Hello Michael,
I'm sure you've already thought about it. And I agree with you, that you have to do some more important things at the moment, but I believe it would fit perfectly to Moi's intuitive concept.
Many thanks
and have a nice day
Karsten

Hello Michael,

Might it be convenient to introduce a feature to manage a user-defined list of observation vantages for the 3D viewport?
It may be useful, between edits, to have the ability to reset the perspective view to that of a prior screenshot.

MOI is the best software experience.
-- Mindset

Hi Mindset, yes that's often times called a "named view" or "saved view" and it is something I want to add. I've been thinking about making a new section in the Scene Browser that could hold some "lists of things" like this, such as saved views, cplanes, and maybe background bitmaps should go under there as well.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

My top 3:

1. Support for nested groups, for example to preserve the hierarchy of imported STEP data
2. Support for nested group hierarchy in the skp export
3. Instancing

Thanks for your commitment and excellent work. MoI is an indispensable tool in our workflow.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Michael,

No doubt you have been monitoring the development of Project Elephant. I am especially excited by recent embryonic development of paneling functionality made possible by "polyLoft" & "mFlowObj" nodes.

This advancement could be fully unleashed with an extension to the "Flow" option : "Flow Between"

Instead of flowing over a compound nurbs surface, the item would be flowed between an inner and outer planar target surfaces. This functionality incorporated into a version of "mFlowObj" node would bring true paneling tools to MOI3D. (although probably not perceivable in below image: FlowPaneling.jpg, the flowed units all distort in one direction) The outer surface may simply be an offset of the inner surface, however it may also deviate dramatically from it (smooth inside/undulating outside)

I recall you stating in an earlier post that paneling functionality involve complicated mathematics:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=1753.4
however one part of the problem has already been solved by node editor (the populating of planar facets of a mesh surface).

I love this software, and would like to see its popularity grow and I do think that this one area for attracting a whole new customer base.

Let me know if any of this is unclear.

Regards
-James

Hi James, it's probably more likely that kind of deformation would fit in a "Cage edit" command, rather than as a 2 surface to 2 surface flow. For Flow I'm not sure how Flow could incorporate those without negative consequences for the existing workflow, since picking 2 surfaces would likely need additional selection steps.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

To clarify what I meant I attached a 3 images. The first image shows an attempt to create a woven pattern flowed over a compound surface. The flowing of planar surface or curves with node editor works brilliantly; however flowing solids produces undesirable distortions (as shown).

The second image is taken from a "Paracloud Gem" manual. Their solution is an elegant one: define a bounding zone of deformation by front and back faces. I am proposing something similar.

>>For Flow I'm not sure how Flow could incorporate those without negative consequences for the existing workflow, since picking 2 surfaces would likely need additional selection steps.<<

Selecting the item to flow may be just as it is now.. Only the origin base surface or curve need be selected because the upper could be extrapolated as instantiation of base at the height of the item to be flowed.

There would however be additional step to select second target surface, but this would only be necessary if a checkbox is first clicked prior to selection of first target surface. See third image.

Please let me know if this is at all unclear.

James

Hi James, it sounds like just too much special cased behavior to be put in a general purpose command like Flow, especially the part about the size of the objects to be flowed to implicitly select a second surface. There's just no consistency with that type of implicit selection happening in any other existing workflow in MoI currently. And then having it be a special case that only applies to all plane surfaces is another consistency problem.

But it could be possible to add some functionality for doing that elsewhere though that a script could access.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

I'm not going to keep flogging this dead horse: I just wanted to make a final proposal.

After selection of the item to be flowed, the dialogue box would prompt "select base curve, surface or point cage".

If point cage is selected, the software expects that the flow targets will be an inner point array and outer point array.

I think this approach is consistent with the MOI philosophy of limited suite of tools with multiple functionality based
on input. (why have a specific tool for each of "Flow Along Curve", "Flow Along Surface", & "Paneling Tools", when
they could be folded into a single powerful tool: "Flow").

It is just a thought.
-James

BELOW IMAGE: Rhino 3d Panel & target point arrays

Hi James, my first thought is that it would be pretty awkward for a user to set up multiple point arrays like that and deal with selecting them.

I'd think that it would be easier for someone to use a dedicated tiling tool where they'd be able to give a number of points in U and V and then that script would generate that whole result for them rather than doing it in individual stages trying to manage all those points at the same time.

But a similar thing that might be easier to build into Flow though would be an option in Flow for a number of tiles in U and V to generate, although that would probably generate curved walls on the output same as if you did a Flow on the curved surface right now. Maybe a "segmented" option could be added for that effect though.

For a point cage approach I don't really understand how a user is going to easily create and manage all those points though, that seems like a lot of specialized set up would be required.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

>>it would be pretty awkward for a user to set up multiple point arrays like that and
deal with selecting them.....seems like a lot of specialized set up would be required.<<

I have only used an early WIP mac version of rhino which did not have this functionality.

Is the the setup for paneling tools in Rhino awkward and a lot of specialized set up required?

The initial point array is generated from a surface, and the second may be simply an offset of the first.
Though by manipulating the second point array, the resulting pattern may have a varied topology
across the surface as shown the rhino images in earlier post.

.>>But a similar thing that might be easier to build into Flow though
would be an option in Flow for a number of tiles in U and V to generate,
although that would probably generate curved walls on the output same
as if you did a Flow on the curved surface right now.<<

Node editor already handles the tiling of flowed items, it is the deformation
of the tessellation as a whole rather than individually that is the problem.
Is this what you me by a "segmented" option?

You mentioned "cage edit" in your first reply.
Is that something planned for Moi3d?

I think you are right: cage editing functionality together with
node editor for coupling of control vertices of the cage to
the points of 2 point arrays would solve this problem.

No doubt there is a better way, and if anyone can find it, it's you.

-James

Hi James,

> Is the the setup for paneling tools in Rhino awkward and a lot of specialized set up required?

Well, that's a special purpose tool that was created for architects to use in construction planning for complex forms. So it's for technical users who need to solve a technical problem, it's easy for a tool with an audience like that to have a lot of options and controls in it which that type of advanced user may need.


> Node editor already handles the tiling of flowed items, it is the deformation
> of the tessellation as a whole rather than individually that is the problem.
> Is this what you me by a "segmented" option?

Yeah, if I understand you correctly - maybe a "segmented" option could create a surface bounded by 4 lines for each tile zone and use that as the target surface for that individual tile, rather than the main target surface. One thing to note is that a surface made from 4 boundary lines is usually non-planar if the endpoints are all on a curved surface, except in special cases.


> You mentioned "cage edit" in your first reply.
> Is that something planned for Moi3d?

Yes, it is something I want to add. I do not have a firm schedule for when yet though.

- Michael

So far, I can think of two nice tools / features to add to MoI. First would be the ability to choose two splines or curves and generate a 3rd one that's in between and/or the average of the two and the second would be to select a curved surface and to be able to flatten/straighten it out with minimal distortion (so that you can use it as a reference surface for flow later on).

Hey Larry,
""""""""""""" the ability to choose two splines or curves and generate a 3rd one that's in between and/or the average of the two """""""""""""""""

Morph between 2 curves by max, located here:

http://moi.maxsm.net/item/14/category/1

There is also one called a "bisector line" (and also line morph) which may be a bit different (used for finding specific points in layout) here:

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3745.52

http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=3745.41

Hi Larry, if you need install instructions for any of the scripts above, please see FAQ #1 : How do I install a plug-in script?

For your 2nd request, flattening a generic curved surface with actual "minimal distortion" is a big complex area of work. But if you want it for use in Flow you probably don't want minimal distortion, you probably want the same distortion that Flow will be using anyway. For that try the script from here: http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6067.23 - that one you set up on a shortcut key and just paste the entire script that's shown in the message into the Command part of the shortcut key instead of copying any files around.

Hope that helps!

- Michael

Things I would love:
- better scene management (instances, nested groups)
- line types and weights for curves, that can be maintained during the export in .AI and .DXF formats.
- annotations (dimensions and editable text tool)
- option to clip the view of the current CPlane (clipping plane)

These are the most useful to me.
M.

...Not sure how plausible...
a macro recorder with JavaScript output would be great for those of us who are not so sophisticated with coding.

Well, this is a "Wish" List...
-- MindSet

That's the way (I think) how should works fillet and chamfer

Seems my gif file from free DesignSpark Mechanical! :)

I believe BOTH ways (to a point and fusions constant, are valuable.