Hi eric, I don't really know exactly what is involved with producing 3D PDFs directly - but I think that it's not easy to just add in support by coding it directly, I believe that a separate library has to be licensed to make that happen.

So because of that, it kind of makes things more complicated for me to add stuff like that in.

One good solution that exists currently is the $99 Simlab Composer 3D PDF version:
http://www.simlab-soft.com/3d-products/simlab-composer-buy.aspx


> ... maybe when you include the ability to print a model to a device?

Well, that's kind of the problem - the 3D PDF stuff is completely different than 2D PDF stuff, there isn't really any kind of relation between producing 2D printed output and producing 3D PDF output. So it's not really something that I'd expect to do along with print output because it is so unrelated to print.

- Michael

Hi eric, the other thing that makes me kind of shy away from that is that the current library situation and general infrastructure for 3D PDFs seems to be kind of in flux right now. See here for some details:

http://www.deelip.com/?p=4827

Seeing that other developers are having some problems with the shifting infrastructure around 3D PDF does not exactly fill me with a lot of confidence to jump into it....

- Michael

I have this cool plugin for Google sketchup!
http://www.simlab-soft.com/3d-plugins.aspx
(same price that the Simlab composer above so maybe it's best to buy the Simlab Composer 3D PDF;)

Make your object in Moi export it in Skp format
Load it in Google Sketchup
Launch the Plug et voilà !

Hi Michael ...

And if one has Rhino 4 there is a $95 plug-in for that. But a MoI file has to be sent to Rhino 4 and 'saved' for it to work properly.
It does make sending 3d MoI files pretty fluid and accurate that way ... layers can be turned on and off at will to indicate construction details.

Simlab is a good alternate, too, and I gather that the Sketchup one works though I have not tried it.

I recently had a client download the non expiry version of MoI and sent him the MoI 3dm ... worked like a charm with the advantage of hidden lines on or off.

Maybe by version 5 or so ??

cheers,
eric

Hi eric,

> Maybe by version 5 or so ??

Maybe something like that... But it also may fit better with a different company offering it by some plug-in mechanism in MoI same as what you are talking about for Rhino.

Eventually I want to support plug-in extensions to MoI developed by other companies, but it's something that brings along a lot of extra support burden for me so it is not an area that I can really focus on while there are still more core modeling features to implement first.

- Michael