Hi Metin,

> • A 'quick mesh preview' — option to press a keyboard key to preview the polygon structure
> of the current scene, based on your preferred mesh export settings.

Set the following as the command part of a shortcut key:

SaveAs c:\test.obj


When it's given a parameter like that, the SaveAs command will use that as the file name rather than popping up a file name dialog, so you'll go directly to the mesh export after that shortcut key is triggered. When you're done looking at things push Escape to cancel out.

- Michael

Thanks Michael, that's a great tip!

I'll reduce the wish to only the realtime mesh preview mode, which I can imagine is a future function, when PC's have gotten a bit faster.

Hello,

Wishes for V4:

-Groups (Selectable as one objects)
-Instances
-Blends that would work anywhere on a 2d curves and trim the rest.
-Blends - Continuity on-screen handles
-Fillet - Radius on-screen Handles
-A special jojo command that would draw rabbit tracks.
-Simple dimensioning system

Tweaks :

Extrude face - negative numeric entry

Marc

Merci for your additions, Marc!

Hi Michael ...

When you get around to dimensions please have a quick look at Sketchup's dimensions for 3d models. Just what I often need.

I am not a Sketchup fan but they did get this right.

In the meantime 'MoI rocks'.

cheers,
eric

+1 Marc

Hi Marc, that's a good sounding list of stuff to try and get in!

Re: Extrude face - negative numeric entry

Could you maybe describe this one a bit more? Negative numeric entry should be working already for face extrusion. For example if I select this face:



If I run Extrude and type in -5 and push enter I get this result:



Positive values will go towards the outside of the solid and do a boolean union onto it, and negative values will go inwards and cut it with a boolean difference.

- Michael

Hi eric,

> When you get around to dimensions please have a quick look at Sketchup's dimensions for
> 3d models. Just what I often need.
>
> I am not a Sketchup fan but they did get this right.

That involves one of the big decisions to make - whether dimension text should be always be displayed as simple vertical "on screen" text, or whether the text should behave more like an object itself and get viewed at different angles.

SketchUp does it the "always vertical on screen" way and Rhino and AutoCAD (and I guess a lot of other "traditional" CAD programs) do it the other way with the text being made up of lines and curves that have their own orientation in model space.

So in SketchUp you get a look like this:



While in Rhino things look more like this, note the difference on the text:




When you zoom out, in SketchUp the text remains at the same size no matter what zoom level you are at, this can lead to some crowding:



In Rhino, the text is associated with a model space size and when you zoom out the text goes smaller as well. This helps avoid crowding but the text can also get illegible as well:




When zooming in, the SketchUp text again remains the same (it's always the same no matter what zoom level):




In Rhino the text gets pretty big when you zoom in on it, this tends to be kind of strange:




So the question is, does the SketchUp style of "always facing you" text work ok for what you need or does that create problems for certain circumstances?

- Michael

Hi Michael ...

There is no perfect way, I suppose.

The advantage I see with Sketchup is that one can rotate the view considerably and still see the dimensions. It is possible, I think, to change the text size if it gets out of proportion. This is also true of Rhino, I believe.

With Rhino, changing the view point of a 3d object can skew the text so as to be unreadable.

For 3d details I now often simply set the perspective view I want and then annotate with some other software so the the dimensions and notes always face the reader. This is pretty awkward and time consuming but work better than Rhino's method.

I have not tried ViaCad yet so I don't know what the protocol is. I'll give that a try in the next day or so.

cheers,
eric

Hi eric, re: ViaCAD - ViaCAD seems to use the same method as Rhino and AutoCAD where the dimension lives on a particular plane in model space, not the SketchUp "text always facing you" method. It seems that the vast majority of CAD programs do it the non-SketchUp way as well, which does make me a little bit worried about doing it differently... However, the SketchUp way does seem to simplify things quite a bit.


> For 3d details I now often simply set the perspective view I want and then annotate with
> some other software so the the dimensions and notes always face the reader. This is pretty
> awkward and time consuming but work better than Rhino's method.

Yeah the SketchUp way is the closest to adding in annotations in a 2D illustration or bitmap editing program, with just purely 2D text pasted onto the result.


What about with 2D plan views, the Rhino method actually works fine for those views rather than 3D views is that correct?


Then the next question is - does the "screen oriented" method cause any inherent problem in plan views? In some cases I suspect the answer is "yes" unfortunately, here are a few examples where it was helpful to have orientable text in the dimension:







These sorts of oriented annotations kind of come along automatically with the Rhino/AutoCAD way.


So I guess I kind of need to know - is that kind of orientable text a "must have" feature for dimensions or would it still be useful to have dimensions in MoI even if they were all only screen oriented text?

Now that I dig into SketchUp's dimensions a little more I see that there is an option under EntityInfo where you can change a dimension to either be screen oriented or not.

Of course the more kinds of special modes a particular feature has the more difficult it is to develop it.

- Michael

Hi Michael ..

I did a little more experimenting. The Rhino system does work pretty well for most situations for dimensions of 3d objects ... have to rework some of them if rotating the view.

But, in the best of all possible worlds one could toggle to get paper face for dimensions (like Sketchup) and text (with text and dimensions text sizing options).

ViaCad is more like Rhino ... I still find ViaCad a little clumsy to work with but, I suppose that is because I spend little time there.

This sounds like a lot of work so I don't suppose you'll get very far with it very soon. I know it is not top priority.

cheers,
eric

Hi eric, well it has definitely been requested quite a bit and it is something that MoI needs to have in order to be a more full-fledged CAD program.

But it's definitely easier to implement things that don't have a whole ton of options in it, so I am interested if just a "face the screen" (SketchUp like) type text display only would work ok for most cases to start with or not...

I guess the question is would that also do the job for a lot of plan view annotations as well, or is it absolutely necessary to have rotated plan-view text as in the above images that I was showing.

If other people have specific needs or expectations for how dimensioning should work in MoI now is a good time to speak up.

- Michael

More importantly, there are standards for dimensioning.
http://www.ohio.edu/people/gb885811/531%20Final%20Site/Gina%20Bruce%20Site/Information/Technology%20Education/Drafting%201/PPT/Chapter7.DEMTOL1.pptx
Both ways are used, with pro and cons.
Max.

Hi Max, yeah I guess the question is - would a simple system that just puts some basic screen oriented text up be useful for people or does it have to be a full implementation of those various standards in order for it to be useful?

- Michael

In my opinion just one is enough. You know what would make a difference? Basic dimensional constraints (on 2d shapes).
Max.

Adding to wish list: Clipping Planes as described here http://moi3d.com/forum/messages.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6966.11&highlight=yes
Just a display modifier would be fine to begin with.
Max.

Hi since this is my first post i want to say thanks for a incredible program.

Dimensions in any form would is my main wish for new features in Moi. I mainly use Moi for making models that will be manually fabricated or machined. How it is now i either import into Viacad or just write dimensions by hand. Doing this in Moi would greatly speed up the process.

- Andreas

There is also In Sketchup 3 possible positions for basic dimension!



And slighly different in the Layout section for the Pro Version!
http://help.sketchup.com/en/article/147002
Possibility to incline the text!

Hi Michael,

-> Re: Extrude face - negative numeric entry

I found out I had a prehistoric shortcut assigned to "-" !!
Yes, negative extrude works great, nevermind this one.

-> Re: Dimensions

Sketchup style dimensioning would be great, other options could be added in the future if needed.
I really like the idea of a simple dimension tool.

Just throwing ideas:

Perhaps a specific scale could be useful, especially when exporting to pdf.
It could be controlled by a text size entry, the arrow scale would follow.
If you enter nothing in the text size, scaling would be automatic

If it's easy maybe adding a "follow dimension orientation" checkbox would be useful.


Marc

-> There is also In Sketchup 3 possible positions for basic dimension!

Maybe a node for the text position would be nice, you could manually change it if the default position doesn't fit.

Marc