Hi,

it's february so where is the new beta? Hurry! :D (just kidding)
Btw. i like Michaels attitude to release beta versions to the users because it keeps them interested and he get bug reports for free. ;)
Getting a new beta is like getting a gift on christmas. :)

MfG
sk2k

Hehe... makes me think of that release that came on the 24th of dec. (Here in Denmark we open all the presents the 24th instead of the 25th) :P

It will definitely be sometime this week. I've got just a few things left to do:

- Undo for selection

- Undo the last point in curve and polyline tools.

- Editing the location of background images.

I think that probably the first 2 I will finish up today, but I'm not quite sure how long the last one will take, maybe a couple of days. If it takes too much longer I will just push it off until another beta and release this one, but I'd like to try and see if I can get it in so that image backgrounds can be all wrapped up.

Other than that there are quite a few bug fixes and little things for this beta. Let's see...


Updated crash handling - the crash dialog now has a button you can use to save your model data in the event of a program crash (should have had this earlier, sorry!).

Bug fix for picking the final point pick in rotate, cylinder, and cone commands - previously the final point pick in these wouldn't get tan or perp straight snaps on it.

Fixed bug with planar end caps - was using too tight of a tolerance for these which could cause unnecessary failures.

Fixed a bug that would cause half-folded-over sweeps and lofts in certain circumstances.

Fixed a crash bug in .3ds export.

Tuned Direct3D display engine to reduce peak video memory usage.

Made opening a file by double-clicking a .3dm file in Windows Explorer work.

Fixed a bug in untrim when untrimming the last hole in an object which turned it into a solid.

Fixed a couple of different meshing bugs.

Fixed Join so it doesn't try to join edges that are already glued to other edges.

Updated revolve so that cases where you pick the revolve axis down the center of a curve will work, it now automatically trims the revolve profile by the axis if the curve crosses the axis.

Tuned up select all so that if you have a drilled-in selection (edges or faces), it will only select all that object's edges or faces instead of also including every other object.

Fixed extrude with Set Path where the path has kinks and cap ends is enabled.

Added cap ends option to revolve and rail revolve.

New polygon star command.

New setting in mesh dialog that allows "Divide larger than" to also apply to planar faces.

New elliptical option for arc center.

New point order options for arc through 3 points.

New red rectangle warning indicator when you have control points stacked up.

And some other minor fixes...

- Michael

Tnx Michael! ;)

:)

Michael, this is an impressive list of fixes!
It would be great to finish the background image issues, but why do you only refer to image position? what about image scaling? I think it would be very useful too.

> but why do you only refer to image position? what about image scaling?

Yup, sorry I do intend to do scaling as well.

I have undo for selection finished now - so with the next beta if you make a selection mistake, for example click off somewhere and deselect everything, you can hit undo to restore the selection.

It doesn't store a whole history of selection through multiple steps, just the last one so you can just fix one immediate selection mistake. But I think this will come in handy.

- Michael

Have you plan something about UI without text, only icons? (as option of course:)

> Have you plan something about UI without text, only icons? (as option of course:)

Yup, I want to add an option for this sometime pretty soon.

- Michael

Ok, undo for drawing a curve by Control points, through points, or polyline is now working for the next beta. This lets you remove the last picked point by using undo.

So now all that's left before releasing this beta is trying to get the background image editing done.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

>>Updated crash handling - the crash dialog now has a button you can use to
>>save your model data in the event of a program crash (should have had this earlier, sorry!)

Now, we can define non-repeating commands in .ini file.



And what about making a "SaveAlwaysBeforeRun=" as well? So we could include an "unsafe" commands like Fillet into this group and MoI would perform automatic saving before starting a command. Sometimes, MoI calculates too long so I decide to kill it. In this case, my work is usually partly lost.

Petr

> So we could include an "unsafe" commands like Fillet into
> this group and MoI would perform automatic saving before starting a command.

The main focus for the next beta after is going to be an overhaul for Fillet, Chamfer, Offset, Shell, and booleans. If all goes according to plan, these commands will run in a special "sandbox" environment where the main program will be protected from any crashes in those commands, and also allow you to cancel them in mid-calculation.

If that works properly, it should tame these commands.

- Michael

I've been making some good progress on image editing. It looks like I should be able to release a new beta sometime later tomorrow, there are just a few more things to tune up.

I've got scaling editing working for images - here is what it looks like:



Now when you are inside the Edit/Image command, a frame with some corner grips will show up around each image, allowing you to grab and drag one to scale the image.

This is also a prototype for how a similar frame around regular objects might eventually work, probably for version 2.0 though since there are several additional details to work out for that. But this is pretty good progress along towards that.

- Michael

All what i can say is that i do don't want such things around my objects. :) Or do they appear only around selected objects?

MfG
sk2k

Really great Michael!!

Only one thing: i have seen that if i have a array like a chain, Moi slow down! ;)
The 3d View are really slow! ;)

If i open the model into Rhino, the 3dView are more fast!

How i can improve it?
Have in MOI the possibility to see only wireframe into 3dview?

Tnx in advance for the reply! ;)

Lorenzo aka MrBraun

Does this "Plan image" can be "snaped on the grid?
Can be rotated in the 3D Space as a simple "Plan" ?
Can we have something different than Audi? :)

>>All what i can say is that i do don't want such things around my objects. :) Or do they appear only around selected objects?

I guess the frame with a corner grips will show only around selected objects when you run a particular command like Rotate or Move... Petr

> All what i can say is that i do don't want such things around my objects. :)
> Or do they appear only around selected objects?

Hi Tony, for the next beta it will only appear around each background image, and only while you are inside the View/Image command.

In version 2.0, I do expect to have them around a regular object as well, but there will only be one single frame that will appear around all selected objects. I will include some way to turn it on or off.

But I don't expect it to be much of a problem, the frame isn't too heavy and is pretty transparent until you move over a part of it. It is also offset from the object by a bit so it doesn't interfere with grabbing any point on the actual object. But it will get a bit more complex when it frames a 3D shape instead of a planar one though.

The current frames provides just for scaling background images right now, but they are sort of a "proof of concept" for how a general object frame might work later on.

- Michael

Hi Lorenzo,

> Only one thing: i have seen that if i have a array like a chain, Moi slow down! ;)
> The 3d View are really slow! ;)
>
> If i open the model into Rhino, the 3dView are more fast!
>
> How i can improve it?

This is because Rhino is only drawing the wireframe and isn't drawing the shaded surfaces.

MoI by default draws surfaces at a pretty high density. Normally this is nice because you get to see your models looking nice and smooth instead of seeing the polygons very much.

But if you have a very dense model with a lot of curved pieces (like a chain), then the default high detail display will cause quite a lot of polygons to be drawn, which can slow things down quite a bit.

One way to speed it up is to decrease the display density - to do this go to Options, and inside "Meshing parameters", change "Surface angle" and "Trim curve angle" to something like 30 degrees. This will make the display a lot rougher (you will be able to see the polygons making up the display), but it should also be faster.

You might also uncheck "Display hidden-line curves" and "Display hidden-line edges" to speed things up a bit. Remember to turn these back on when you switch back to working on a more simple model.


> Have in MOI the possibility to see only wireframe into 3dview?

Not for version 1.0 . Bu I do want to add this in to a future version though, it will probably be the biggest help to working with higher density models.

- Michael

Hi Pilou,

> Does this "Plan image" can be "snaped on the grid?

Yes, I just finished the part for moving images around. So scaling and moving images will be possible with this new beta.


> Can be rotated in the 3D Space as a simple "Plan" ?

Nope, I didn't get to rotation yet. I might give this a try a bit tomorrow, but I didn't want to hold up releasing the new beta for it. It's not really a big issue for most backdrop images, but I would like to explore a couple of more concepts for the frame editing.


> Can we have something different than Audi? :)

No, only Audi. :)

- Michael

Hi Petr,

> I guess the frame with a corner grips will show only around selected
> objects when you run a particular command like Rotate or Move... Petr

The idea would be that there would just be one frame around all selected objects, but the frame would display all the time, not just within Rotate or Move commands. The purpose of the frame will be to make it possible to do some interactive rotation or scaling in a more immediate way, without having to use the Rotate or Scale commands.

Anyway, this won't be ready for regular objects until a future version, but the image frames for this new beta gives an idea on how it might work, so it would be good to hear what people think of that.

- Michael