<< 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).

There are ten items on my list:

1 - Dimensioning
2 - Dimensioning
3 - Dimensioning
4...

You get the idea.

You cannot communicate your designs without dimensioning.

Luckily, MOI provides good Sketchup support.

11 - a guide / measurement system more like that found in... you guessed it... Sketchup.

BTW, I don't particularly like modeling or navigation in Sketchup.

12 - Material support (ability to "map" image files to surfaces), also important for the communication thing.

Don't know if this idea was already suggested, but it would be really great to be able to save the 3dm file with an optional preview icon that would make the content visible in file explorer without having to load it.

Also, as a reminder, we had talked about a verification upon save... for example, provide an error in case the drive mapping fails.

This is the best software I have ever known. I love MoI.

Hi Mindset,

> Don't know if this idea was already suggested, but it would be really great to be able to save
> the 3dm file with an optional preview icon that would make the content visible in file explorer
> without having to load it.

I would like to have this, but it's more involved than just saving the preview icon in the file - I would also need to write a plug-in for Explorer that handles extracting the icon and getting it to Explorer when it asks for it, Explorer all by itself doesn't know how to grab the icon out of arbitrary file types. Then also I'd need to write a similar plug-in for Mac as well.

It's certainly possible to do all that, it's just a fair amount more work than only putting in an icon in the file.


> Also, as a reminder, we had talked about a verification upon save... for example, provide an
> error in case the drive mapping fails.

Yes having error messages for more kinds of failure conditions for file writing is still on the todo list.

- Michael

Hello Michael,

>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.

is it possible to set the rotation-centerpoint by a simple click with the middle mouse button? I know this feature from Catia V5 and it's very Handy - no menu clicks-no Icons-no additional Keyboard-keys. The view gets also centered to the new centerpoint.

Kind regards
Karsten

Hi Karsten,

re:
> is it possible to set the rotation-centerpoint by a simple click with the middle mouse button?

Sorry no it is not possible to do that currently - right now there is not any way to assign the middle mouse click to a custom action. Also it would probably be kind of awkward to attempt to do that since in MoI when you're in selection mode you don't see feedback on pointpicker things like object snaps, so it would be a kind of semi-blind (meaning without regular snap feedback) to try and do that as you're describing.

But the "Zoom area" button mentioned above is available at the top level UI, it's not on a nested sub-menu. It's the button on the bottom of a viewport here:




You can also set the rotation pivot point to the center of the selected objects by using the "Reset" button on that same viewport toolbar. Often times that's the easiest way to do it.

- Michael

Hello Michael,

thanks for the answer - and sharing your minds.
But one Thing I didn't understand - what is it caused by, that the Event for "click", can't select a custom command?
I understand the described catia - function like that:
The middle or a right click selects (maybe blind) an element or - if there is no hit -creates an intersection point with an invisible plane (depending of the Viewport alignment) and do an viewport reset.
Or is it in principle not possible to get click- and "mousebutton down Events alternatively?


Thanks in advance
and
have a nice day

Karsten

p.s: Maybe combinations of Buttons:-)

Hi Karsten,

> But one Thing I didn't understand - what is it caused by, that the Event for "click", can't
> select a custom command?

It just means that there is not currently any infrastructure in place to allow the middle click to be customized to do different actions.

Customizing middle mouse button behavior just does not happen automatically with every single program - there are things like UI that needs to be created to allow it to be changed. Currently there isn't anything set up to do that.

I have not really figured out what to do with the middle mouse click as of yet, it's possible that by default I'd like to make it pop up a toolbox of a few frequently used commands or something like that.

Because of the problem that I described that you wouldn't be able to get regular pointpicking snapping feedback, it would maybe be a little awkward for the mouse button to be configured like you are describing, so it could mean it would not be on a list of standard fixed behavior options but rather something that required some kind of more flexible and customizable script to be set up in response to the click.


> Or is it in principle not possible to get click- and "mousebutton down Events alternatively?

It is possible in principle, it's just not something that has been implement as of yet.

Sorry maybe I have misunderstood your original post - when you wrote "is it possible" I thought you were asking if it was possible to make the current version of MoI behave like that.

- Michael

Thank You Michael,
for wasting your time with my curiosity,

and Yes, my question was relating to later Versions.

A nice day to all
Karsten

No problem Karsten!

- Michael

When will we see the first v4 beta.

I am very curious, which way you will go next.

Hi Rudl,

> When will we see the first v4 beta.

Still quite a few months out at a minimum. I am making progress but there's still quite a bit left to do.

 

> I am very curious, which way you will go next.

The current priority for the rewrite is to make MoI 64-bit and also have a native Mac compiled version. Hopefully most everything else should remain the same at first.

- Michael

That's an *excellent* plan!

A mannequin (basic human - with 5.9 feet* - 180 cm*) would bei nice - only for a quick proportion-measurment* - even only a flat plane like in sketchup - maybe also a basic light/sun and basic flat shadows.

This would be cool :)

<< A mannequin (basic human - with 5.9 feet* - 180 cm*) would bei nice - only for a quick proportion-measurment*

This mannequin ? :)
http://bit.ly/moipat