I do not ask this question to be mean or a j-hole but to be serious so please don't read into it anything beyond my curiosity.

Many times throughout the forums people ask for some pretty complex features to try to make MoI more fit what they need. This is a $300, but awesome, design tool but I get the impression that with many of the people asking for extra features, or a better way to do some surfacing such as the automotive model that someone wanted to make but the tutorial book that I used was pretty much ignored because the output surfacing would not always be automotive quality. Well, the tutorial is to learn the techniques and not design a car. An automotive engineer does not design in a $300 tool.

Similarly with the thread regarding line weights for outside edges for drawings. Sure it would be nice but there are multiple low cost, free, or professional tools that can take care of this very issue.

Now, when you are asking for the section feature, which is a nice idea, but then you say that you are working with other designers that are always asking for something that is difficult to do in MoI, why not just buy Rhino. Do you initial work in MoI and then send it to Rhino for completion?

MoI is such a great tool for most work, up to a point like what you are running into, and at a price point where a hobbyist can justify using it. MoI also plays so well with other tools that you can do quite a bit of work in MoI and then port out to your finishing package. If MoI gets too complex it will lose its focused power and the price will eventually have to move up in order to have the amount of presence that it would take to support MoI.

I just fear scope creep with all the wants (most of which would rock but there are reasons why things sometimes require separate software packages) and the MoI starts to slide away from what makes it the shiz-nic. Simple, clean, plays well with other tools.

Best thing for MoI is to keep working the 2D and 3D design and feature sets (3D solids, surfacing, etc) which it already excels at and make sure to keep those areas at the top of the scale. A Rolls Royce that does a few focused things very well at a price point that allows anyone access to the tool is much more valuable than too many "I wish it could..." creeping in. I say this from the perspective that it sounds like many people requesting features are already working as designers which implies access to more funds and other tools from what a hobbyist would have.

Sure, I think it would be nice if I could do other things in MoI but I just finish in Rhino or spit files out for (God help me) GeoMagic (puking in the corner).

Back to wastzzz - if you are doing designs like this and being paid for it pony up and get Rhino. There are many other free / paid for addons that rock with Rhino but this does not mean that MoI gets displaced at all. MoI is an awesome tool for 70 to 95% of most design projects, in my tiny opinion.

Hi Max,

> In the View Panel.

I'm kind of unsure about putting what's really a geometry generation tool inside of the View panel.


> It's a section tool. Now I have to use Rhino to make sections out of my models, using
> plugins like the free "Section Tools" or the not-free "VisualARQ".

Please keep in mind that both of those tools have been extensively worked on by developers whose main jobs are just doing those tasks.


> But this is not just an architectural need. I am working for designers as well, and
> they always ask for sections. Plan, section, elevation: it's the design process

There are a couple of different ways you can generate a section line already, you can draw in a line like you've shown there and then use Construct > Curve > Project to project the line onto the object, the result will be a section line:






Another way is to make a plane for where you want the section and then use Construct > Curve > Isect to generate intersection curves between the plane and your object.

- Michael

Thank you Michael, I already experimented with the Isect command and it works fine for sectioned elements, but what I need is to project the elements that are far away from the line\cutting plane

Hi Max,

> Thank you Michael, I already experimented with the Isect command and it works fine for sectioned
> elements, but what I need is to project the elements that are far away from the line\cutting plane

I guess I need a more detailed explanation from you - I'm just not familiar with the type of sectioning that you need. What kind of additional projection do you need, can you post an example with some simple objects?

- Michael

I think what Max means would be like cutting a model and then perform hidden line removal on the resulting geometry.





The result would deliver something like that:




Marc

I was about to make a similar drawing to explain.. Thanks Marc, it's exactly what I mean :)

Thanks Marc for the visual explanation.

So Max I guess you'll be able to get that kind of result by doing a boolean difference with the line to slice the object up, delete the half you don't want to see and then use the new hidden line removal to get the view of it that you want.

It would be a pretty complex feature to try and bundle those things up into one single command. Things like this are usually a lot more complicated than many people guess.

Are these things you want to generate this on always solids?

You probably also want something like a hatch pattern placed on the sectioned plane too. You might also look into SpaceClaim for generating something like that also.

- Michael

Yes I could just use the boolean difference when the hidden line feature will be ready. But still I have to select by hand all the objects to delete. The problem is that this method is geometry-destructive, I mean that I always have to make a copy of the model or the file before doing it. What I was looking for, was an automated process for plane creation (from a line), difference, delete objects, generate drawing, and then undo the boolean operation! No need for hatch patterns, I always do hatching in Archicad or illustrator. But it's ok I can do it manually, I really want to try this new hidden line feature!
thanks,
m

Hi Max,

> But still I have to select by hand all the objects to delete.

It should just be one window selection in the plan view...


> The problem is that this method is geometry-destructive, I mean that I always have to make a
> copy of the model or the file before doing it.

Why is that? You can just do something like open the file, do the operations you need, close the file and push "Discard changes" when it asks you if you want to save changes or not.

If you are super concerned about accidentally hitting save and overwriting the file, you can right-click on the Open button instead of left click. The right click does an "Open Template" instead of a plain open, and that does not set the current filename so it will prompt you for a filename if you hit Save that way.

- Michael

Ok, that will do. Any ideas of when the hidden line thing will be out? I really want to delete Rhino from my PC :p

Hi Max,

> Any ideas of when the hidden line thing will be out?

I'm still in the process of working on it... Maybe another week or so.

I think that probably the kind of section tool that you were talking about will be further out in the future - at some point I'd like to have the concept of a "Sheet" or 2D paper drawing view that you could generate and that's probably where an option for generating that type of section could come into play.

It doesn't fit into the UI very easily until there is some general category for managing 2D generated drawings like that.

- Michael

Thank you. Can't wait to use that to produce my project sections :)

How is folders inside the browser going? Thats a feature I would really appreciate.

Hi Ed,

> How is folders inside the browser going? Thats a feature I would really appreciate.

That's not going anywhere at the moment, I've been focused on the new hidden line removal stuff for quite a while.

I definitely want to to have a folder organizer mechanism for the browser but I'm not really sure when it will happen.

- Michael

One feature would be excellent for design workflow, real time temporary cutting plane for working in section. This feature allows people to study their models and add details

I know this is likely to be extremely complicated, but would it be possible to edit a cross sectional curve created in this way and have it affect the original model? I vaguely recall seeing something similar in SolidWorks once, and being impressed..

Also, to add to the debate above, a cross section tool similar to Sketch Up would be very useful for me. It would allow me to expose areas of a model for editing that are otherwise invisible (I'm using Moi for architectural work, so changing floor levels, adding doors, and so on.)

<< a cross section tool similar to Sketch Up
A simple Booelan Diff (or Trim if you want open volumes) by a straight line + hide one part (or move) don't make the same ?

"A simple Booelan Diff (or Trim if you want open volumes) by a straight line + hide one part (or move) don't make the same ?"

It would if I wanted to affect the geometry. It's really a display thing i need, to hide everything on one side of the cut line temporarily.

Make undo after ;)
But Michael will tell you if it's doable or not! )

Hi al,

> I know this is likely to be extremely complicated, but would it be possible to edit a cross sectional curve
> created in this way and have it affect the original model?

I guess it's "possible" in the sense that if I buckled down and worked on just that for a year or so maybe it could happen...

It's just fairly tricky finding spare years of work time hanging around though. ;)

There are a lot more basic kinds of editing to tackle first way before that kind of more fancy editing though.

- Michael