Hi Marc,

I've got Xara 8 & 9 (Photo & Graphics Designer versions) & everything imported just fine.
See attachments.

Hi Marc,

> Maybe adding a bitmap option in the export dialog would be nice?
> Those who don't know the viewport export scripts or can't work with PDF might find it handy.

You mean something like a "PNG Image (*.png)" just directly listed in the file dialog for Export or Save As?

That would certainly be easiest for someone to find. But yeah (as you mention) the downside is if other image formats were also added there it would start to make the file dialog dropdown get clogged up and after some point it gets difficult to find things in it.

For direct image saving I'd been thinking that there would be something like a Render command that would generate an image and the image would be displayed on its own new window. Then there would be a file menu on that window where you could save the image to PNG/TIFF/JPG/etc... That would probably be something for v4 since I'm hoping to wrap up v3 fairly soon here.


> An idea would be to separate export types; Solids, Polygonal, 2d.

Yeah having image saving under some kind of Render function (probably with a Render tab on the pane for accessing it) would help to put 2D bitmap images into one kind of separate category.

It's kind of hard to introduce categories into the regular export without making things take extra steps, like it probably wouldn't be nice to have a separate dialog pop up before the file name one that made you pick between Solids, Polygonal, or 2D type exports before you got to put in the file name.

- Michael

Hi OSTexo,

> On a related note, does MoI have a curve extrapolation function?

There is a curve extension function under Edit > Extend. If you want 2 curves to meet, you can select both of them, then run Edit > Extend, then at the prompt to select boundary objects you just right-click or push Done at that point to tell it you want to do a "mutual extend" where they extend to each other, rather than extending them to a third boundary line.

- Michael

Colin wrote:
> I've got Xara 8 & 9 (Photo & Graphics Designer versions) & everything imported just fine.

Wow there seems to be a lot of variation in program support for these various things. Kind of a lot more differences maybe between Mac and PC versions and even between different versions of the same program than I would have expected.

- Michael

"""""""""""""""""""""""I've got Xara 8 & 9 (Photo & Graphics Designer versions) & everything imported just fine.
See attachments."""""""""""""""""""

Hi Colin,

Yeah PDF works great in Xara! I'm surprised to see other Xara users here.

I was referring to the AI test file import in Xara, it didnt import background file.
As said it works with PDF so no problem there.

Marc

""""""""""""""""""""""" I'd been thinking that there would be something like a Render command that would generate an image and the image would be displayed on its own new window"""""""""""""""""""""

That's a great plan!

Marc

Hi Marc,

> I was referring to the AI test file import in Xara, it didnt import background file.
> As said it works with PDF so no problem there.

So for Xara it will be use the PDF import - that brings in the image and also layer assignments.

Illustrator won't read in the layer assignments in PDF so if you want layers to come through you'd use .ai format for Illustrator instead.

And it seems that certain versions of Illustrator (seems to be around CS3 or CS4) have some problems with the images but the current versions seem to be behaving ok.

- Michael

Don't forget the free Xara Xtrem5 ! ;)
http://www.xara.com/eu/specialoffers/designer/

Wow, this is an unexpected really cool surprise... The first thing I thought when I saw it was, is this feature finding its way to the silhou command??

Hi ed,

> The first thing I thought when I saw it was, is this feature finding its way to the silhou command??

Which particular part do you mean?

Right now though I don't really have any plans for modifying the silhouette command, all this new stuff will be built directly into PDF, AI, and DXF format output for generating 2D drawings.

- Michael

I mean something like the make 2d command on rhino, the main difference (that i see) between the make 2d and MoI's silhou is that MoI doesn't have hidden line removal.

Hi ed, - if you want to get the hidden line curves back into MoI you can just open or import the PDF, AI, or DXF file that was just written...

What is it that you would be trying to do by generating the hidden line curves only inside of MoI instead of as an export?

I guess it could be possible to add in a "Make2D" like command for generating hidden lines but it would help if I knew why you wanted to do that.

In Rhino you have to do it because there isn't any way to otherwise make a hidden line view for exporting, unless things have changed a lot. It's a pretty clumsy workflow though, you do Make2D and now you have a bunch of curves sitting inside the same model as your original objects, then if you want to do something with them you have to try to hide the original objects and keep the 2D objects separate from them somehow.

- Michael

Ok, I think I've got the silhouette extraction working. This is for the Isodraw-ish type stuff, anyone interested in that might want to look at the PDF attached below to see if that's doing the right thing.

I thought I'd better make these as another layer of edges that sit on top of the regular ones, rather than trying to make edges kind of alternate between thick and thin on the fly. With them layered on top it will probably be easier to do touchups by erasing the thick ones and then still having the regular ones underneath.

In Adobe Reader you can use the Layers left-side pane to turn on/off different sections, this one has the background bitmap, regular lines, then silhouette lines.

It looks like this:





- Michael

I have been watching this thread with interest but keeping quiet, but as the thread and techniques have progressed I now feel like I have to pass an opinion and ask a question. The opinion I have is, those first two images output and posted by Michael to me looked the best, so this leads then to the question, can we still have that simple output method ?

Martin Spencer-Ford

>Ok, I think I've got the silhouette extraction working.

Michael, you have indeed! Congratulations this is fabulous looking. You even generate this "overshoot" on hole silhouette edges. Wonderful! I used to draw outlines only but now that I - because of you - actually understand how silhouette lines work I'll never look back.

Can we have an AI file?


Martin

Hi Martin (Spencer-Ford),

> so this leads then to the question, can we still have that simple output method ?

Yup, these other things like outlines and accented silhouettes will be optional things that you can turn on by clicking some checkboxes. If you don't want them just don't enable them.

I'm not 100% sure yet what the initial default will be, maybe like the original ones I posted but maybe with outlines enabled too. But that will just be the default, if you don't want one of these variations you'll be able to just uncheck the option for making that style.

- Michael

Hi Martin (Martin3D),

> Can we have an AI file?

Here's one attached.

- Michael

Wonderful Michael,

that's what I call a clean output. Here's a more common 3:1 ratio between silhouettes and default lines. I've noticed you used a 10:1 ratio.

3:1 I love it