> What possibilities are there of any parametrics to your modelling?

Hi MadTooler - MoI has a certain level of this built in currently, it's called "Construction History".

This kicks in if for example you create a lofted surface and then edit one of the curves that you lofted - the surface will update. This also works for other stuff as well like revolving, extruding, sweeping, ...

But there are limits to this - it doesn't currently work on something that edits the object in place instead of creating a new one, for example fillet.

I do expect to work on adding more history functionality in future versions, but the current level is what will be available for the V1 release.

- Michael

>MoI has a certain level of this built in currently, it's called "Construction History".

I have been trying to find out how the history works. i have searched your forum and haven't had any luck.

> I have been trying to find out how the history works.

It gets applied automatically when you edit objects that were input into a command.

For example - draw a curve then do a revolve to make a lathed type shape from the curve.

Now select the original curve, turn on points for it and drag some of the points around to change the shape of the curve. You will see the lathed surface (the result of the Revolve command) update as you edit the generator curve - the update of the lathed surface is construction history in action.

Some commands generate objects that have history updates turned on by default - these are Extrude, Blend, Revolve, Loft, Sweep, Offset, Planar. Other commands still generate history but by default the update is turned off, this is because for some basic workhorse type commands such as copy, it can sometimes get in your way if history updates are going on when all you want to do is manipulate objects individually.

You can turn on or off history updates for a particular object by selecting it and using Edit/History.

So for example if you don't want the revolve to update when you edit its generator curve, you can select the revolved surface and do Edit/History and turn updates off - now the revolve will not update when you edit its input curve.

Similarly you can turn on history updates for the results of other commands if you wish, for example the result of a mirror can have history updates turned on so that it gets updated when its original half is edited. I use this in this recent mini tutorial: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=402.9 - that goes through the steps to set up a lofted surface where you can edit some curves for half of a surface but see the full mirrored object update as you edit.

Let me know if you have any questions about any particular aspect of history.

- Michael

Question on History:

How do you know if the history is enabled or disabled on an object?

I am still adjusting to the GUI and am not sure if i am just missing something obvious. Is there somewhere that lists object properties? Maybe that shows the current state of the object being selected?

When I run history, all I see is a prompt for select objects, if i have not already, then enable or disable.

Just curious, if more indepth parametrics were in effect, would there be a much larger draw on system resources?

How do you get any work down with all the effort you put into your forum?



Thanks for making me budget a new tabletPC. By the way, are there any you would recommend?

> How do you know if the history is enabled or disabled on an object?

You just know from its behavior - if it updates when you edit the generator curves or objects it has history enabled, otherwise not.


> I am still adjusting to the GUI and am not sure if i am just missing something
> obvious. Is there somewhere that lists object properties? Maybe that shows
> the current state of the object being selected?

This is one of the areas that is not really finished yet. In the future I expect to have the concept of an object properties panel that lets you edit various parts of the object state, but version 1.0 won't actually have this yet.

MoI is still a very young product, there will be several "missing" areas like this for some time - some type of grouping / layers / object management type mechanism is another big missing area. I'm kind of lumping this together with object properties so that's also why I have held off on object properties until I have had a chance to really tackle this area as a whole. Certain areas that involve a lot of UI are going to progress rather on the slow side.


> When I run history, all I see is a prompt for select objects, if i have not already, then enable or disable.

Yup, it's pretty bare bones, it just lets you set it on or off, it doesn't tell you the current state. Eventually when there are object properties this command will go away and it will just be in the properties.


> Just curious, if more indepth parametrics were in effect, would there be a
> much larger draw on system resources?

Yes in some ways, because certain types of parametric history will involve saving earlier versions of the objects involved.

For example - if you import a model from an IGES file and then want to fillet some of the edges of it, for the fillet to have parametric history means that the original unfilleted objects need to be stored somewhere so they can be accessed again for recalculation when the fillet changes. That's in addition to the normal current model state that has the filleted result. It may be necessary to store many different earlier versions of models in this manner, which is going to involve quite a bit of work for managing all this extra data.


> How do you get any work down with all the effort you put into your forum?

:) Well, if it wasn't for my effort in the forum I wouldn't really properly understand what things need the most work.

So it pays off because otherwise I might be spending a lot of effort working on the wrong stuff...


> Thanks for making me budget a new tabletPC. By the way, are there any
> you would recommend?

The tricky part is getting one with an ok video card in it, there are plenty that skimp in this area so watch out for that. For quite a while Toshiba had some with pretty good graphics cards in them, so that might be a good one to check out. When you get closer to buying, maybe you can post (under a new subject) here asking for recommendations, or also post the specs of the one you have decided on for comments. You also might want to check out what people are talking about here: http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/

There's also a different option, the Wacom Cintiq: http://wacom.com/cintiq/ - it's rather expensive, but it is a monitor + tablet combination that you can use with your existing computer and video card.

- Michael

Micheal any chance for Boolean operation history?
Thats a cool thing to have!

> Micheal any chance for Boolean operation history?

Eventually I think yes, but not for V1.

This is similar to fillets - when you do a boolean operation, the original objects that were inputs into the boolean are deleted. When things are deleted, that is what breaks history right now. For history to work right now, the objects that are input into the command have to continue to exist after the command is finished. For example if you do a loft of some curves, those curves are not deleted so history works there, you can edit a curve to update the loft. But you can't edit deleted objects...

It will take quite a bit more work to have a mechanism that keeps track of deleted objects so that they're not totally gone and can be edited for stuff like booleans and fillet history.

- Michael

[quote]The future of MCAD is Direct Modeling. History-free Modeling. Dynamic Modeling. Freeform Modeling. Anything-But-Parametric Modeling.[quote]

See here.... hehe..

Petr

ps: Rhino's History is very similar to MoI one. It is not parametric modeling or something like this.

Hi Kreten, V1 is aimed at more like Rhino-type history common to several NURBS based applications. Actually MoI goes beyond Rhino a bit in this area since it applies history to more commands (sweep for example), and also updates history dynamically while editing instead of only when you finish a pick - for example, drag a control point in MoI and you see the history update while you are dragging instead of only after you finish dragging. This combined with MoI's very fast meshing allows for history to be applied with shaded feedback very well.

Let me know if you feel that there is something missing in MoI's history compared to Rhino.

In future versions I expect to extend history to apply to more situations.

- Michael

Micheal heres a little something, an idea, thats not related to history at all, but maybe has an feel to it.
Also not in Rhinos power but in power in some other NURBS apps. like AmapiPro...

o.k. here goes

1. I fillet the upper edges of the cube
2. later on I realize that I have forgoten to maybe fillet one "side" edge. If I try to filet it, I get the "sharp" edge where the 3 fillets met. And thats bad! :-(
3. I want to get smooth transitions in the place where the 3 fillets met, like in the pic.3.


You could maybe make it possible then to choose what kind of meting place you want to get, smooth or sharp...

p.s. also maybe an an idea to get this kind of a "edgepoint" fillets....people modeling bolets parts would spare a lot of time here!

Hi JTB,

> Michael, since parametrics, connecting and grouping objects are relevant, have you
> thought about all those methods mentioned in the other thread?
> http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=384.1
> Any (even temporary) decisions?

No real decisions yet.... I haven't really had any time yet to focus on this area. It's probably going to take some sketching and prototypes before I'll be able to figure it out. It's pretty time consuming so I haven't had a chance to dig into it yet.

- Michael

Michael any luck with the filleting issue I talked about in the previous post?

> Michael any luck with the filleting issue I talked about in the previous post?

Hi Kreten, those ones are not going to be as easy to add immediately, they involve a lot more changes to workflow and program UI.

Those ones will have to go on the wish list for a future version.

But the blend-style fillet is looking pretty good.

- Michael

o.k. Maybe for V2 then...but the blend thing is unbelivable! :-)

I have to agree with Petr. Parametric modeling has it's place, but I don't think it is here. The free form styling tools currently provided in MoI are excellant! I deal with the problems of parametric systems all day long. I'm not knocking them, but I think the two should work together (i.e. via import/export) but be kept seperate.

Michael T.

Hi Michael T -

I guess it is easy to get tripped up on terminology here. When I say that in the future MoI will have additional parametric functionality added, I mean it in a pretty general sense. That is that it should be possible to modify some values (for example the radius of a fillet), and then basically have that command automatically run again to generate an updated model.

This will be an optional thing that will show up in some kind of object history browser.

It won't fundamentally change the workflow of how you draw things in MoI - like for example it doesn't mean that MoI will force you to define sketch planes, etc... MoI will remain a sort of loose and free drawing environment as it currently is.

If you don't go to the history browser to change anything, you won't notice any differences from the current appoach. Well, except your files may be bigger due to additional data being stored, but I'll be sure to have a way to turn that off as well.

That's the idea anyway. So it won't really bring about any major workflow restructuring in MoI, if that is what you are worried about.

It also won't have all the exact same functionality as a "parametric solid modeler", but it will let you alter "parameters"...

Anyway, I'm not sure when this will be available, it might be a while.

- Michael

Thank you Michael G. for clarifying that.