Hi Michael is it possible to make MoI parametric?
I just started to use Fusion 360 and its parametric features are awesome!
It has timeline where all actions stored and you can change everything at any time! So you have absolute freedom in making models. In direct modeling sometimes is very hard to go back and change something.

Hi Andrei,

re:
> Hi Michael is it possible to make MoI parametric?

It's possible but there is a lot of work involved and so I'm not sure when it will happen.

The focus in MoI is more about making it very fast and fluid to do the initial drawing of things, not so much on parametric history editing as of yet.

- Michael

OnShape is another one and more "free" than Fusion 360 ;)
https://www.onshape.com/features-and-pricing

Michael,
got it you position MoI like something very fast so it is good point to not to have all that parametric stuff in this this situation.

Frenchy Pilou,
thanks for reference,
interesting software but it has some limitation for me,
First "Onshape uses cloud-native Documents, not files." it is critical for me because now I am working on some design that can not be uploaded into the internet.
Second if I'm not wrong it has no T-Spline like module.

What I can say about Fusion 360 that it is key features for me is that T-Spline and Booleans was joined in this App and they are parametric and it is awaysome!
My client can say me at the Render stage could you pleas modify some form, but that form was made in NVil and converted to MoI than cuted etc... So for me it was real pain I had to go back to NVil and start everything from this point.
With Fusion it is only couple of clicks and you can change T-Spline forms keeping all cuts you made with Booleans.

Also it has Render, Assemblies and other very useful stuff, it even has LOFT with tangent and Patch (I could not even dream about it a couple ears ago), but I do not use them a lot because I use T-Spline.
I use Fusion 360 not so long ago, and still test it during work, the only disadvantage for me now is that it has no shortcuts, but I plane to make them using AHK.

Previously only Modo could join these features together (Free form modeling(Polygons) and Booleans) in parametric like way with its Fusion but Modo is very complicated for me with not very clear workflow and has a lot of limitation in terms of CAD.

Hi Michael,

> not so much on parametric history editing as of yet.

Yet!?
Hope you're not thinking going the Parametric history based tree with MoI, at the moment it is as you said, quick and fluid, once the Parametric history tree is introduced, ala Solidworks, Fusion, NX, Creo, just to name a few, it's another methodology that has to be adhered to because as that history grows and certain disciplines are not followed your model could just fall apart when a minor change is made down the tree I get these files at least once a week, where you have to roll back the tree and turn on each feature one at a time to find the culprit feature that's causing the model to fall apart.

I use MoI for the quick idea and concept to show customers and then when it becomes a full steam ahead paying project the MoI model is imported to one of the many purpose built Parametric modelling programs to anticipate the changing life cycle of the product.

In saying that, expanding the history capabilities in MoI would be good also but not the full on feature tree.

Keep on trucking Michael you've done an exceptional job so far......if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Cheers

Hello,

I happen to agree with DannyT on this one, I hope MoI doesn't go parametric. On the other hand I would like to see an elegant checkpoint / versioning / onion skinning type of modeling incorporated into MoI. It seems this method would have some advantages over parametric in its organization and may be better suited to MoIs existing workflow.

Hi Danny, re: History tree in MoI - it is something that I want to add in since it can be a very useful editing tool in many situations, but I want it to be an optional thing, not something like the only focus for how things work.

The general workflow and structure of MoI would not change, there would just be a recording of your actions possibly in a separate companion file to the 3DM file (since it may grow large), and some optional history pane in MoI that you could open to view previous actions and change parameters for them and replay the action sequence.

So don't worry - when I am able to implement it, I'll be shooting for something that is built around how MoI currently works, it would not be a major change to the existing workflow and feel.

Actually the first thing that I will be shooting for when I start to work on it will be to use the sequence list to have a persistent undo so you would keep the ability to undo beyond just the current active session. That will be the first target for the sequence storage and then editing coming sometime afterwards.

There will be a lot of work involved in planning the UI for the editing part, so I'm not sure exactly when it will happen but it is something that I would like to add in to MoI.

Hope that helps alleviate any worries! :) I definitely intend for MoI to keep the quick and light concept modeling feel, that will likely always be the main focus and something that I am intent on not ruining.

- Michael

Hi OSTexo,

> On the other hand I would like to see an elegant checkpoint / versioning / onion skinning
> type of modeling incorporated into MoI.

Version branching and different streams within a single file is another thing I want to look at in the future, but it will probably be after history editing.

OnShape has some really interesting stuff for this now.

- Michael

Michael, "Actually the first thing that I will be shooting for when I start to work on it will be to use the sequence list to have a persistent undo so you would keep the ability to undo beyond just the current active session. That will be the first target for the sequence storage and then editing coming sometime afterwards."

You mean we can undo not only last action but some actions beyond? If yes it would be great! Not real parametric but really handy feature. Because now for example it is so hard to remove/modify fillet and other stuff. But with this undo it will be great option to remove it.

Hi Andrei - for undo what I mean is that you would not lose the ability to undo after you have saved the file and reopened it later.

Currently if you close a file you lose your undos, undos only are kept just in memory for the current file session. Once you close down MoI and start it later and reopen the same file it would be good if you could undo then the same as you could in the original session.

At first this would not have anything to do with removing just one step out of a sequence like you are describing with fillets though.

- Michael

Michael, yep I understood. Anyway that feature whe you removing only one step from history would be great.

Hi Michael,

Your plan sounds good, actually NX has the option where you can switch from History to History Free modelling however it's not as nimble as MoI.

Cheers

solidThinking Evolve is a great sub-d/ solid modeler with history but not ordered.

dejule,
thanks for pointing to this software, I just checked a lot of video of it on youtube, and its ability to create organic forms with curves just blow me away, it is really impressed. I do not know if you need Sub-D in this situation :) Need to dig in it a bit more!

Hay guys, just want to share some thoughts.
I tested Fuison 360 for about 2 weeks tried to make my project in it I even created bunch of shortcuts using AHK. And what I can say the things that I made in MoI for 30 min I made in Fuison for about a half of day. Fusion have the greatest Idea in it but workflow is terrible... I back to MoI and NVil because deadline of my project was finished 2 days ago and I still do not finish model...
Wat I learn is that MoI for Hard Surface is superb and all that scripts made my work SUPER fast. Absolutely the same thing with NVil, TSpline has a lot of advantages but it lucks so many instruments and features so workflow become real pain and you have a lot of time to get used to it. What I'll miss it a lot after fusion is Parametric ability it is really great feature!

Hi Andrei,

Got mostly the same feeling about fusion360, horrible experience for my way of working. 'Basic' curves drawing is so slow compared to Moi.
I can't understand how people can still develop a modeling package this days without having custom shortcut options.
(First time I eared about AHK, that might be a workaround).
The whole cloud system is very irritating too.

I'm still looking for the holly grail, aka a good hybrid nurbs/sds package, but with no success.

Solidthinking is much easier to pick than Fusion, but the 'polynurbs' toolset is very primitive. I do not expect to have the poly tools to build an
human face, but there are so many simple modeling function missing that the only solution would be to use an external poly modeler, limiting
the need of such software (ST Evolve is over 2k).
At least custom shortcut are possible, except for the navigation ... go figure. (makes me very grateful to all the navigation options we have in MoI :))

Hi PaQ,
" Solidthinking is much easier to pick than Fusion, 'polynurbs' toolset is very primitive"
Yes... When I saw it, I leave this app because I need SUBD. But anyway their parametric features are great, I really like how you can work with it!

I decided to make some little review of Fusion, may be it will halp others to take decision of using it.
I will explain my thoughts from point of vision of Concept Designer. In my work when I made things for product design I do not need absolute precision, in my stage I gave 3D model of mechanism and create design above it. After design is approved my model use another person - 3D modeler that creates precis nurbs model for production. So may be my workflow will have some effect on my review, because I prefer to work super fast only with shortcuts to not loose my inspiration.
Also my English is not very good so I can say something wrong so excuse me :)

Fusion 360:

Shortcuts:
It has no any shortcut, oh they have some but you will never use them because they are for operation that you use very rare. Vital commands like Pull and Edit Form has no any shortcuts.
So you have to be ready for endless clicking...

Navigation:
It has that famous useless Navigation Cube in upper right corner, my personal opinion is, it is the only progressive feature that AD adds to their apps :D
There is no any way to go into Right or any other ortho thews except clicking on that Cube or in Browser.

Drawing:
You always have to create plane to draw and having this limitation it has no goo toolset for this. Instead it has a lot of tools that are all nearly not so good as one CPlane picker in MoI.
Check how many tools and they are absolutely useless if you want to set CPlane to organic stuff you made with TSplines you just can not do it, it work only with hard surface.


Snapping:
There is no snapping at all when you model and it is terrible, snapping is only when you drawing. To move with snap there is one command that in MoI calls Orient. Snaping is not bad when you draw but in MoI it is thousands time more advanced and MoI has real Construction lines.

Moving:
To move you always have to run command from context menu, in fusion you always have run commands from context menu it is so boring... In MoI you just select object and Move, in MoI 3.0 Michael implement stright snap moving with shift and it is really great.

Objects:
This theme is absolutely horrible... It confuse me most of all. In Fusion objects calls Components. And when you start project you are in top most component, so than you have to create components everytime you want to create separate objects. All sketches can be stored or in Active object or in top most or in parent. To store sketch in Component you have to activate it, but you always forget to make it because in Fusion there is no good way to see if component is activated. It has option to make all components transparent except active but it looks terrible when you have big model and you have to click about 5 clicks to go to setting and disable it... So if you forget to store sketch in component you can not isolate component with sketch because sketch will lay some where else.... Then.... :D If you want to extrude from sketch and cut with this geometry it will cut all geometry from all components that it meets, so to cut only one you have to hide all others you can do it by hiding objects (context menu as always :D) if you have more then 2 objects to hide it become so boring, or you can isolate your object and cut it, but if you forget to store you sketch in this object it is impossible :D There is no simple way to copy sketch from one component to another only complicated where you have to go to one sketch copy it and than go to another to past :% why not just copy it form explorer and past?... Do not going to confuse you with further imperfection of Fusion workflow with components :D. A... forget, Component have bodies and it is geometry that it holds and this thing confuse me from first day, I thought I have to work with bodies but, bodies just geometry inside component and this geometry can be hidden only from explorer, we can not isolate it, another words we can not handle it like Component, may be this body have sense but for me it looks like way to complicate things that are already complicated, also when you create object it by default creates bodies, so it is very easy to forget to change it to New Component, brr.... :D
Also...))) If you hide object and have big model with a lot of components it is real pain to unhide it because you can unhide it only from browser, but to do it you have to find it in that browser :D It is so hard task so you can break your eyes because selected object is so bad highlighted some tinny line under it and this is it, even if you use function find in browser you can not see highlited object.

TSpline:
I do not going to tell a lot of words about it, it have advantage that you can create T like cage but I thing it is all. It absolutely sucks against good polygonal modeler, in terms of polygonal modelling. May be for TSpline no need to have all that function because it can compensate them by using NURBS tools after you create base form, but have you tried to make it in Fusion? It is so hard because you can not eve set CPlane to this TSpline object. So to cut simple hole on organic TSpline you have to create nurbs object that replicate continuity of TSpline object than set CPlane from this :D
I work in NVil and can compare TSpline with it, it have about 30% of tools and workflow from NVil.

Render:
It has to few parameters and I like it but I could not mange to have things so nice and bright like in KeyShot, for me it looks not so expressive like KeyShot.

Patch:
This room is really good, it has all instruments to work with surfaces, it has loft with Tangent, Patch and others... But you will laugh, it has Sweep only with one rail :D

I do not test Cam and animation. Want to say that animation do not support Assembly. So if you joined components you can not animate it :%

But the great feature that fusion has it is Parametric Timeline, it is really great, you can go back change things, create things where you etc? you have absolutely freedom. It is not a tree like in another aps it is timeline where you can navigate through.

So in conclusion, Fusion is very simple it has very few settings and it is good! It has good idea to combine SubD and Nurbs, also they try to combine Cam and Animation with render, but as always happen when people try to combine too many stuff final product is not so good. But as we can say it was good effort :)

PS
I tried Fusion for 2 weeks and delayed deadline, because could not finish my model. I thought I can do it because I thing speed will be the same like in MoI and NVil, but it is 3-4 times slower some times much more.
I got 2 lessons from this experience, I learn how other CAD works, learn some nice ideas and fails and the main thing, I become absolutely Master in Clicking!

I'm testing Inventor and have to say Fusion 360 is stripped-down and messed up version of Inventor.
All that stuff that drives me crazy in Fusion is very good defined and structured in Inventor.

I tried Fusion 360, and for simple things, it makes my head hurt how complicated it is. The most frustrating thing for me is invisible constraints, and woeful documentation.

There are several actions that can only be assessed via contextual right-click.

Here's a nice bug, if you create curves (called sketches in Fusion) at world origin you cant move them (simple bug, but there's nothing in the GUI telling you why you cant move the curve). Since there is no snapping turned on by default, the natural response is to begin your curve off of the only reference object on the screen, the world origin dot.

For more intricate, pattern based stuff, like buildings or things with some symmetry, then Fusion is great, simply because its Parametric with Command History....want more windows in your building?...just increase a parameter and its booleaned and positioned for you.

I d/l Inventor last night, and its much better, but there's still alot of confirmation clicking (activate tool, use the tool, then right-click and select OK to complete the tool action).

It was such a pleasure to work back in Moi after that "alternative" CAD road trip.

Having said all that, Parametric/Command History are really, really nice CAD tools. I'd be interested to see how Michael would expose that in a "Moi" way.

If MoI had Parametric/Command History it would be the superb. After trying it you will always want to have it because it it is so great.