Hi Michael.

>>One area that often tends to take a while for polygon modelers to get used to is the idea of using
>>booleans and cutting objects as a primary way of modeling, rather than as something to be avoided.

That's my favorite part so far!

My main stumbling point is the numeric entry method. Once again, I think it is just a matter of getting used to it. I also tend to be industrial/precision oriented as opposed to free flowing and organic in my modeling.

Keep up the good work.

Chris

Hi Chris, what part of the numeric input is causing you difficulties?

For the most part if you want to enter a specific coordinate or size while you are drawing something you can just type it in right then.

Like for instance if you are drawing a line and you want it to start at coordinate x = 6, y = 2, then just type in 6,2 <enter> and it will go there.

Similarly if you are drawing a circle and want it to be of radius 7.4, then when you are at the radius placing stage, just type 7.4 <enter> in directly and you will get it...

Same stuff applies to drawing other stuff as well, like entering in a width and height for a rectangle, radius of a sphere, radius and height of a cylinder, etc...

There are also some additional precision drawing tools to help with drawing lines at a certain angle or length - while you are drawing a line if you want it to be 8.2 units long then just type in 8.2 <enter> and it will get constrained to be that length while you draw it.

If you want to draw a line at an angle of 33 degrees, type in <33 while you are drawing it and you will get a 33 degree angle snap... (or you can click in the angle constraint box in the bottom toolbar, typing in an initial < is a shortcut for direct typing entry of the angle constraint without clicking on anything).

That kind of precision numeric placement is actually a major function throughout MoI's drawing tools...


One thing that may be a little unfamiliar to you is that MoI doesn't pick some arbitrary center bounding box point and try to label it as the "position" of an object, which is something that tends to be done frequently in polygon modelers. Is that the part that seems strange?

- Michael

"My main stumbling point is the numeric entry method"

Hah, totally :D

I always want to enter everything numerically - but a lot of the time MoI doesn't seem to let you :P

(this is what I was talking about in an earlier post Michael - I forget which one, sorry!)

Hi NightCabbage,

> (this is what I was talking about in an earlier post Michael -
> I forget which one, sorry!)

I guess I didn't quite understand what you were mentioning there neither...

Like I wrote above, there is a whole lot of stuff in MoI for entering numeric values - when you are drawing things you can enter all kinds of numeric information, widths, lengths, angles, etc...

You don't even need to click, just type your numbers in and push enter and it uses them.

It's really quite packed with features relating to numeric entry to let you exactly control things as you are drawing.

- Michael

>>You don't even need to click, just type your numbers in and push enter and it uses them<<

That's the confusing part! LOL

I keep trying to "out-think" the software. It can't work like I want it to, can it? =P

-Chris

Twofoot: BTW, I've using MOI through VMWare. If you ever find MOI lagging in performance you might give VMWare a look.

-Dooki

> You don't even need to click, just type your numbers in and push enter and it uses them.

In the polyline command It would be nice just to having to click, set the direction with the mouse, enter the value and pressing enter.

Now when drawing a polyline, I do the initial click, type in a numeric entry and if I press enter the commands stops.
I have to click to go to the next entry distance in the polyline.

Again I may be missing something!

Marc

Hi Marc, no you're not missing anything - when you set distance constraint to help you draw a segment of a particular length it does not finish the pick immediately. Instead it modifies what is happening when you move the mouse around after that.

AutoCAD does it in that "immediate" way, and I've thought some about that before but one problem is it actually loses some functionality that way because it does not give you a chance to pick some snap points.

Here's an example - here I am drawing a line and then I activate distance constraint to make the line 6 units long by typing in 6 and pushing Enter:



Notice how there is a new intersection snap point that shows up after the distance constraint is activated? That snap would not really be possible if the distance was immediately applied to whatever direction the mouse happened to be pointing in.


It also just seems more user friendly the current way, where you set the constraint and then pick with the mouse because you get to see the constrained line on the screen with some visual feedback before picking it.


But maybe in v3 I can put in an option like "Apply distance immediately" that you could set if you wanted it to behave like you are talking about, maybe only when it was typed in the fast way and you could still get those snaps if you set the distance constraint by clicking on the distance control...

- Michael

"Apply distance immediately"
Maybe not very useful as you miss using any helpers for make some vanish shoot with a constraint given

Hi Michael,

This all makes sense, I didn't thought of it this way.

But yes, it might be useful to have a "direct input" option for polylines, when you have to reproduce a set of measurement it's a bit faster.
Or maybe if you press another time on enter? Although this might interfere with some underlying logic.

Marc

you can type full coords if you want. polyline-pick point-type value hit enter-hit tab-type coords.

Hi Marc,

> Or maybe if you press another time on enter? Although this
> might interfere with some underlying logic.

Yeah I'm not so sure about messing with enter for that, since it is already being used at that point as an alias for pushing the "Done" button...

I think maybe a good way to do it would be to have some option like "Apply distance constraint immediately" under Options > Snaps that when checked would then make it behave like you were talking about.

It should not be difficult to add this in for v3 - I've added it into the wiki wishlist to help keep track of it.

- Michael

Michael, when I worked in Lightwave, Newtek gave you the option of being in "numeric" mode or "sketch" mode. I like the idea of hitting "n" and being in the numeric entry mode.

Perhaps for V3?

Cheers,

Chris

More progress. Booleans rule! LOL It is very nice to know that if the real thing is 8'2" in length, then my model is also 8'2" in length. Once it is completed, I scale the entire thing to 1:22.5 and output an STL for RP.

Sweet!

C.

Hi Chris,



What would you want to have happen when you were in "numeric" mode?

In MoI you usually don't need to go into any kind of special mode to do numeric entry, just type a number and the keyboard focus will automatically go to the first available numeric input field (like the radius field for a circle for example), or the x,y,z input control in the bottom toolbar if a command does not have any special numeric fields.

It basically knows to go into numeric entry mode because you typed in a number - isn't that more convenient than having to type some thing else like 'n' first?

- Michael

Hi Michael. I think it is another case of me trying to "out think" the software. I am so used to having another tab on screen for numeric input that the mere thought of just typing numbers gives me the willies. LOL

Perhaps I will finally become one with Moi after some more work/practice. I will say however, that it is working quite well so far. I like the SIMPLE interface. Now I just need to figure out how to pay for it.

Please don't let it "evolve" into another (impenetrable) SolidWorks.

Cheers,

Chris

>>>Please don't let it "evolve" into another (impenetrable) SolidWorks.
>>>>>>>.

Well, when they give him 20 million for MoI, because it is the best, and then integrate and bloat it, we will have to find out what he's working on with his son, and buy that! :o

Hi Chris, don't worry, it is a major goal for MoI to keep its streamlined interface and ease of use as it evolves. I put a lot of effort into planning the UI in order to make that happen.

V2 has already been very successful in this department, since there has been a whole lot of stuff added in but without a "bloat" happening to the UI.

One thing that I try to do which helps a lot is to try and increase the power and flexibility of the existing tools when possible.

- Michael

Making some good progress on my model. I'm hoping to output the STL file for RP printing next week.

I am also *finally* getting used to "just typing numbers in" for numeric input. LOL

Cheers,

Chris

My RP guy is getting odd translation errors from my IGS file conversion. Any ideas? I turned up the polygon level to its highest setting when I did the output/conversion.

Thanks

Chris