Thanks a lot for the "barb" arrows Michael.



With variable dimension text size depending on zoom level how can I preview the actual relation of object, arrows and text of a future export to AI/PDF format? Is it possible to have an option that turns off this zoom behaviour and leaves the text in its real size independent of zoom level?

-Martin

Curiously this is impossible with the 4 views (if i have not forgotten something)

Only with the CPlan (and not so evident to call it at the good orientations without Helper lines! :)

Hi Pilou, so if you have a line and you want to know its length it isn't necessary to put in a dimension to find out. Just select the line and the length is displayed in the regular UI right here:



That works no matter where the line is and does not require any cplane manipulation or any tools at all, just select it and look over there.

- Michael

Of course but it's for direct schema documentation!
I have use it for very the good value of the arrow! ;)

Hi Martin,

re:
> Thanks a lot for the "barb" arrows Michael.

You're welcome! Those do have a nice type of minimalistic appeal.


> With variable dimension text size depending on zoom level how can I
> preview the actual relation of object, arrows and text of a future export
> to AI/PDF format?

Well, the thing is the text size is not variable, it's constant just constant in a different metric that you are used to. It's constant in its display size on your monitor.

So if you use a font of say Tahoma 16pt it shows at 16pt size all the time no matter where you happen to be viewing it from.

The same thing will apply to PDF/AI export (once it is implemented), it will be 16pt text in the PDF page and on your printed result.

The part that is good about this is that for labels you should get a consistent legible text size in your final result without messing with any kind of scale factors. You won't get gigantic text or tiny text if you don't happen to manage the scale factors properly.

The part that is not so good about this is if you care how text specifically relates to the model size, particularly if you have drawn in some lines to make a title block grid out of geometry and you want the text to fit between some model geometry. To handle this kind of situation I want to have an option to switch the text and arrowheads to be based on model units rather than screen display units. That probably won't happen until a future round of work after v4 though, for v4 I wanted to focus on constant display size since for simple drawings it should alleviate various kinds of scaling battles.


> Is it possible to have an option that turns off this zoom behaviour and leaves the text
> in its real size independent of zoom level?

Not currently but I do want to have an option for that in the future. Right now the system is built around constant display size and there isn't any concept yet of "model unit sized" text rather than "display sized" text.

- Michael

We can't "Separate" a linear Dim ? (in its different elements: lines, text, heads arrows...) for Flow it for example...

Hi Pilou,

> Of course but it's for direct schema documentation!
> I have use it for very the good value of the arrow! ;)

Yes, but for technical drawings there are conventions used to try and avoid misunderstandings and ambiguous situations. One of the rules is that a perspective view with a dimension line like you show there is not allowed.

I guess it kind of comes down to some of the fundamental differences between a "CAD" program that has a big focus on accuracy versus a "graphic design" program that is just focused on making images.

I like to incorporate elements from both of these worlds but sometimes they are in conflict with each other.

- Michael

Hi Pilou,

re:
> We can't "Separate" a linear Dim ? (in its different elements: lines, text, heads arrows...) for Flow it for example...

Sorry, no not currently. The main focus of these tools is on doing technical drawings.

- Michael

<no not currently
So for this we can use the Max one! ;)

Hi OSTexo,

re:
> You got it, "lazy" is the right word for that Align with Dimension behavior.

There seems to be maybe a couple different bugs in linear dimension transformations, I'm investigating it.


> In that case I'd think manual flip/toggle makes sense so as not to add complexity.

I'll give this a try. I also do intend to enable turning on edit points for a dimension and moving the text position wherever you want.


> Could the existing Align tool be extended to not only effect position but also distribution?
> For example, select multiple horizontal dimensions, Align > Distribute would provide for
> spacing between dimension lines in the selected group.

The part that's difficult about this is that would have Align > Distribute processing just the dimension line and not the entire object. I guess that could be possible but it wouldn't be consistent with how Align works currently which is that it works on the bounding box around the entire object.

It seems like it might be good to instead have a "Stacked" option in the dimension command that would handle making those.


> On another dimension note do you see any potential risk for confusion by
> allowing the user to fix scale options in two places?

Do you mean for the display precision like number of decimal points to display? The setting for that in Options > General > "Decimal display" controls the appearance of the UI environment like how numbers in an edit field are displayed. It would be problematic to try and re-use that for the dimension display as well because that would mean that the dimensions in a given file would be formatted differently on what a user had set for their UI preferences.

Thanks,
- Michael

Great work Michael.

Maybe I lost some details, but how I can copy from details , area or volume results to leader or text dims?

(Right click not working for me)

Thanks,

George

Hi George, if you click on the number for Length, Area, or Volume number it will get copied to the clipboard. Either left click or right click should do the same thing. It does not pop up a menu though since other things that would be on the menu like "Select All" or "Delete" don't really make sense there. It just gets copied with the click itself.

- Michael

There is no Calcul Mass * Volume ?

Hi Pilou,

re:
> There is no Calcul Mass * Volume ?

Not currently but that's something that I would like to add in the future when I have a chance to design the UI for it. But if there are quite a lot of things to consider for it like should there be a list of materials that you pick from, do you need to enter in your own material types, is it necessary to have different densities assigned to different objects and have the mass of all of them computed together?

If all you need is a simple Mass = Density * volume calculation that is something done very easily with a calculator once you have the volume.

- Michael

Maybe you can just put a link to it! ;)

Like this shortcut directly inside Moi second column ;)

moi.filesystem.shellExecute( 'http://www.calculatoredge.com/matweight/material%20wt.htm' );

Hi Pilou,

> Maybe you can just put a link to it! ;)
>
> Like this shortcut directly inside Moi second column ;)
>
> moi.filesystem.shellExecute( 'http://www.calculatoredge.com/matweight/material%20wt.htm' );

Sorry, no it's not a good idea to have a link to a third party website like that embedded directly inside MoI. There are too many factors out of my control that can break it, like they change their domain name or even just reorganize their site so the address is a little different.

I'd recommend just keeping the link in your web browser's bookmarks.

- Michael

Sure...was just a suggestion :)

Thank you,

Worked as described above.

No problem George - I think I'll add in a little message there like "Copied to clipboard" when you click on that so that you can tell that it did something.

- Michael

hi

GREAT JOB Michael

Can you add something like the next GIF for small dimensions ?

Chri