I'm new to MOI but have experience using other 2D and 3D software.

I use component design approaches in my work. One aspect of this approach is that I want to capture not just the shape, size and orientation of an object, but also it's placement and it's spacial relationship to other objects -- even when related objects are spatially disjoint.

The UX I'm looking for is therefore the ability to "group" objects, much like Powerpoint does in 2D. Grouped object behave as a single object. But equally importantly, I need the ability to later "ungroup" and "regroup" -- using a construct other than undo/redo.

These are powerful capabilities that allow my design intent to efficiently evolve during development.

Are these capabilities available in MOI? If so, what are the constructs I would use?

Thanks,

- Bob

Hi Bob, sorry no currently MoI does not have functionality in it for making groups or components that know their own orientations. Those are definitely things that I want to add in the future though.

At the moment the closest things to grouping available are assigning object names or styles to your set of objects so they can be selected using the Scene Browser, or also by typing the object name into the XYZ input control.

If instancing is very important for your work Moi probably won't work well for you right now since it does not have that kind of function in it as of yet.

The main focus for MoI is more on drawing things and creating an individual object in a fluid and easy way.

- Michael

Your home page says that the features of the app make possible the extremely rapid creation of mechanical and hard surface models. Mechanical systems being developed today are based on modular design practices. They're composed of reusable parts, components, assemblies and subsystems. Yet I'm seeing little support in MOI for the tools needed to create these types of designs. To my way of working, the ability to capture the spacial relationships between parts would be one of the first such tools I'd call up.

Is there another school you subscribe to for designing mechanical systems that doesn't rely on modular design? What's your take on the process?

- Bob

Hi Bob, well the reason why the web site discusses mechanical models is because CAD programs in general are better suited for creating man made type objects rather than organic shapes such as creatures or character models.

The basic modeling process that is used to create objects in MoI is by drawing 2D profiles and then using those 2D profiles to generate solids and use other 2D profiles for boolean cutting operations. That's very different than the "sculpting vertices in 3D space" type approach that's used by polygon mesh based modeling programs.

So those things on my web site are basically about trying to emphasize that kind of general difference between what CAD programs are good at and what polygon mesh modeling programs are good at.

It doesn't necessarily mean "large scale highly detailed industrial part design with lots of components" specifically, sorry there was some confusion over that.

In time MoI will have those features added but the primary focus of it currently is on making it really quick and easy to create basic mechanical objects, not really focused on detailed assemblies as of yet. If you're looking for an industrial production mechanical part designer, you probably want to look at the more heavyweight programs such as SolidWorks, SolidEdge, Creo, etc..., all of which of course have a price tag about 20 times or so as much as MoI. But they have a big focus on the types of things you are describing, also at the same time not having anything like the quick and easy drawing feel that MoI has.

- Michael

Thanks for your generous reply.

My tool of choice for the work I've been doing over the last 4 years has been Tinkercad, which is hardly a heavyweight program designed for industrial production mechanical part designers. Rather, it's designed for kids. I teach 3D modeling in K-12 environments, design curriculum for use in those settings, I run professional development sessions for teachers, and I support product designers on an advisory basis. Joinery, modular design and classical "3D sketching" are my primary areas of focus both as a teacher and advisor.

Michael, I'd encourage you to explore augmenting MOI to include a complete set of features necessary to support modular design practices, as I believe there's significant unmet market demand across numerous 3D modeling sectors. The features I believe are most valuable in this regard are outlined in an article I wrote late last year...

http://tinkerteacher.blogspot.com/2014/11/tinkercad-alternatives.html

MOI is an inspiring product that I'll continue to watch. Is there some way to be kept up to date about new product releases?

- Bob

Hi Bob, I do plan on adding functions for modular design in the future. Currently it's just not been the main focus.

MoI has been used very successfully in a teaching environment for kids with no previous CAD knowledge - really it's much better suited than Tinkercad for that, since the overall workflow in MoI allows you to focus more on drawing 2D curves and producing much of your design from those 2D curves which requires less 3D spatial reasoning than only requiring full 3D shapes to be placed around as in TinkerCAD.

Really one of the primary advantages of CAD modeling is being able to work at a 2D level for many things, and TinkerCAD's approach really just misses out on that entirely. With MoI working with curves is the fundamental focus.

You might want to get in touch with Tom Meeks, who is the one using MoI in a teaching environment for kids, focusing on use with 3D printing for "at risk" kids with no previous technical CAD experience.

Tom's blog is here: http://moiusers.blogspot.com/

He launched this Kickstarter for producing some materials for teachers using MoI, this may be what is of interest to you specifically:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1934437553/3d-thinklink-help-us-share-the-power-of-3d-printin

And here's a video he produced showing some of what they are doing using 3D printing and MoI in their classes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qLiIukEaG8

MoI much more resembles a regular CAD program than TinkerCAD - it should be really easy to tell the difference in what is able to be done with each just by looking at the galleries. TinkerCAD was basically designed by people who didn't have any CAD experience and it is only able to construct things out of polygonal objects, it doesn't use an object representation that is able to represent true curves and smooth surfaces which is a huge limitation.

You should be able to get a good idea of what's possible with MoI just by looking through the MoI gallery - it's easy to see a whole lot of stuff in there that would be exceptionally difficult to do in TinkerCAD because TinkerCAD can only construct very blocky chunky things by only combining primitive shapes. You need to be able to generate objects from curves in order to do more advanced shapes, and MoI provides many construction functions for using curves to form your models.



> MOI is an inspiring product that I'll continue to watch. Is there some way to be kept up to
> date about new product releases?

The best way is to just periodically check the website and discussion forum - sorry I do not have any newsletter or mailing list set up.


- Michael

I would agree that MOI has many useful features that are readily accessible through a fairly straightforward UX.

I watched Tom's series of intro videos yesterday. They were a super helpful way of getting my bearings during my first day using the app.

- Bob

Hi Bob, the other thing that can give you a good feel for things are the MoI introductory video tutorials here:
http://moi3d.com/3.0/docs/tutorials.htm

Those go step by step on how to build a few different objects and highlight how the profile curve focused modeling strategy works.

As a comparison you could try constructing those same 3 objects in TinkerCAD and see how difficult it is - TinkerCAD is more about stacking together premade pieces and you aren't able to have the same feel like you are drawing something completely custom.

But if you don't need real curved surfaces, I would think that SketchUp would be something that you'd want to look into rather than TinkerCAD.

- Michael