A new v3 beta (version Jun-27-2014) is now available for download here: http://moi3d.com/beta.htm , also linked to from the download page on the main web site.

This should hopefully be the last beta for v3, I just need to do some work updating the documentation and once that's complete the final v3 will be released!

New stuff:

Extrude auto booleans for faces. Make a face sub-object selection automatically boolean the extruded piece with the base object. Allows for "push/pull" type action with the Extrude command. When extruding a face of a solid, going outwards from the solid makes a boolean union of the result, going inwards does a boolean difference. With an open surface, the extrusion is merged with the surface and the original face is removed to make a pocket in the surface. The auto boolean behavior can be disabled by setting the "Keep separate" checkbox in the extrude command options.

An example, here making face selections and doing Extrude, the extrusion automatically booleans with the base object:




Booleans - subset operations. Boolean union or difference can now take a selection of face sub-objects, which limits the boolean to only generate intersections using those surfaces. Allows for portions of objects to be temporarily ignored during a boolean as described here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6663.1

Variable radius fillet - deleting fillet sets. Add the ability to delete a fillet set by a small close button on the fillet set menu. Requested on the forum by Danny here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6584.2

Boolean intersection update. Previously Boolean intersection would also do a Boolean union of each set before intersecting the 2 sets.
This could be problematic if you wanted to cut a large number of separate objects with the intersection but have them remain separate, such as in the roof tile cutting discussion here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6766.3
This has now been changed so that by default boolean intersection does not do a union of all the objects in each set, but you can enable it again if you want by checking a "Union sets" checkbox before finishing the command.

Blend - Planar sections option. Option for making the cross-sections of the blend be aligned with a "pencil of planes" direction, can help prevent cross-sections in tight corner areas from bulging into each other. For some examples see here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6790.35

NSided - added icon for Construct > NSided command.

Edit frame resizing - Make Alt key work for disabling straight snap one-directional scaling for edit frame. Requested in the forum here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6694.1

Loft to point - fixed a bug where loft to point was not working properly with history. Fixes a bug reported in the forum here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6236.35

GeneratedObjectsInheritStyle=n - the last beta broke the option to have styles come from the active style rather than inherited from their parent object (when GeneratedObjectsInheritStyle=n is set in moi.ini), this should work ok again now. Fixes a bug reported on the forum here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6592.1

STEP file import - tighten up maximum tolerance limit, the previous looser allowed tolerance could result in bad trim curves in some situations especially
when the STEP file had a loose tolerance set in its own header info. Fixes a STEP import bug reported through e-mail by DannyT.

Variable radius fillet - fixed a bug where variable radius fillet going to 0 radius did not work properly with Blend style cross sections. Fixes a bug reported on the forum here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6579.4

Loft - fixed a bug where the tolerance being used for lofting in Refit mode was not tight enough. Fixes 2 loft + join bugs reported in the forum here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6614.1
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6612.1

Sweep history - fix a bug where history records were not being generated properly for Sweep in some circumstances. Fixes a bug reported through PM by Filippo.

Transform history - fix a bug where transformations in some circumstances would fail when a combination of history and higher face count objects were being used. Fixes a bug reported through PM by Filippo.



Updates for scripting:

Add script method for turning on/off viewport title text display:
    moi.view.showViewTitles = false;

Add additional file handling utility functions for script access:
    moi.filesystem.dirExists( path );
    moi.filesystem.deleteFile( path );
    moi.filesystem.copyFile( existingPath, newPath ); // copyFile has optional 3rd true/false parameter for failing if target file already exists, defaults to false.
    moi.filesystem.shellExecute( path, params ); // New optional 2nd parameter for passing parameter values if the path is to an executable.

    moi.filesystem.getProcessDir(); // Gets the directory where MoI.exe is running from.
    moi.filesystem.getTempDir();
    moi.filesystem.getAppDataDir();
    moi.filesystem.getUIDir();
    moi.filesystem.getCommandsDir();



- Michael

Thanks Michael ...

I haven`t had a chance to do any real testing but thanks so much for changing Extrude. It works just the way I always hoped it would.
I just had a birthday on Monday and this is a great present.
eric

Happy late birthday eric, I'm glad that the new face extrude with built in booleans will be useful!

Here are the notes on that particular part:

--------

Extrude auto booleans for faces. Make a face sub-object selection automatically boolean the extruded result with the base object. Allows for "push/pull" type action with Extrude command. When extruding a face of a solid, going outwards from the solid makes a boolean union of the result, going inwards does a boolean
difference. With an open surface, the extrusion is merged with the surface and the original face is removed to make a pocket in the surface. The auto boolean behavior can be disabled by setting the "Keep separate" checkbox in the extrude command options.


--------


I think it should cover some stuff that you've asked for previously and also the type of stuff Andrei was asking about here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6693.1

- Michael

Hi Michael ..
Just beautiful!
eric

Hi Michael,

Really nice additions in this release, especially the enhanced Extrude and I see you managed to get the the variable fillet set point delete option in there too...awesome!

I had a play with the Extrude and I sort of kept on going to test the robustness and I did manage to break it eventually but please bare in mind I don't think I would build anything this way.

The file attached looks like the image below, when you extrude the face that is style 'Red' in the Z+ direction and end up with the result like in the second image the body becomes a joined surface.





I've also attached a small video of how I started to arrive to the model attached.

-

Wohaaa! The famous PushPull of Sketchup inside Moi ! Excellent!

PS I send you the French translation of the UI! ;)

Michael G. this is again fantastic! Just downloaded, and will have to dig into it deeper later.

Thanks again!

Michael T.

Wow!! Fantastic! I'm very impressed with this new extrude tool.

P.S. Many thanks for the filesystem functions. I'll update CustomUI scripts right now.

List of news of the last beta in French :)
http://moiscript.weebly.com/liste-des-mises-agrave-jour.html

Hi Michael,

Nice job on the Extrusion & Boolean modifications!

A few days ago I noticed that the AI Export options Projection View dropdown choices don't change with the view port settings.

Would it be possible to have the list populated with the current settings?

The export works correctly eg. right exports left, top exports bottom etc. so not a showstopper just a bit confusing.

Hi Danny, thanks for the detailed testing of the new face extrude!

> The file attached looks like the image below, when you extrude the face that is style
> 'Red' in the Z+ direction and end up with the result like in the second image the body
> becomes a joined surface.

This is because it forms a "non manifold" edge, basically after that cut there is now a spot on the model where 4 different faces are coming together at a single edge, it's sort of like the model has a pinched area in it where opposite sides of the model are touching each other. That more or less makes it into a self-intersecting shape and there will be problems with analyzing the volume of things like that.

In your case here it's this particular spot here, notice how opposite sides of the model are coming into that same one edge, that's a type of self overlapping:



That's more or less a case of just "don't do that"... There needs to be a little bit of clearance space in spots like that rather than having opposite sides of the shape come to a single touching edge.

Even though there aren't any naked edges in that model, it doesn't read as a "solid" object type because there is an error classifying the solid volume regions of it. Something will only read as a solid if it both has no naked edges and also has been able to form at least 2 region volumes for the outside region and inside region. EDIT: actually after double checking, this particular case doesn't read as solid not because of regions but because of that one particular non-manifold edge which ends up belonging to 4 faces. A manifold edge must belong to only either one same face for a closed surface or otherwise be joined between just 2 surfaces, all edges must be manifold for an object to read as solid).

If you widen this spot here over just slightly then it should avoid the grazing pieces and then your same red face extrusion should generate a solid ok after that, see the attached 3DM file.



- Michael

@ danperk,

> A few days ago I noticed that the AI Export options Projection View dropdown choices don't change with the view port settings.
>
> Would it be possible to have the list populated with the current settings?


That probably should be easy to tune up, I'll take a look tommorrow.

- Michael

Thanks Michael! Looking forward to V3 release! :)

Hi Michael,

> This is because it forms a "non manifold" edge........

Yeah like I said I wouldn't go to this extreme however thanks for the explanation I did search for naked edges and was puzzled that nothing showed up, now I know what to look for if I come across this situation.

Cheers

Hi Danny, MoI does try to get rid of non-manifold edges after doing booleans, but the main way that it does that is by breaking things apart into separate solid regions so different volumes that have common edges between them become separate objects. But that does not handle this type of situation you had here.

The non-manifold edges will probably become naked edges after you save such a thing out to a file and read it back in again, much of the stuff for going into various file formats including 3DM expects the model to be manifold.

- Michael

The Extrude auto booleans looks so sweet, thanks for the new beta !

Just wondering, can't this push/pull be the normal behavior when you sub-select and drag a face ? so you don't actually need to use the extrude command ?

I'm asking that because I have half read the beta log. I just lauch MoI, create a cube, and my first thought was that I could just select and drag a face. Seems very natural too me, I had to come back on the forum to undrestand I have to use the extrude command.

Also Michael, it will be great to not only extrude but also shell, for examaple to change size of holes, or increa/decreas chamfer.
Also it will be great to move holes.

Push-pull extrude boolean is a great addition. Nice way to stay in the creative zone rather than dealing with the mechanics of boolean operations.

Ed

@ PaQ,

> Just wondering, can't this push/pull be the normal behavior when you sub-select and drag a face ?
> so you don't actually need to use the extrude command ?

I do want to do face dragging in the future but I'm waiting until I have a "move face" mechanism. Dragging is meant to be a quick way to do a Transform > Move, and moving a face is a somewhat different operation than extruding it, except for the special cases where the surrounding pieces are all at 90 degrees to each other.

In a CAD program usually to move a face means to extend the surrounding surfaces until they reintersect the newly positioned face, for example:




Extrude gives a much different kind of result, like this:




They're different operations but they happen to give the same results for certain kinds of objects like boxes.

- Michael

Hi Andrei,

> Also Michael, it will be great to not only extrude but also shell,

That is something I'd like to explore in the future. But it may be difficult to put in shell because shell already does something else when given a face sub-object selection, it uses those selected face as the openings for the shelled result.

It might fit in to offset maybe something like a "build side walls" option for when offsetting a face, that would be for doing pockets or protrusions using an offset type construction rather than an extrusion type.


> for examaple to change size of holes, or increa/decreas chamfer.
> Also it will be great to move holes.

These kinds of things will probably work better with "face transforms", similar to what I described above in the reply to PaQ, that's where after doing some edit on a particular face like moving, rotating, or scaling it, the surrounding faces are extended and reintersected with the updated face. It's something that I want to work on in the future.

- Michael