Hi matt - use the Construct > Curve > Silhouette command:



That should construct curves in the spots you need, then do the AI export after those are in place.

At some point that and hidden line removal should get incorporated automatically into AI export but that is still yet to be done.

- Michael

The silhouette trick worked great.
This new development sounds interesting.

I am a technical illustrator who works with 3D models. I have some software which can take a STEP or IGES file and convert to a thick/thin line illustration in ai or eps format. However it costs $10,000 (isodraw) - if MOI could do even half of what this does youre onto a winner in my book! However in isodraw the ellipses come out as bezier curves with 4 points which very easy to handle.

Is this your development work or does it come via external code libraries which you licence?

Matt J

Hi Matt,

> Is this your development work or does it come via external code libraries which you licence?

It's a combination of both of those - there is a library that I license called Solids++ which has a lot of geometry processing stuff in it, but I also custom develop a lot of things on top of that as well.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

I just looked at the solids++ library you are using and one of its features is a precise hidden line removal:

Quote from http://www.integrityware.com/solids_features.html
"The SOLIDS++ hidden curve removal tool can determine the visibility of the edges of a Brep object from a given view point. It works directly on the precise 3-D geometry not a display approximation. The results are therefore suitable for drawing productions applications."

I have not much clue but is this something you can/will use in MoI to improve the export to illustrator?

-Martin

Hello,

I'm guessing that the hidden line removal in MoI will be more elegant, but I found a decent workaround using Rhino that will work until MoI has the feature. I ran into a similar cost justification problem, but in my case it had to do with technical illustration not being my primary job. I am using Rhino v5 Beta to do this and am not sure if this is present in Rhino v4. I design the model in MoI, position the items how I like, and open the 3DM in Rhino. I then select isometric view in Rhino. I run the Make2D command, make sure I check show tangent lines and uncheck show hidden lines. I then select Top View and examine the result. It is not perfect 100% of the time, sometimes the curves aren't watertight so I use Trim, Join and curve blending tools in Rhino to fill in any gaps or to tighten up the lines. I export to AI and it opens up just fine in Illustrator, where I can work on it some more if I like.

Hi Martin,

> I just looked at the solids++ library you are using and one of its features is
> a precise hidden line removal:

That's true but so far in my previous initial tests with it, it did not seem like a very robust area of the kernel as-is and so it either needs some tuning or I will be writing a custom one myself.

I won't really know if that one just needs some tweaks or not until I'm able to devote a chunk of time to it.

- Michael

>That's true but so far in my previous initial tests with it, it did not seem like a very robust area of the kernel as-is

Thanks for the reply. Too bad to hear there's a difference between the advertising text and the reality.