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

Hi Michael ...

Yes, a simple 'face the screen' would be great. This should work fine for plan view (which is mostly what I use for working drawings) and for 3d, as well. If possible one should be able to select a font and font size, too.

If this were implemented I would be able to do about 90% of my work without leaving MoI. Line weights and a couple of styles (dashed) would bring it up to 95%

cheers,
eric

Hi Michael,
in Sketchup, for dimensions, you can choose "Align to the dimension line" and not only "Align to screen" (see "Window" - "Model Info" - "Dimensions").
In my opinion in Sketchup app dimensions are useful only as modeling aids.
It is in Layout app that dimensions are useful for construction documents.

Bye,
Giovanni

<< in Sketchup, for dimensions, you can choose "Align to the dimension line" and not only "Align to screen" (see "Window" - "Model Info" - "Dimensions").

Yes! :)

For obtain that you must double clicked on the text!
Then call the Info's Entity ! So an individual property!

Suggested MAJOR Improvements:

1. Improved Fillet - In my experience, it often takes a couple dozen seconds to produce the same results that 123d Design, FreeCAD, Fusion 360, ViaCAD, and others generate virtually instantly.

2. Surface Matching - http://docs.mcneel.com/rhino/5/help/en-us/commands/matchsrf.htm

3. Surface Rebuilding - http://docs.mcneel.com/rhino/5/help/en-us/commands/rebuild.htm

Features 2 and 3 would be particularly useful for patch modeling workflows, and with the above three developments, I would no longer have a need to use other CAD software.

Suggested MINOR Improvements:

1. Customizable Viewport Navigation - I prefer MMB rotation, Alt + MMB panning, and Ctrl + MMB zooming. Currently, I use AutoHotkey to get this behavior, but it would be better if the option to do so were built into MoI.

2. Pick Viewport Center - I would like to be able to press a button to set the viewport's center to a point directly under the mouse cursor and on an object. Perhaps, this is possible with scripting, but I'm not aware of any ray cast functions.

3. Zoom to Center - The option to zoom to the center of the viewport would be greatly appreciated by people like me who dislike zooming to the mouse cursor. Currently, this is only possible by using the zoom button.

4. Z-Axis Viewport Rotation Inversion - Currently, if you rotate the view by dragging the mouse from left to right, the scene rotates counterclockwise as seen from above. This means that the scene rotates in the opposite direction as expected when viewing from the bottom. One solution would be to automatically invert this behavior to rotate the scene counterclockwise as seen from below once the view passes a certain threshold. If this explanation doesn't make sense, I am proposing that the viewport rotation be handled like Blender or Maya instead of the current way that is like Modo.

5. Lit Sphere/Matcap Shading - This is achieved by mapping the x and y components of camera space normal vectors to a square image of a shaded sphere. The mapping is offset such that the normal vectors (0, 0, 1) and (0, 0, -1) correspond to the center of the image texture. Not only would this enable massive libraries of lit spheres to be used in MoI but also it would provide a "poor man's" zebra stripe shader for surface continuity analysis (http://cadjunkie.com/9180/matcaps-in-modo-zebra-stripes).

I hope that my suggestions don't portray MoI as inadequate. It is a fantastic product and an absolute pleasure to work with.

Constraint and dimensions are not so bad here!

Hi Umdee, thanks for your requests!

> 1. Customizable Viewport Navigation - I prefer MMB rotation, Alt + MMB panning,
> and Ctrl + MMB zooming. Currently, I use AutoHotkey to get this behavior, but it
> would be better if the option to do so were built into MoI.

You can get the first one, the MMB rotation by setting the option under Options > View > Rotate/Pan/Zoom options > "Rotate with middle button" checkbox (6th checkbox down on the left).


> 2. Pick Viewport Center - I would like to be able to press a button to set the
> viewport's center to a point directly under the mouse cursor and on an object. Perhaps,
> this is possible with scripting, but I'm not aware of any ray cast functions.

Try using the "Zoom area" button on the viewport bottom toolbar for this - the first point that you pick for the area to zoom in on will become the center of the new view, make the zoom rectangle fairly large to make for not much change in zoom in/out level.

- Michael

Out the fact that you can use it directly by loading a Moi File Sat (free for hobbysts - students) click *Do I qualify for Free Use? http://fusion360.autodesk.com/pricing
some ideas here ;)

Thanks Michael.

I didn't know that about the Zoom Area tool. However, that is too cumbersome for frequent use. I've taken a peak at the scripting documentation and come up with a rough solution (posted in a different thread).