Hi Bard, also another technique that you may want to look at for that kind of construction is a 1-rail sweep. When you sweep a profile along a planar rail with sharp corners in it, the corners will get mitered with each other making stuff like this:





That could build the side parts for some cases and then select the object and run Construct > Planar to build planar caps at the top and bottom to seal it off.

That can work for some cases but can also be sensitive to messy or fragmented path geometry as well.

- Michael

If you encounter a problem sweeping due to messy geometry in a particular letter - use the Rebuild command to "smooth" out the curves prior to sweeping.

Good afternoon.

So, if I understand, when we go to micro-curves, the NURBS technique finds its limits; while the technique of polygones formed & composed by segments of straight lines, perform better... So why to don't change of pinion (cogwheel, gear wheel)?

"Pinion" is "Opinion" without "O", the same root. As you know it, if you stay fixed on the same circle, you become a pion, just a point, a poor pawn in a game; never you will be a complete Being or Mankind... On a bicycle we change constantly of transmission ratio; in some cars, we pass the overdrive speed; if you want to beat a big mountain of muscles, you change your approach of fight, you make Aïkido, some chinese Wushu or you take your legs at your neck (take to one's heels); when we are under the water, we stop to breathe; & when a horse farts, it's because he has wind... And, in 3D we stay on the same train of gears? Very strange to resolve limits. --- Roar of laughter... Poetry is fairway to solve any blockage. I'm not very technician & ignorant in this matter ---

At beginning, when I used MoI, I thought that all the functions was in the visible interface & menus; now I ask me how many hidden functions we miss, when we don't read the instruction book? I am like this woman who burns your last nice shirt or her expansive robe, because never she reads the manual of your cupid (love) gift, her new high-tech iron.

This command to rebuilt a curve seems important & very useful. I believe if I have known this command, I would be less "getting on the nerves", owing to these bevels that MoI wouldn't to treat.

I would like well an icon in the menu "Edition" for this command REBUILT.

Thanks you Michael, for all these good & precious informations.

Hi Bard,

> So, if I understand, when we go to micro-curves, the
> NURBS technique finds its limits; while the technique
> of polygones formed & composed by segments of straight
> lines, perform better...

Yes, for some kinds of cases polygon modeling techniques can work better.

It depends on the particular shape at hand and also what you plan on doing with the object when it is finished being modeled as well.

If you're only going to render the result, you can kind of get away with things like polygons crossing each other and bunching up on the inside of the object, but you generally can't do that if you are going to use the model for physical construction.

Several of the tools in MoI like fillets are more oriented towards making an accurate model that would be suitable not just for rendering but also for accurate physical construction. Sometimes that means though that they're trying to do a more difficult task than what you might see a polygon modeling tool doing.


> At beginning, when I used MoI, I thought that all the functions
> was in the visible interface & menus; now I ask me how many
> hidden functions we miss, when we don't read the instruction book?

They ones not available from icons are listed in the help file here:
http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/moi_command_reference10.htm#Additional%20commands


> I would like well an icon in the menu "Edition" for this command REBUILT.

Yeah I do want to make it more accessible in the future. I just have not quite figured out where to put it yet. The Edit palette is getting pretty large already which is one factor that has made me hesitate to add it in there right away.

Keep in mind that MoI is not in its "ideal perfect finished" version currently - it is a work in progress and is going to continue to be tuned up in the future.

- Michael

Good afternoon Michael,

<< The Edit palette is getting pretty large already which is one factor that has made me hesitate to add it in there right away.>>

Please, don't hesitate; you could keep "Copy, Paste, Hide, Lock & History" in "edition" menu; and may be create a new menu "Objet" for commands like: "Rebuild, Flip, &c, ... Join, Separate, Trim, Extend, Show pts, Add pt".

Or may be; as it must to select one objet to apply these commands, to put they in the menu "Select" and rename it "Selection", as "work on selection" (there are only 3 icons). Personnally I have never used this menu since I use MoI.

A possible other way, will be to do a contextual menu by right click, and put inside all the effective and useful commands for objets? That will be discreet and always available at any moment... Although I prefer always a visible menu.

Don't hesitate, because all the shortcuts are never the right solution.

I can relate my experience: Once upon a times, at beginning of my great job of computer graphics designer, very professional and very expansive (That was THE golden years for us = Big pay of manager), on big system like Genigraphics; then, FreeLance on the first Macintosh, I learnt by heart all the shortcuts (The mouses was on wheel & very slow; the computers too; an hamster spun inside with some bugs well fed)... Yes good, don't you think?... Some years after the developers (Reign of marketing's holy Joe experts) changed all the shortcuts... End of royal's pay; charge of maid, even charity for tramp (Gulf-war, again by States of America supervised by sects & profits). Since then, the shortcuts are a plague. The End.

Many tests have proved, it is faster to use the mouse in a menu, rather to type one kilo of keyboard's shortcuts. So, to fill his head with shortcuts, is a waste of time (and money).
Then! no hesitation, one menu "Objet" or "Selection" or according to your choice, with these commands, will be welcome.


<< Keep in mind that MoI is not in its "ideal perfect finished" version currently - it is a work in progress and is going to continue to be tuned up in the future.>>

Yes, it's general for all the softwares, no? Also the humans are not "ideal perfect finished", and a lot stop any progress from the puberty. No problem, I keep in mind, Hugh! Word of Bard.

Thanks, have a good day.

Hi Bard,

> Don't hesitate, because all the shortcuts are never the right solution.

Yeah the shortcuts are only a temporary solution for the time being.

But it's basically my policy to hesitate before adding things into the main UI - once something is added to the main UI people tend to get accustomed to it and then it creates a lot of controversy if I try to remove it later on and put it somewhere else.

It works better for the UI to be developed more carefully and have things go into a good location when they first appear.

That kind of hesitation is one of the reasons why MoI continues to have a nice streamlined UI instead of falling victim to "feature creep" or "bloat".


> A possible other way, will be to do a contextual menu by right
> click, and put inside all the effective and useful commands for
> objets? That will be discreet and always available at any
> moment... Although I prefer always a visible menu.

There's probably going to be an extended object properties dialog which will have a lot of room to contain a whole lot more controls, and it may go on there.

- Michael

Hello Michael

Parenthesis: do you know that "Michael" is one of the forms of "Fihangel or Mihangel", an ancient Welsh or Gall [guelsh] name; from "MIH, FIH", Same; also Cast off; to do "Fi! = Pooh!", to ignore, to turn one's nose up at, to spurn; "ANG", open, capacity, large, broad; & "EL or AL", principle of motion or air; energy, spirit, intelligence, &c. It's somebody who stays faithful, loyal, true, to himself or his convictions, ideas, behaviour, &c ("Angel" is a fake image never understood in its real original meaning, it's a mystification or wrong image, made by propagandists of Myth = False, lie; bad fairy tales).

So, you stay on your line of conduct, like one Michael, you do "FI" (in French) = POOH! I understand that very well (LOL).

I like what the words have to say truly in all the languages (same cipher, internal or machine, programming languages).

Thanks, good day.