Hi Michael, i was thinking that if MOI had some kind of parametric quoting of lines i would definately cut-out solidworks for Archi-modelling. At this time changing lines dimension is still not very fast to do but with visible quotes that can be edited it would be great. Did youthought about an implementation of a feature like this? It would be possible? Thanks.

Hi Ayer, do you mean putting in editable dimensions ?

That's something that I would like to add in the future, but there will be a lot of work involved.

SolidWorks uses a very complex constraint management system in order to do stuff like that.

- Michael

Hi Michael,
FWIW, Ledas.com has (IMO) one of the most successful and competitive parametric / constraints engines around - LGS 3D and LGS 2D. It may be difficult getting on board yet another third-party library but, on the other-hand, it could result to be more cost-effective than coding one on your own ;)

Cheers,

. d .

Just my general thought, from experience, on adding parametric functionality to MoI, not that it wouldn't be useful however there is a different mindset in modelling, you have to model things whilst thinking ahead and thinking what you have done several steps before so that the elements/features in the model will update nicely no matter what feature is edited, there has to be analytical order when modelling with fully blown parametric software, I do it five days a week, there have been occasions receiving a parametric model that looks awesome but as soon as you try and edit a fillet or a thickness the whole thing would fall apart then it's a matter of 'rolling back' the feature structure to work out what feature is associated with what and fixing and/or reordering the feature tree to make a simple edit work and sometimes this can take several frustrating hours.
When I use MoI I don't have these restrictions, it's refreshing just to model what you're thinking and not thinking about the feature tree and how it will behave, MoI is a unique piece of software I wouldn't call it a CAD program it's more like a hybrid CGI graphics tool, which suits the broad range of users, from engineers, architects, jewellers to artists and graphic designers, I can't see why a jeweller or an artist would use Solidworks or Siemens NX.

MoI already has some parametric editing and history at the parent stage of modelling and deeper history would be nice but we all know that we have to be patient, to enjoy a piece of fruit from a tree we must let it ripen to get the full enjoyment of it's flavour, if picked to soon the flavour is there but not the same.

It's okay to wish or ask for these sophisticated features, however before we do take a visit to the Gallery and see what has been achieved with MoI as it is.

Thanks Michael.

Cheers

Hi Diego, yes Ledas has a good constraint solver for licensing... There's also a lot of UI and workflow issues to consider as well though, so the overall whole picture of integrating dimension driven constraints is pretty large beyond even the raw constraint engine itself.

- Michael

Yeah, but without the complication of solidworks. I don't mind of hard constraint as in solidworks (this line is parallel to that line or symmetric, point position and so on), but just basic feature to edit dimensions more quickly, so just lines quoting and maybe distance quoting.

I am confused by this thread, if i pick a point to start a line and then type say "20" without quotes, then the line is confined to that length, if I the use a snap to say end or mid point etc, then click on the little d under the co-ordinations display, i can type the distance i want, and the line is again constrained - is this not the same ?

Martin Spencer-Ford

Hi Ayer,

> but just basic feature to edit dimensions more quickly, so just lines quoting and maybe distance quoting.

That is something that I'd like to work on in the future, but even getting it to a "basic feature" level will require an awful lot of work in several areas, including a lot of UI design which tends to take me a long time.

So I'm not sure right now when that will happen.

Also probably at first there will just be plain dimension labeling to set up printouts and stuff like that, before trying to get to the point of editable constraint dimensions.


> Yeah, but without the complication of solidworks.

Unfortunately designing things to work with less complication actually tends to require a lot more design time than making complex stuff!


It is definitely an area that I would like to work on in the future though.


- Michael

Hi Martin,

> i can type the distance i want, and the line is again
> constrained - is this not the same ?

That does work right now for one line at a time, I assume that with the "like solidworks" request means being able to do something more like one line that's a small part of a larger sketch curve and have other parts of the sketch also update to accommodate the change in length.

- Michael

Thanks for the explanation Michael, sadly that pops up another question of whether it would be possible to set the d(n) constrainer to be recalled on the right click repeat last command tool ? I could see that being handy at times, clicking back on the line drawing tool or arc for that matter would then clear the constraint until it's defined again.

Martin Spencer-Ford

Hi Martin, sorry I'm not sure if I'm understanding what you're asking about there - what is the "d(n) constrainer" ? You mean setting distance constraint that allows you to control the length of a line as you're drawing it?

It's somewhat tricky to stick too many extra things inside the right-click repeat mechanism because it can break other workflows. Like for instance if distance constraint itself repeated, would you then have to instead manually trigger the line command itself if you wanted to draw 2 lines in a row?

It could be possible to set up a script on a keyboard shortcut that would set a constraint of a specific value, if you need to use a specific distance value a whole lot that could be a way to repeat it quickly, let me know if you would like a script that would do that.

- Michael

Hi Michael, you understood me with the distance constrainer ... Thought there might be problems with the right click storing values idea, but the amount of effort is no different from clicking the line tool or whatever to break the constraint as there is in having to retype it all the time, but if it's not an easy implementation thing then it's no real problem as copy and paste and array tools suffice nicely but thanks for giving it thought.

Martin Spencer-Ford

Hi Martin, yeah right this moment it's not an easy thing to implement since the command repeat thing only repeats actual commands, setting the distance constraint is not quite the same kind of thing as an actual command.

- Michael