Hi Rachel, also a lot of times you may want to snap points on to existing parts of objects like draw a line starting at the midpoint of some existing line. For doing that type of stuff you can use "Object Snap" - make sure it is enabled in the bottom toolbar, it will have an orange highlight on it when it is turned on. Then when you move your mouse nearby key points the current point you are picking will lock on to them, when you can use that it tends to be more convenient than typing in coordinates.

Also a lot of commands have their own individual numeric controls like when you're drawing a circle you can enter in the radius, or when you're drawing in a rectangle you can enter in the width and height - these commands often involve picking a point as well for the starting location like for the center of the circle. For picking the starting point when you type in coordinates, your keystrokes go to the x,y,z input box in the bottom toolbar. When you're on the next stage like with circle where you are then picking the radius in the second stage of the command you will see a new "radius" input field show up in the upper-right area of the main screen which is where all the options for a specific running command show up. When a command has an input field available like that then when you type characters your input goes into that field, so for instance if you want to draw a circle with its center at x = 24, y = 44, z = 2 with a radius of 3.5, you would start the circle command, and then type 24,4,2 and push enter (here your keystrokes have gone into the bottom x,y,z input field), and then at the next prompt where it asks you for the radius type in 3.5 and push Enter again - on that step your keystrokes will have gone into the radius field in the command options area.

So individual commands also have other numeric controls that you can use for their particular tasks as well.

- Michael

Hi Rachel, also if you haven't seen it yet, check out the introduction section of the help file:
http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/moi_introduction.htm

It has some information about general operation of MoI and the section for Drawing / Picking points covers some of this stuff with some other information mentioned there too like how construction lines work.

Also in addition to that check out the video tutorials here which can also be a good help for getting started:
http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/tutorials.htm

- Michael

Hi Michael, thanks so much for this information. I'm able to place points in arbitrary locations using the keyboard as you suggest (I'm already familiar with most of the other special inputs like radius, as they come up when that command is used). It's a little awkward as I have to write down the coordinates while moving the cursor into 2 or 3 views to get all the right numbers, but it works. I will re-read the intro because clearly I missed some stuff before!

Rachel

Hi Rachel, you wrote:

> It's a little awkward as I have to write down the coordinates while moving the cursor into
> 2 or 3 views to get all the right numbers, but it works.

Normally you would use direct x,y,z input when you already know the specific coordinate that you want to have, like if you're reading blueprints or plans that specifically call out a coordinate location. I had thought that's what you were asking about.

But it sounds like you're trying to do something different than that - something like eyeballing a location between multiple views or something along those lines? Something like that is probably better done by creating construction lines or drawing in helper lines and then using those to snap on to, rather than trying to write down existing coordinates. Mostly any time that you would be writing down coordinates it's a sign that some kind of snapping based drawing tool would do that job for you without any written down coordinates required.

Either construction lines, regular drawn lines, or placing a "point" object may be ways to get what you need done without writing own any coordinates. The "point" object is a marker that you can place and then snap on to later, it's available under Draw curve > More. Construction lines allow you to create temporary lines to help out with all kinds of alignment, extension, and positioning tasks, there is a bunch information on them here:
http://moi3d.com/2.0/docs/moi_command_reference11.htm#constructionlines

Can you maybe describe in a little bit more detail exactly what you're trying to do? If you have a particular file that you are working with it would also help if you could post the 3DM file as an attachment here.

- Michael