Danperk, how are getting the camera and target information? My View Angles box does not have that.
Thank you,
Ron

Ooops, broke it. I tried with a 156MB STEP file with this result (see attached image). I think I've discussed with you Michael before about very large assembly models. MOI had no problem opening the file but wont save it as a PDF. My PC has 32GB of RAM so I don't believe that's the issue. Any idea as to assembly limit would help me.

Thanks

Paul

Hi Paul,

> The image is of a small agricultural machine.

Looks great!


> Saved it as a AI file but for some reason Inkscape would not open it, so I saved it as a
> PDF and then opened it in PS. Fantastic.

MoI saves to the older AI version 8 file format, while I think Inkscape's AI loader can only load AI version 9 and higher AI files which are actually the same as PDF files. For going into Inkscape try using PDF format export out from MoI rather than AI format.


> I tried with a 156MB STEP file with this result (see attached image). I think I've discussed with you
> Michael before about very large assembly models.

MoI does not currently have an instancing system, so if the STEP file has many repeated elements in it as instances, those will expand to independent copies of objects and tend to consume a lot of memory.


> MOI had no problem opening the file but wont save it as a PDF.

You're likely running out of memory during the PDF file generation, which requires a fair chunk of memory in order to do its own processing.



> My PC has 32GB of RAM so I don't believe that's the issue. Any idea as to assembly limit would help me.

MoI is currently a 32-bit program and so it is only able to address a maximum of 4GB of ram.

For heavier models it can help a lot to adjust a display setting to make a rougher display mesh. By default MoI makes a quite dense display mesh which makes things look nice on screen but can consume a lot of memory if there are a very large number of surfaces in the model like it looks like you have there. To make a coarser display mesh go to Options > View > Meshing parameters and set "Mesh angle" to 30 degrees and uncheck "Add detail to inflections". This will result in a coarser display mesh used for the shaded surface display which will make things look rather more jaggedy on screen but it will reduce the memory consumption load by quite a bit, maybe enough for you to get your PDF export done.

In the future I'm going to look into making MoI a 64-bit program so it can make better use of all your system RAM instead of only 4GB of it. There will be a lot of work involved in doing that though.

- Michael

@Ron,

> Danperk, how are getting the camera and target information? My
> View Angles box does not have that.

You can retrieve them through some script set up on a shortcut key, check out here for more info:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=5981.2

- Michael

Yes I'm using the scripts Michael linked to, then paste the coordinates in Photoshop and imbed in 3DM.

Michael, it would be great to have the ability to add a text file to 3DM files if the they support it.

If the second script for setting camera point could open an input window for x,y,z that would be very handy too!

Thank you, gents! That may come in handy; and I missed it the first time around.
Ron

Hi danperk,

> If the second script for setting camera point could open an input window
> for x,y,z that would be very handy too!

How about this - I've attached here a customized version of the Options > View > "3D view angles" dialog that now has controls on the bottom of it that allow you to both get and also set the camera and target points.

Put this new version in place of the regular file which is inside the \ui subfolder. Should work in either MoI v2 or v3.

On Windows the ui subfolder will be inside the install folder like this: C:\Program Files (x86)\MoI 3.0\ui , on the Mac right-click the .app icon and on the menu that pops up click "Show package contents" and inside there go to drive_c/moi/ui .

- Michael

Excellent, works perfectly!

Thanks very much Michael!

Thanks for supplying this Michael. This will work terrific. We can keep the data in a text file for now to copy and paste when required. Perhaps as you move forward with development you can incorporate this function to create and store the named view(s) in the drawing.

Another nice thing about this added camera function is I can now export my TurboCAD files to MoI if needed and set up the same view in MoI since all that camera data is easily found in TurboCAD.

Hi Michael,

Thanks for all your help. I tried the method you suggested and it didn't work for me. It is a large file and I gave it a thorough inspection. My STEP file is 156mb and 110 individual parts (actually, with all the fixings its more), so its understandable that your not going to get too much done in less than 4gb of RAM. So I broke the model down to 10 3DM files and I added a line all around the view so it would crop them at the same size on export, and saved each as a PDF. It worked out that the tyres are very memory intensive and to my surprise, some of the pipe work had to be left off as they took up too much memory. That and the front ladder. Compped the 10 PDF's in Photoshop (only 300dpi) and I have what I need. It takes a bit of work but now I have a process to do it, I can cost that in to any work I do. I look forward to a 64bit version but I know you have other things to think about.

Thanks again for your help Michael


Paul

Images are

1. Finished image

2. Transparent layers in PS

3. Model in Moi

OT a bit, but i love that mode and would appreciate a rendered image if you do some

Martin Spencer-Ford

Hi Paul, it's a really great looking result!

I'm going to be doing some exploration work on a 64-bit version for v4. There will be a lot of work involved in doing it and so I'm not entirely sure yet if I'll be able to do it or not but I will be investigating it.

- Michael

Seems all the memory is consuming by the wheels ?
As soon as an instance system will be avaible some problems will be resolved ?

Hi Pilou,

> As soon as an instance system will be avaible some problems will be resolved ?

Yes, it will probably help out a lot for cases like this with complex repeated pieces.

- Michael

Hi Michael,
Could the memory issue be solved staying in 32-bit if moi had an instancing mechanism?
Great model btw.
M.

Hi Max,

> Could the memory issue be solved staying in 32-bit if moi had an instancing mechanism?

Not in all cases, but in quite a lot of cases yes I think that's correct that instancing would help even more than being 64-bit.

- Michael

Hi Martin,

One render. Credit for the background image belongs to the ALMA telescope.

Hope you like it.



Paul

Hi Michael,

Look forward to a 64bit version (should it arrive).

Thanks for all your help.

Paul

Looks pretty good from here :)

Thanks for posting the result

Martin Spencer-Ford

That is a very impressive model and render. Thanks for sharing it.