Hi Greg, also another kind of related thing that I also want to add is an extended properties dialog where I'll have a lot of space to add a whole bunch of controls for analysis modes and various things like that.

That and the plug-ins menu will kind of be semi dumping grounds for a lot of additional tools, but will only add 1 top level button to the main UI for their entry points.

So it's not like I'm 100% against stuff like that, if it only has a minimal impact on the main UI.

The Options dialog is actually kind of like that already if you want to see an example.

- Michael

first, i agree about your point with SolidWorks getting over complicated. i hate that program with a passion. i'm a trained mechanical draftsmen and you know software is crap when it's quicker and easier to just grab a pencil and do it on paper. i really enjoy MOI's simple and clean interface. i only discovered MOI a couple days ago by pure accident and having played with the demo, i find it to be a pleasant mix of something between Rhino3D's technical capabilities and Sketchup's simplicity.

which brings me to an idea that someone near the top posted about two editions of MOI. i would actually encourage this idea. take Sketchup as the example of success. their free version is probably about 75% complete compared to their paid PRO version. this tactic gets Sketchup into the hands of everyone and after a while it becomes their friend. i'm a member of a hobbyist group that does wargame terrain modeling (www.hirstarts.com) and Sketchup is heavily used in the community for design and layout of buildings brick-by-brick, because it's free. the caveat is that the free version is for personal, educational, and hobbyist use and if you use Sketchup for business you are supposed to upgrade to PRO. the attraction to the PRO version is that it's ability is expanded past it's proprietary file import/export and there is a slew of extra tools that would unlikely ever be used for personal reasons. this is where upgrading to PRO makes sense for business use, not to mention the extended tech support.

if you were to make a "free" entry level version, i would suggest disabling things like scripts, some of the more complex tools, and probably import/export outside of the .3DM format (unless you come up with your own proprietary file format or header for .MOI) in order to make the full version more appealing. the gimped free version gets it into their hands without any pressure and when/if they're ready for more complex things they will upgrade without hesitation, because they are already comfortable with the software. otherwise they will happily recommend it to others who are looking because they've developed goodwill from the experience. it's just a thought to increase your user base.

Google is a multi billion dollar company that will give stuff away for free to try and win a few customers.. Millions of people use scethchup for free and never pay for it.

Part of the grace of MoI is you are speaking directly to the developer.

Also, there is power in being small.. Michael just did a complete 180 on his UI. Has anybody else ever seen that?

Alas, he is just one man making a living.

Hi Klingbeil, actually SketchUp did not have a free version until after their company was purchased by Google. From what I understand the main goal of the free SketchUp version was not at all to drive sales of the Pro version but rather to encourage a lot of content to be created for Google Earth.

But I have thought some about having 2 versions of MoI, like a "lite" and "pro" version, but I don't really have enough time to develop them separately so that's something that kind of needs to wait until the single version is mature enough. I'm not quite sure when that will happen, maybe around MoI v4 it could be more feasible.

If that does happen, the lite version would likely be just less expensive, not free - I don't think it would work very well for me to put out a free version because of all the support burden that would add to me. Since I'm just a single person developing MoI it kind of puts some additional limits on what kinds of things I can do like that.

For SketchUp, Google had a much different goal in mind of trying to generate a whole lot of content. That goal along with their incredibly deep financial resources is pretty different from what I'm doing - it wasn't an issue to them that their sales of their Pro version would decrease due to a pretty capable free version being available.

- Michael

Hey Klingbeil. Although my boss would be happy if we NEVER had to upgrade our seats of Solidworks (it isn't backwards compatible, so when our clients move up, so do we, and pay the price for each seat...) my issues with the new tools is more of familiarity, not usefulness or even clutter as I can chance the UI to suit my prejudices. Having seen what other people go through using AutoCAD, or ProE, I'm THRILLED to be using Solidworks. And after 10 years its a comfortable friend.

I had the chance to teach a class in Drafting at a local college and was amused at the pain level the students experience making a pencil draw lines and curves on paper, and how RELEAVED they were when finally allow (at mid term) to start drafting on the computer. Speed and ease are all a matter of familiarity and experience, and much less the specific tools. I know my struggles with MOI have more to do with my tendency to want to model as if in Solidworks (and failing because it isn't) than any negatives about the software and tools available themselves.

Michael, as a guy who LOVES to have a model shop full of cool tools, most of which rarely get used but are the BEST when a specific task comes up, I greatly appreciate your considering the various option dialogues and bins for keeping all those little specialty options and scripts close to hand, but tucked away. Thanks!

Hi Michael :)

i am aware that Sketchup wasn't always free until Google acquired it, but my point was - how many people had heard of Sketchup until they made the "lite" version free for all? their original intent of making it free to drive the creation of content had the side effect of becoming widely used by amateurs and hobbyists, which in turn causes an increase in sales for their PRO version. i fully understand your situation and i can appreciate the work you put into this great program. this was just a suggestion for you to consider to help MOI get a wider audience. like i said, i had only heard about MOI about a week ago and i only learned about it from a blog where is was only mentioned in passing. i've started telling my hobbyist friends about MOI, but the high price (compared to ~$50 USD or free) puts it out of their price range for a "hobby" purchase. i would highly encourage a "lite" version to get it into more hands. i personally plan on purchasing the full version for what i do with prototype creation in my home business.

it's just my opinion, take it as you please ;)

Hi Klingbeil, Eventually the free SketchUp version probably did increase sales of their Pro version, but not initially. If you talk to some SketchUp resellers you will probably find that the free version initially caused Pro sales to plummet - for a lot of work the free SketchUp version does everything that is needed, and it's easy for something like an architecture office to have something like 10 people using the free version to do regular stuff and only a couple of people need the Pro version. So at first that shift to a free version actually caused a big negative impact on the Pro version. Google has such deep pockets that they didn't really care about that, and they can afford to do things like wait out a few years for the situation to change.

But for someone in my position being just a single person company instead of a huge mega billion dollar company things are much different.


> i would highly encourage a "lite" version to get it into more hands.

Yeah, like I mentioned I think I would like to do this eventually.

But it would require additional overhead to try and branch out a "lite" version too early since it would involve maintaining active development in multiple product branches. Since I'm a single person developing MoI it's important for me to keep development overhead to a minimum right now.

So branching out a "lite" version won't really be feasible for me until some point in the future when everything that I would expect to need to go into the lite version is already completely covered in the current regular version. That might be sometime around the MoI v4 timeframe I would guess.


But also just in general a high volume / low cost per copy type thing is not really a particularly big focus for me because like I described earlier that carries a huge support burden along with it.

As compared to most of the rest of the big CAD industry as a whole, the current $295 price tag for MoI is actually extremely inexpensive and affordable already - price tags more in the $4000 range are pretty common...

MoI offers an inexpensive and also easier to use alternative to that kind of stuff.


I don't think that I would really target something so low as $50, though - I mean MoI is fundamentally designed as a productivity application that lets you accomplish some pretty advanced types of things that would otherwise be difficult to do. It's not really in the category of something like a pure entertainment app like a game, that's more what I would think would belong at that $50 price point that you mention.

I mean fundamentally MoI is intended to help you get some cool stuff made and help you get work done. For a lot of people the value of that is clearly above the current already low price tag.


- Michael

Hello,

The fact that MoI is low three figures in a field of four and five five figure software is one indicator of it's value proposition. A zero price on a product will not bring in the right type of customers, the paying kind, it just doesn't work that way. Sketchup could go away tomorrow and it wouldn't matter to Googles bottom line. I would guess MoI sales account for a much larger percentage of gross revenue for Triple Squid than Sketchup for Google.

I'd also like to point out that, even though, Google has very deep pockets they still made some changes to the free version's import capabilities removing DWG/DXF import in order IMO to strongly influence a move to the paid version for the professional users. Free or very low cost can devalue a product. While I really haven't much money I still don't like to see small companies going out of business due to products priced too low. MOI is already several hundred dollars cheaper than its peers. And frankly as I travel around the WWW I notice that MOI is more than popular enough with the crowd that doesn't pay for software. Exposure isn't the problem.
Al