Hi I'm new here and have just started to experiment with MOI.

Coming from many years of working with SU I'm kind of spoiled when it comes to drawing on a surface and being able to push or pull that resulting shape in or out of the surface.

My question is "is there a way of doing this in MOI or is there a plan for a future release? They also have this tool plug-in "joint push pull" that can extrude curved surfaces.

With nurbs modeling, try to forget the reflex of Poly modeling! ;

In Nurbs you propagate a curve(s) on a profil(s)
you make boolean operation, cut, intersect, add

Extrude and Push Pull are not the basic rule ;)
You can of course but try to forget it first! ;)

Hi DesertRaven, in MoI you can generate a solid pushed out from a curve by using the Extrude command.

You can also draw curves directly on surfaces if you have "Object Snap" enabled.

So that combination should let you do generally similar operations - the main difference is that MoI does not automatically embed curves that you draw on a surface to divide it, because sometimes you may want to use them for other things like as a path for a rail sweep or a different kind of surface operation like doing a revolve, etc... , MoI has a lot of different methods for surface creation and not just one single method like SketchUp and so that makes for a somewhat different workflow in MoI.

Please see this previous discussion thread for a video showing how to do some similar types of operations in MoI:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2215.1

- Michael

Sorry I won't forget it, in organic nurbs modeling I find it a missing tool. and I'm not only talking about a flat surface as in SU. Basicaly it would save some clicks and help with being more flexible in designing and having a faster and smoother work flow.
Just because you are used to what you always do does not cancel out a possible enhancement.

Hi DesertRaven, I guess I need some more description from you for how Extrude does not do what you need.

It's kind of fundamental to the way it works in SketchUp that Push/Pull works the way it does only because when you draw anything on a surface, it actually modifies that surface and embeds the curve into it, dividing the surface into pieces.

That's fine for SketchUp since it _only_ relies on push/pull for making stuff basically.

I'm not sure how to integrate that "always embed every drawing" thing into MoI since MoI has a whole bunch of different types of tools that you can use on that curve, not just only pushing it out as an extrusion.

Do you mean that you'd like for MoI to remove all the other kinds of construction tools that it has and only use push/pull, so that anytime you used any drawing tool it would be embed the drawing into surfaces so as to set it up only for use with push/pull ?

- Michael

Hi DesertRaven, are you a tad confused here or am I. Can you just draw a solid sphere to what ever dimensions you want, then click show points. You will see the equivelent of vertices, feel free to push and pull them as you need. Add points where you need them if you need more or take some away if you need less etc.

Is that what you are after ?

Martin

Hi DesertRaven, also I do think that in the future I'd like to update Extrude with some option for it to automatically combine the extrusion onto another object automatically (either as a protrusion or as a depression in a solid). Would that then help you get closer behavior to what you like?

- Michael

Hello,

If you'd like that sort of push / pull behavior you might want to check out Spaceclaim Engineer. That said I find myself coming back to MoI as my go to application and fill in the last 10% with Rhino 5/VSR and Spaceclaim for some complex surfacing tasks or featuring. I'm guessing that over time MoI will end up taking a larger chunk of the modeling tasks as features are added.

So looking at the attached image, just for the sake of the moment of inspiration, why wouldn't I just want to create a face with the circle and just push it up when i need it to?
I understand how "nurbs" modeling works, or so I think I do, but this could be several operations combined working in the background to make it convenient for me as a user.

Also if I just want to quickly indent a shape into the flat rectangular part of the object, why do I have to go through a lengthy process of first creating a box, then putting it into position and then subtract it from the object? By the time I've done that, my inspiration is out the window. And that's exactly the advantage of SU and why it became so popular, because it's convenient. Unfortunately SU is very messy and organic modeling is a trip.

And as far as I researched the history of MOI it was intended to be a simple tool and easy to use, not so much weight on it strictly following NURBS modeling rules, or else we could of stuck with Rhino, right?

Yes space claim is a awesome tool that way, I am attending a webinar tomorrow to have a closer look, unfortunately it's way overpriced.

Michael,

yes that would help tremendously. I really like the clean look of your software, good job!

< Unfortunately SU is very messy and organic modeling is a trip.

but with the Artisan http://artisan4sketchup.com who is yet exist, you can transform Sketchup in subdivision Organic program !
(new version in end september)

It's a little funny perversion but works fine! :)

Not Zbrush but very sufficient for some many things :)

All images by Solo

Hi Solo, thanks for your reply, I actually have this tool for SU. You're samples look amazing to say the least.

Hi DesertRaven,

> So looking at the attached image, just for the sake of the moment of inspiration, why
> wouldn't I just want to create a face with the circle and just push it up when i need it
> to? I understand how "nurbs" modeling works, or so I think I do, but this could be
> several operations combined working in the background to make it convenient for
> me as a user.

That kind of editing by moving faces around is definitely something that I'd like to add in the future. Ideally it would just be integrated into the regular Transform > Move command and not need to be set up as a totally separate push/pull command though.

But unfortunately with NURBS geometry the sequence of operations that you're referring to that need to happen behind the scenes are pretty fancy, they involve doing extensions and offsets, those are not particularly strong areas of the geometry kernel that MoI uses right now, so that's one big reason why I have not attempted to do it yet, it would likely just make messed up stuff a lot of the times except in very basic situations.

So I'm sort of waiting for more support on that from the authors of the geometry kernel before being able to really undertake that style of editing.

Like you've already seen, SpaceClaim has done a lot of specialized work to focus on that type of stuff, it may be a better fit for you if that's of high importance to you.


> And as far as I researched the history of MOI it was intended to be a simple tool and
> easy to use, not so much weight on it strictly following NURBS modeling rules,

That's certainly true - but I cannot make the pretty advanced geometry operations that are required to do some of that kind of editing (where offsets and extensions are involved) just appear out of mid air.


> Also if I just want to quickly indent a shape into the flat rectangular part of the object, why do I have
> to go through a lengthy process of first creating a box, then putting it into position and then subtract
> it from the object?

Basically because that's the most elemental and basic sequence of things that actually need to happen in order to make an indentation.

I'm certainly not opposed to streamlining that area, and in fact if you need to cut a hole all the way through an object that process is already optimized since you can do a boolean with a solid and a 2D curve and internally in the boolean it handles the details of punching out the 2D curve into a solid cutting object for you.

For making just an indentation instead of an "all the way through" cut that is not similarly streamlined yet, it's a more complex case since you need to control the depth of the indentation which means more UI is required. I'm usually quite conservative about jumping into things that require more UI since adding in lots of UI all over the place is pretty much how bloat and complexity happens to software.

One of the things that's kind of held up this area a bit is trying to consider which particular approach to take, whether to try to do something closer to SketchUp which could involve modifying how all the drawing commands work by having some mode for them to embed and slice up what they are drawn on directly (pretty "heavyweight" solution involving many changes) or whether it's better handled by some additional options in a couple of key commands.

Probably for MoI it's better to be handled by some additional options in existing commands - I've thought before about having it in the Extrude command to make it so that you can do an extrude and have it automatically protrude or remove material from an existing solid right in the extrude, and also to have it within boolean difference as well to make an option for a 2D curve to have a "depth limit" to how it cuts an object rather than only cutting all the way through.

Those things have not quite bubbled up to the top of my list yet, but I may be at a pretty good point to undertake those in v3 pretty soon.


Please keep in mind that MoI is still a work in progress and I am still planning on a lot of improvements to it - it is not in a "100% finished" state right now by any means. The things that you are mentioning would definitely be improvements, but it takes work to implement all these various things and there are only 24 hours in the day you know! :)

The basic development philosophy for MoI is kind like "consider carefully before adding in things that need new UI", which is how the UI stays slim and pleasant. But one thing that goes along with that strategy is that sometimes I let things percolate for quite a while before pulling the trigger. This particular area for making it more streamlined to do indentations and protrusions has been in the percolation stage for a while.

- Michael

Hi DesertRaven,

> And as far as I researched the history of MOI it was intended to be a simple tool
> and easy to use, not so much weight on it strictly following NURBS modeling rules,
> or else we could of stuck with Rhino, right?

That's basically correct - definitely it is a focus for MoI to make NURBS modeling more accessible than it has been in the past.

But some kinds of things are not necessarily an easy fit with NURBS and may require quite a lot of fairly fancy processing in order to achieve, and editing by yanking faces around basically is one of those.

Things that require a lot of work may correspondingly not appear in MoI for a quite a while, like I wrote above there are only 24 hours in a day and I do not have any superhuman ability to make complex functions just appear instantaneously...

- Michael

Michael, you are defiantly doing a great job with this tool. Also I appreciate your response and communication with the community.

I'm sure it is lot's of work and I understand you want to think things through and keep the integrity of your software at a high standard.

I'm looking forward to future improvements and in the meanwhile am totally happy to work with what is there already. Please don't feel pressured.

Raven

Hi Raven, well I'm glad that you brought it up because an improved indentation/protrusion mechanism has kind of fallen off the radar a bit, it just hasn't been mentioned all that frequently, you can see in this "top 5 requests" thread that it's not really mentioned often:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3628.1

There's been a lot more requests there for stuff like instances, groups, and deformation tools.

That's pretty much why it hasn't percolated up in the priority list more rapidly.

But I think it will be a good time to give it some attention soon here for v3 (for Extrude combining with a solid automatically and depth limiting for booleans with curves, editing an existing face by push-pull is more complex).

Hopefully the result should be more convenient than push/pull in batch situations, for example I'd like the "depth limiting" curve cut in the booleans to make a set of 2D curves and a solid like this:






That would be for doing a boolean difference with a solid and the curves. Right now you can do the boolean with a solid and curves but it will make a cut all the way through the object, the "depth limiting" mechanism would be the new ingredient. Then maybe for a protrusion rather than a cut you could use the boolean union command with a solid and curves selected.

That's the other thing - I try really hard to combine functions into a smaller number of commands when possible since that helps avoid UI bloat. Sometimes it can take a while before figuring out the details for how to combine things though too.

- Michael

Hi Michael ... That looks interesting to me, that resulting image is more accurate to my brains interpretation of a "Solid", rather than a skin, so I will add a big yes please for that! :¬)

Martin

> And as far as I researched the history of MOI it was intended to be a simple tool and
> easy to use, not so much weight on it strictly following NURBS modeling rules,

For what it's worth, have Blender and SU and DAZ Hexagon (all currently FREE :) ) but I'm saving my coins for a MoI license, has a new user (to 3D modelling) I just find MoI to be the easiest to use for the models I'm creating, which are pretty basic and could be easily be done in Blender, SU or hexagon.

For me, MoI would be complete if I could import STL models (not try to convert them to Nurbs ) just preform basic function like move, rotate and scale, so I could place them where I want and export the lot to STL.... now I go the other way , export in OBJ from MoI into hexagon, import the stl object and export the lot back to STL.

Hello,

Each individual will have to do their own evaluation concerning what an application is worth to them. For some that absolutely need some of the specialized tools that Spaceclaim has it may be worth ten times the cost of MoI. In my experience Spaceclaim is a good conceptual modeler but is not a great organic modeler. I started with SU before they were consumed by Google, and while I appreciated the ease of use and the push/pull way of doing things it didn't take me long to run into workflow roadblocks that got me looking at MoI in a serious way. It will take a bit of rewiring of process in the brain to appreciate how to create models, but in my case the journey is worth it.

If you're worried about not being able to model faster than the idea escapes something I like to do is have a bunch of scrap paper around and keep sketches. I also think sketching programs like Artrage are great to quickly capture ideas and then import those for refinement in MoI. If you have Rhino something like TSplines or Clayoo might work well for you. For advanced surfacing I use VSR in Rhino, it saves me from dealing with Autodesk (Alias) and it fits my requirements.

I think what cannot be discounted is the great assistance and education that is provided by the creator of MoI as well as the MoI community. That kind of support and attention to the user base is quite rare in the computing world today.