Hi Michael et al,
I've created a new wishlist based on working with the fabulous MoI for a number of months now.
I realize that V3 is about to be released, so I guess this is my V4 beta wishlist.
The wishes are in order of importance to me (highest is most important). Please correct me if I'm asking for things that are already possible.
• Improved fillet and offset/shell algorithm(s), more capable of tackling complex situations without creasing / tearing / self-intersecting surfaces and failed calculations, ideally including crossing / overlapping fillets.
• A view-based move, rotate and scale tool, for quick view-based manipulations in the perspective view. I really miss this.
• A local coordinate system, remembering the orientation, scale and direction of each object, with a matching move/scale/rotate gadget around it when objects / elements are selected.
• Instancing of curves, surfaces and solids. This would be particularly useful when adjusting one element of a large array.
• Cage / lattice deformation, preferably including:
— Different lattice shapes to choose from, like box and cylinder, with a non-destructively adjustable number of points. It would be great if the deformation would be remembered along with the deformed object(s), so you could go back and adjust or reset the cage at any time.
— An option to conform the lattice shape to the object shape before starting the transform, so the control points are projected onto the surface of the object when you start deforming.
— Different deformation algorithms to choose from, such as B-Spline, Catmull-Rom, Cardinal and Linear (like the lattice deformation options in Blender 3D).
• Easier moving of elements within a solid or surface. For example, if you have a mouth cavity in a solid of a character's head, to move the mouth a little, you now have to:
— separate the inner surfaces of the mouth,
— move those surfaces to a new location,
— extract the trimmed mouth curve,
— delete it from the solid,
— move the extracted mouth trim curve to the new inner mouth surfaces location,
— trim the mouth shape from the solid again,
— join everything to restore the solid.
• Hold on to your seat... ㋡ A dynamic, non-destructive object manipulation history, with:
— Non-destructive filleting, so you can always go back, adjust the fillet amount, modify or remove a variable fillet point, or revert to a sharp edge.
— Non-destructive Booleans, enabling you to manipulate the source and target objects at any time after the Boolean operation to adjust the result, to remove a Booleaned object or to restore the individual Booleaned objects. Ideally this would include dynamically readjusting fillets if those were added after the Boolean operation. But I can imagine that I'm asking for quite complex stuff here.
• Option to easily change points from smooth to corner and vice versa, after a shape is created.
• Saving of mesh export settings with MoI 3DM files.
• A (simplified) real-time mesh structure overlay mode on your NURBS objects, to preview the polygon structure of the current scene. I would find this very useful for determining the best orientation, rotation and/or location of objects, especially when they need to be combined using Boolean.
• Viewport navigation enhancements:
— Resizable viewports in the quad view, so you can make one or two views larger without having to switch to a full-screen view.
— Ability to switch to a left / back / bottom view in the quad view, in stead of having to go full-screen for that.
— A camera / viewport roll control (e.g. middle or right pen/mouse button together with Alt, Ctrl or Shift).
• A smooth / relax function for a selection of curve / surface points, with an adjustable strength / number of iterations.
• Permanent construction lines, remaining intact and adjustable regardless of finishing object creation, saved along with a 3DM file, and importable from other MoI scenes.
• Saving of open or closed roll-out status with MoI 3DM files, like Objects, Types and Styles. An "Expand all roll-outs" option in the MoI settings would do too.
• A manifold mesh check and vertex weld treshold value in the polygon format export dialogs. Now sometimes an exported mesh turns out not to be manifold, but after auto-selecting the non-manifold edges of a mesh in Blender and welding the vertices with a certain treshold, the mesh becomes manifold and suitable for 3D printing.
• Soft selection option for points, with adjustable influence / falloff, so you can move one point and influence neighboring points. This would be useful for quick and smooth manipulation of curves, surfaces and solids with more than a few points.
• No new edge creation when using the Extrude tool to extend the side of some solid types, such as a cylinder cap.
• An object name list dialog addition to the Import function, to import only selected named objects / object sets from an other MoI scene, in stead of importing everything. Every named object / set in the list could be checked by default, with Select All, Select None and Select Invert options included.
Muchas gracias in advance!
Metin
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