guess I was thinking that each object could have a local axis, with a "center point" - which would, by default, be the center of the whole object, but you could also move it to any other point on the object.

Having a centroid, as you said, in the exact center of the object would be handy - I'm often needing that, and the BoundingBoxCenter command is a little bulky to use (and then you need to delete the point, etc.)

Hi NightCabbage,

> Michael - yes, I guess I was thinking that each object
> could have a local axis, with a "center point" - which
> would, by default, be the center of the whole object,
> but you could also move it to any other point on the
> object.

Well, that implies quite a lot of things to support that - extra stuff being drawn on the screen, extra UI to manage that local axis separately from the object, you may be surprised at how much impact such a thing would have.

It's pretty easy for all that stuff to actually have a negative impact, basically anything that adds clutter and complexity can have some negative consequences to it.


> Having a centroid, as you said, in the exact center of the object
> would be handy - I'm often needing that, and the BoundingBoxCenter
> command is a little bulky to use (and then you need to delete the
> point, etc.)

Yeah, that's why having it as an option in the Move command could be handy.

Do you have an example of a situation where you needed it? Note that there is also the Transform > Align command which does allow you to center an object at a particular spot in a 2D sense, does that help do what you need?

- Michael

Perhaps it's a legacy of my background, but I often find myself wanting to position and rotate objects from their center points :)

Probably my default way of working, unless I want to align something with an edge of another object, etc. (whereupon the default MoI style is perfect)

Sorry Michael, I feel like I've been asking for so many feature requests over the last 24 hours! Just thought I'd post some of the things I'd been thinking about since learning MoI :)

Hi NightCabbage, well for rotation if you use the edit frame in a 2D viewport, that will rotate around its center point.

For example here I am rotating a box by using the rotation grip on the edit frame, notice how it rotates around its center:



Does that do what you want?


It would probably help me a lot if you could post some example models that showed me some instances where you wanted to do some of the things you are discussing, like move an object by its center point.

If you just want to move an object over a bit arbitrarily, you can grab any point to do that, you don't really need the center specifically for just pushing it over a bit or stuff like that.

If you want the center to align with other things, the Align command could probably do that job for you.

It's also possible to grab the midpoint between 2 points as the source for Move by using construction lines, maybe that would help you out in some circumstances.


But it is difficult for me to know for sure because I don't really understand the particular situation that you're running into - if you could show me an example model that would help me understand more specifically what you are trying to do.

- Michael

< For example here I am rotating a box by using the rotation grip on the edit frame, notice how it rotates around its center:

And if you Click on the "rounded arraw" you can change the axe of rotation ;)

Ah, I didn't know that, cool! :)

And of course that works in 3D ;)