A new v3 beta (version Nov-19-2013) is now available for download here: http://moi3d.com/beta.htm , also linked to from the download page on the main web site.

New stuff:

Hidden line removal!!!

MoI can now generate a drawing with hidden lines removed when exporting to PDF, AI, or DXF formats.

Some examples, these are all screenshots of exported PDFs in Adobe Reader:

    

    


When you export to PDF or AI format, a new dialog pops up to control the different options:



The "Scale" option can be either "Fit to page" or "Preserve units". When Preserve units is picked, additional controls will be displayed that let you set the scale factor.

"Generate outlines" creates curves in areas where objects are adjacent to the viewport background. This can be used to give a bold accented border surrounding the entire object. It works in combination with the shaded background image, since the background image masks out the inner half of the border.

"Generate silhouettes" creates accented curves at all silhouette areas.

"Generate hidden lines" creates curves that are hidden in a dashed line style.

The "Line style options" button opens up a second dialog where the point width, color, and layer attributes of the different kinds of curves can be set. Colors and layers can either by set to "From style" for the color or layer to come from the style assignment, or can be set to a specific value by choosing "Custom".

The "Canvas megapixel resolution" field controls the density of the shaded image and depth buffer used to determine what is visible and hidden. Increasing this value can help generate more detailed results on small areas of the model, it can go up to a maximum of 75 megapixels, but it consumes quite a bit of memory at that level. Try something around 30 or 40 here to get more detail if needed.

If you're doing a wireframe export that contains only curves and not any solids or surfaces, only the projection view and scale options will be shown.

The hidden line DXF export is more oriented towards shop drawing type output, it doesn't have the outline, silhouette, or shaded background image options.

There's also a new command named Make2D which you can run to generate the hidden line result as curves directly inside of MoI. To use it set up a shortcut key and for the command name put in: Make2D.


Other stuff:

Holding down the Shift key while drawing now works as an enhanced straight snap. When you hold down Shift straight snap will have priority over object snap, and the current straight snap line will stay locked on for as long as you hold shift. Also when you hold down Shift straight snap will activate to the closest straight snap line regardless of how far away it is to the mouse.

Layers are exported to DXF format - styles in MoI will map to layers in the DXF file.

AI format for clipboard transfer should work on OSX now. See previous beta release notes for how to set that up: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6099.1 .

Fixed some bugs in surface/surface intersection in the geometry library, some cases that didn't work before with things like 2 pipes crossing each other should work better now.

Bug fixes to Blend between 2 edges that touch each other at sharp "pole points".

Overhauled the sorting mechanism for loft when doing loft to point, you should now be able to more easily group select the curves and points to loft instead of having to pick them in the specific order as you sometimes had to to previously.

Update viewport render scripting - Added a .render() method to viewports, which works like renderToClipboard except it generates an image object that can then be written to disk instead of being placed in the clipboard. Requested on the forum here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6111.2

Update moi.view.screenshot() method (this is the one that takes a snapshot of the visible screen only, not the one that renders a viewport image to a higher res image) to work properly on OSX.

Update rectangle snapping - Add an additional "square" snap point for rectangle drawing when just one of width or height has been typed in. Requested on the forum here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6117.1

PDF export bug fix - fix a crash when saving a PDF file when the file was not able to be opened for writing because it was open in Adobe Reader which locks it. Instead of a crash now there will be a warning dialog with a retry button on it.

New Greek language UI translation available thanks to Andrew Athanasiadis. It's included in this beta, go to Options > General > Language to activate it.

Fix bug where when relocating a construction line, pushing tab did not put focus on the XYZ control like it normally does during a drawing command. Bug reported on the forum here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6226.4

Update PDF import - process XObject content streams in addition to the main page content stream. This enables reading some content that was previously missed.

Update curve segment scripting - Add methods for .getStartPt(), getEndPt(), and getLength() on curve segments, so that some properties for individual segments can be retrieved by scripts.

Update filesystem scripting - Add moi.filesystem.fileExists( path ) and moi.filesystem.shellExecute( path ) script functions.

Update loft - fix script exception that happened when only 2 points and no curves were selected when doing the Loft.

Update Rebuild command, endpoints mode - Add a new "Endpoints" mode for the Rebuild command, this interpolates a new curve through the endpoints of the existing curve's segments. Can be useful for reconstructing a smooth curve through a dense polyline curve approximation that you can sometimes find in PDF or DXF imports.

Update RailRevolve for non-planar paths. RailRevolve can now build a surface that follows a 3D path curve. This height stretching mode is enabled for non planar paths when the profile curve is not a closed curve and has one curve endpoint on the revolve axis. Requested on the forum here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6189.1

Implement RemoveDuplicates command. Currently only works on curves, removes other curves that are a duplicate within tolerance (endpoints must be in tolerance too). Set up a keyboard shortcut with RemoveDuplicates as the command name to call it.

Fixed a bug on OSX where window resizing behaved strangely on Retina displays.


Thanks, - Michael

Hi, Michael.

I've just noticed that 'Export Type' is no longer present when saving as a DXF, so the choice between 2D Projection and 3D Curves doesn't seem to be there any more. I quite often need to export 3D curves to my CAM programs for engraving on non-planar surfaces so it would be good to get this back if possible - unless I'm missing something of course :-)


Thanks.

Martin.

Hi Michael,

Loved the RemoveDuplicates, it work great on my first tests.

Thanks a lot.

Carlos

Thanks for the Make2D command, it comes really handy to me!

Is-it possible to have this displaying also in the interface of MoI, as lights options, and & or, when we set the parameters of the dialog box, to see the result at screen, as, when we set the options for an export?

Good MoI!

Some new precisions to translate! :)

Hi Michael,



MoI to AI CS3 using moi.geometryDatabase.copyToClipboardAI(); or moi.geometryDatabase.copyToClipboardPDF(); still doesn't work. I tried some other programs like InDesign or iDraw to copy and paste a vector line into AI CS3 and also had no luck. The only thing that worked was copying a path from Photoshop to Illustrator.
I looked for a program to view the clipboard contents and found it here: http://www.markdouma.com/developer/ClipboardViewer.zip

According to this a successful clipboard copy must be in a 'AICB' (CorePasteboardFlavorType 0x41494342) format in order to paste into AI CS3.

I attached the successful clipboard data from copying a vector line from Photoshop CS3 to Illustrator CS3 and also the clipboard data from copying a line from MoI to AI.
Maybe it helps. If not Illustrator CS3 will stay the stubborn one among all versions.

Translation done! :)
http://moiscript.weebly.com/liste-des-mises-agrave-jour.html

Hi Martin,

> I've just noticed that 'Export Type' is no longer present when saving as a DXF, so the choice between
> 2D Projection and 3D Curves doesn't seem to be there any more. I quite often need to export 3D curves
> to my CAM programs for engraving on non-planar surfaces so it would be good to get this back if
> possible - unless I'm missing something of course :-)

It should still show up and work the same as before when you are only exporting curves out to the DXF file and not any surfaces or solids.

Either hide the surfaces and solids and do a "Save As", or select just the curves you want to export and do File > Export to write just those to the DXF - the options and behavior will then be the same as the previous beta.

- Michael

Hi Bard,

> Is-it possible to have this displaying also in the interface of MoI, as lights options, and & or, when
> we set the parameters of the dialog box, to see the result at screen, as, when we set the options
> for an export?

You mean to see a preview image displayed inside of MoI when saving with hidden lines removed?

I would like to have that, but unfortunately there is a lot of work involved in doing a good job of that, and so I don't expect to have it anytime soon.

Also in this particular case a preview would be of limited usefulness because the options for this kind of export don't really involve minor tweaks of parameters like for example the mesh export can. These parameters are more for turning on or off kind of larger things which have more predictable outcomes.

If you want to experiment with how the different things like outlines and silhouettes look in your output when on or off, the easiest thing to do is to export with them all enabled and then in your illustration program or in Adobe Reader turn on and off different layers to hide and show those various pieces.

- Michael

Hi Martin,

> MoI to AI CS3 using moi.geometryDatabase.copyToClipboardAI(); or moi.geometryDatabase.copyToClipboardPDF(); still doesn't work.

The copyToClipboardPDF() was working ok for others previously, do you mean that the PDF version did not work for you before?


> According to this a successful clipboard copy must be in a 'AICB' (CorePasteboardFlavorType 0x41494342)
> format in order to paste into AI CS3.

Yup, that's what the fix involved, in the previous beta I had tried using com.adobe.illustrator.ai-image as the clipboard flavor and that didn't work. So after switching to using 'AICB' instead over here that fixed it up when I tested it previously. I'll take another look.

- Michael

Nice release Michael. The make2d and duplicate removal are very slick!

Is there any control over the scaling of the make2d? I generate a large scale 2d lines set off to the side, and was wondering what is in control of that, or the method.

Thanks again for some great work....

Hi Michael,


Correct, I was never able to copy anything from Moi to Illustrator using the clipboard neither in AI nor PDF format.



But there's still a difference: the clipboard viewer shows "com.adobe.illustrator.aicb" after using moi.geometryDatabase.copyToClipboardAI(); and the successful Photoshop to AI copy uses in particular 'AICB' (CorePasteboardFlavorType 0x41494342). I'm afraid that CS3 is buggy in this regard since it's not even possible to copy from InDesign to Illustrator.

Hi Martin,

> Yup, that's what the fix involved, in the previous beta I had tried using com.adobe.illustrator.ai-image as
> the clipboard flavor and that didn't work. So after switching to using 'AICB' instead over here that fixed
> it up when I tested it previously. I'll take another look.

Actually what I switched it to was com.adobe.illustrator.aicb which is what CS6 seemed to use. Maybe older Illustrator versions need something slightly different to work.

I just tested again with CS6 over here and it moi.geometryDatabase.copyToClipboardAI() seems to be working ok for going into CS6.

I'll see if I can use the old style 'AICB' flavor instead to hopefully increase compatibility with versions older than CS6.

PDF copy/paste should be working though.

EDIT: wrote this before seeing your last message above.


- Michael

Hi Martin,

> Correct, I was never able to copy anything from Moi to Illustrator using the clipboard neither in AI nor PDF format.

Hmmm, over here it works ok with both AI and PDF formats going into Illustrator CS6. On the previous beta only PDF worked.


> But there's still a difference: the clipboard viewer shows "com.adobe.illustrator.aicb" after
> using moi.geometryDatabase.copyToClipboardAI(); and the successful Photoshop to AI copy
> uses in particular 'AICB' (CorePasteboardFlavorType 0x41494342).

Yeah sorry the first thing I wrote was not correct, the current beta has it switched to a type of "com.adobe.illustrator.aicb" which is what seemed to work with CS6.


> I'm afraid that CS3 is buggy in this regard since it's not even possible to copy from InDesign to Illustrator.

Seems like it could be a problem with CS3 itself...


But I'll see if I can switch over to using the old style 4-character 'AICB' identifier if that still works ok with CS6, and maybe that will increase compatibility with older versions.

- Michael

Hi Burr,

> Is there any control over the scaling of the make2d? I generate a large scale 2d lines set off to the
> side, and was wondering what is in control of that, or the method.

It's different depending on whether you're generating stuff from a perspective viewport or not.

If you do a non-perspective view, you should get the same scale as your original objects. With perspective there isn't really any fixed scale for object space to screen space and for that one it currently just generates the same units as it would for export to PDF format, which means fit to a 576 by 768 unit box (that's a letter page size in points units).

- Michael

Hi, Michael.

That's all OK again - I was saving some surfaces in the file too and so the option didn't show up.

Thanks for your help.


Martin.

Hi Martin (MARTIN3D) - re: copy/paste into Illustrator CS3 on OSX - it seems that I can't just use the old style 'AICB' clipboard identifier all the time because when that's used it then no longer works with CS6.

What I can probably do though is make the copyToClipboardAI() function take an optional parameter that will then make it use that older style clipboard format identifier, that may then get compatibility with older Illustrator versions.

Can you please send me an e-mail at moi@moi3d.com so I can send you a test version with that set up to see if that will solve the problem?

Thanks - Michael

"""""which means fit to a 576 by 768 unit box (that's a letter page size in points units).""""""""""""""

That's the ticket.... Thanks.

Hi Burr, no problem - yeah after you do a Make2D of something perspective if you then draw a 576 by 768 rectangle, the curves will be centered in that. They'll be arranged in the same aspect ratio as the 3D viewport used to generate them.

- Michael