Hi,

I'm not sure if i'm doing something wrong but i have some large 3DM files (about 1GB) which i made using MOI a while ago in version 3. I saved all the images i needed out of them then saved and parked them up, I came to load them up again and they were struggling, someone suggested that I upgrade to the V4 beta which i believe was new at the time and worked well, I have just loaded the latest V4 and the files do not load. Is there anything i can try? The loading bar moves very slowly and then pretty much crashes the computer, even when i tried a file 500mb.
Thanks
Henry

Hi Henry, how much system memory do you have on your computer?

The current v4 beta uses a different method to load the file which involves loading the entire file into memory to start with. That could be a problem if you have a very large file but not a corresponding large amount of system RAM to go along with it.

Is it possible for you to send me one of the files at moi@moi3d.com so I can test it over here? You'll need to use a file sharing service like dropbox or something and send a link to the file.

My guess about crashing the computer is that if you don't have a lot of system RAM you are probably running into virtual memory swapping which will grind everything to a halt.

I can probably detect if you don't have enough system RAM to use the new loading technique and revert to the previous method, but it would be good for me to know your system specs and get a test file to set that up.

Thanks, - Michael

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your help, I have sent you a file and the system information via dropbox.

Henry

Hi Henry, thanks for sending the file. It is loading ok for me over here though, takes about 30 seconds to load on a Core i5-2500K CPU with 16GB memory.

It does take up 6GB of memory to load it - is it possible that you have a lot of other programs running taking up a lot of memory?

Is there anything unusual about where you're loading it from? Like are you loading it from a local hard drive or is it from some kind of virtual or network drive?

I will add an option in the next beta to use buffered file reading like it used to rather than memory mapping the whole file but it would be good for me to know why it's not working for you so I could automatically switch that off.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

it is running from a 500gb SSD hard drive, i've taken a image of the file loading about 5min in, I hope this helps. I also stopped all programs running.

Is there anything else that you would like to know?

Is the original V4 Beta still available so that I can open it and just change what I need for the time being?

As I type this has already gone up to 12gb and 22%.

Many thanks
Henry

Hi Henry, what are your settings under Options > View > Meshing parameters?

Do you notice any difference if you have those options set to Mesh angle:25 and unchecking "Add detail to inflections" ? Try modifying those with a blank scene, it looks like there may be a new bug in changing those settings while there are objects present.

I'll also e-mail you a link to the previous beta to see if that works better for you.

Thanks, - Michael

Hi Michael,

That has solved the problem, it was set to a mesh angle of 1.

Thanks again for your help.
Henry

Thanks Henry, I'm glad that worked. Yes a display mesh angle of 1 degree will make an extremely dense display mesh.

Someday I'd like to try and get rid of that setting since it can make things blow up if it's set to a low angle.

- Michael

I used to change the angle when using the file after it had opened but i didn't think it would alter the loading because it was just a display setting i thought?

Hi Henry, it is related to the display but it controls how refined the display meshes will be. The display mesh is a triangle mesh that is pre-calculated and stored with an object. Then that pre-calculated mesh is drawn for the display of shaded surfaces.

It can take a while to generate these meshes so it doesn't try to do it dynamically just at display time only. That's for shaded surface display though, curve display is done dynamically during the rendering.

- Michael

I like the display mesh angle setting... use it regularly.


If you remove it from the gui, can we keep an ini setting for it?

Hi Burr, part of removing it could involve changing the whole approach, something along the lines of using a rough angle initially and then doing a more detailed one in the background. It will be a while before I'll be able to look into that though.

If I do end up having to remove the current one at some point because of too many people getting tripped up by it I will make sure to keep it available to script and in moi.ini though.

- Michael

Thanks Michael...

Hi Michael,

This issue is something that I hit quite regularly.

Would it be possible to have the Mesh Angle value displayed somewhere on the ui?

Hi James, it would be possible to modify the UI to display it, where would you want to put it?

I'd generally recommend not to mess around with that setting much though since it can have bad side effects if set lower than the default 10 degrees.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

Maybe between the options and the help at the bottom.

Hi James,

re:
> Maybe between the options and the help at the bottom.

So to do that you'll need to edit the file CommandBar.htm which is inside MoI's ui sub-folder.

The options and help buttons are on line 137 of that file and look like this:

				<moi:CommandButton icon="icons/OptionsIcon.png" onclick="if ( event.ctrlKey && event.shiftKey ) { LlamaMode(); } else { moi.ui.createDialog( 'Options.htm', 'resizeable,defaultWidth:43em,defaultHeight:32em' ); }"><moi:Text textid="Options"/></moi:CommandButton>
				<moi:CommandSplitButton icon="icons/HelpIcon.png" menu="HelpMenu.htm" onclick="moi.launchHelp();"><moi:Text textid="Help"/></moi:CommandSplitButton>

To add a display of the mesh angle between them insert this new line in between them like so:

				<moi:CommandButton icon="icons/OptionsIcon.png" onclick="if ( event.ctrlKey && event.shiftKey ) { LlamaMode(); } else { moi.ui.createDialog( 'Options.htm', 'resizeable,defaultWidth:43em,defaultHeight:32em' ); }"><moi:Text textid="Options"/></moi:CommandButton>
				
				<div style="display:inline-block; margin:0.5em">Mesh angle:<moi:Text binding="this.innerText < moi.view.meshAngle"/></div>
				
				<moi:CommandSplitButton icon="icons/HelpIcon.png" menu="HelpMenu.htm" onclick="moi.launchHelp();"><moi:Text textid="Help"/></moi:CommandSplitButton>

- Michael

Thanks Michael, works a treat!