"my wish is that a selected planar surface could become the cPlane"
cPlane is scriptable

Hello Michael!

How are you ? I hope fine :)

I imagine that you're working hard for the next V4 beta builds, and actually I only would like to know what is the situation about the three fundamental "bricks" we talked about when V4 was announced :

1) 64Bit and Mac OS native : DONE

2) Instancing : missing

3) Grouping : missing

If I remember correctly these were the "foundation" for V4.

Thanks a lot and have a nice day.

Hi Marco, sorry no progress yet on #2 and #3, and actually some priorities are shifting a bit, I'm probably going to work on dimensioning as a higher priority than those.

I think I am getting quite close to having V4 fully production ready without any regressions from V3, that's the fundamental step that I have wanted to get really nailed down first before digging in to large new feature areas.

- Michael

Hi Michael.

@You : "...I'm probably going to work on dimensioning as a higher priority than those."
Ok. I understand.
But I only hope that you can soon put your hands on "Instancing" and "Grouping" because are two very important and long awaited features.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the reply and have a nice day ;)

"I don't see any information there about how instances are stored in a LWO file which is what I would need."

I believe LW instancing is in the scene file and not in the object itself. Instances are represented through nulls that are associated with the object clones, I believe.

Hi Paul, unfortunately the LightWave scene file format does not seem to be documented as fully as the object format.

http://static.lightwave3d.com/sdk/2018/html/filefmts.html

I wasn't able to find any mention of clones or instancing in there.

- Michael

Michael,

You're right. Newtek isn't great about stuff like that.

You're probably aware that Lightwave 3D is essentially two distinct programs - modeller and layout.

In Modeller you create objects and in layout you create scenes using those objects.

The instances in LW aren't cloning the point data for objects, they are taking an object as a pattern and laying out nulls in the scene that are replaced during render time with the point and surface data associated with the template object. It's essentially collapsing the scene file size and reducing the render overhead by only instantiating objects where the instance is part of the visible scene.

As a lapsed LWer (my version of LW pre-dates instancing) I wouldn't expect MOI3D to be building instances in the LW sense. Instances don't exist in the object sense, only essentially as markers in a scene for object replication at render time.

[edit: Also I'm not even sure that you can merge LW scenes, so even a template scene with the correct LW style instances may be of little use in practical terms. ]

Paul

Hi, Michael.
I have such question, it is possible to write the script that it was possible to change places the beginning and the end at open curves, such as: lines, arcs, NURBS?
Vladimir.

Hi Vladimir, yes you can use the Flip command in MoI to do that:
http://moi3d.com/3.0/docs/moi_command_reference10.htm#flip

- Michael

Thanks, Michael. That's very good. There is another MoI issue that incorrectly exports the file to the DXF format of the arc and circle.
For comparison, I attach another pdf file.

Vladimir.

Hi Vladimir, could you please describe the DXF bug in more detail?

When I open your DXF file in MoI v4 over here it looks like this:


When I open your PDF file in MoI v4 it looks like this:


DXF in Rhino v5:


DXF in Autodesk online viewer:


- Michael

Hi, Michael.
The screenshots show how the CAM program handles vectors from PDF and DXF files.
Vladimir.

Hi Vladimir, sorry I didn't know it was the direction of the arcs and circles in the DXF that you were referring to about the bug. I've seen some programs miscalculate the actual geometry for arcs in cases where they have a plane normal pointing downwards in Z, I thought that might be what you were seeing.

It does look like MoI is not preserving the arc direction for its DXF output, I'll see about tuning that up.

Thanks for reporting the bug!

- Michael

Hi Michael
I am looking forward to the next version to be able to add "Match", "rebuildcrf" and "umwrapcrf" similar to "Rhino" software. These are useful for surface modeling. Thank you!
-Yuan

Hi Yuan, I would like to add those functions at some point in the future but I'm sorry it is not likely to be for the next version. For now you should plan to still use Rhino for those kinds of surface modeling functions.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

I work solely on a laptop and I would imagine that, in this, I am part of a vast and fast growing constituency. Moi3d's pared back UI is more suited than most CAD softs when working with such limited scene real estate; however it would be IMHO great if it was possible to collapse the side bar menu in and out of the scene edge.

The cross & 3 line symbols have become web standards for this and so would be immediately legible to new users.

Also it would be useful to be able to switch between tools menu and scene browser.

I am excited by prospect of the upcoming V4. If you can see some benefit in these suggestions, I wonder if they may be included....at least as an option.

Thanks for all your great work
James

Hi James, one thing that's related to that which you can do now is the option under Options > General > Side pane position: "Inside".

That will remove the Scene Browser as a separate panel and instead make it show up as a palette at the bottom of the other tools.

Also another thing you can use currently is to set up a keyboard shortcut that will toggle the side pane visibility. To do that set up a shortcut key under Options > Shortcut keys with this as the command part:

script: /* Toggle Side pane visibility */ var style = moi.ui.sidepane.document.body.style; style.display = (style.display ? '' : 'none' );


- Michael

Hi Michael,

>> you can do now is the option under Options > General > Side pane position: "Inside". <<

Yes, this is the option I currently use and generally it works well for me. I just feel if I could simply switch between palettes, scrolling the side bar would usually be unnecessary (excepting projects with many named objects etc).

.>> you can.....set up a keyboard shortcut that will toggle the side pane visibility. <<

Thank you, this a great tip. I will do this immediately. I might see if I can link it to a custom icon

Thanks again
James

Hi James, here's another script you can try. This one expects the browser pane to be in either "adjacent" or "opposite" mode (not "inside" mode) and it will go in 3 steps, showing side pane only, then browser pane only, then hiding both:

script: /* Toggle Side pane and Browser pane visibility 3 steps*/ var sp = moi.ui.sidepane.document.body.style; var bp = moi.ui.getUIPanel( 'moi://ui/BrowserPane.htm' ).document.body.style; var spon = (sp.display != 'none'); var bpon = (bp.display != 'none'); if ( spon && !bpon ) { sp.display = 'none'; bp.display = ''; } else if ( !spon && bpon ) { sp.display = 'none'; bp.display = 'none'; } else { sp.display = ''; bp.display = 'none'; }

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Now you're talking.....Great stuff
This has become my go-to setup!

Thanks James