Q1- ISOLATE SELECTION- I have 50 objects in my scene. 45 of them are under various styles and hidden. I have 5 objects visible in the scene. I then select one object out of the 5 and isolate it. If I then execute the command again it ends up showing all 50 objects instead of the only 5 that were previously visible! I just want it to show the last 5 objects that were visible in the scene and not all 45 that I had hidden using the eye icon in the styles.

I tried thes two codes...
script:moi.geometryDatabase.hide();
script:moi.geometryDatabase.invertSelection(); moi.geometryDatabase.hide( true );

Thanks

Hi Curious, there is an Isolate function for that which is available with a right-click on the Edit > Hide button. It will keep the selected objects as the visible ones and hide everything else, retaining a memory of what everything else's state was. Then when you trigger it again it will restore back to the pre-Isolate state.

For a shortcut key it can be triggered by: moi.geometryDatabase.isolate();

- Michael

Q2- I have the following BLACK curves + the PINK curve (not dense). I loft them all (Black and Pink) and created the surface I wanted. I am happy with the form but I see like a LINE kind of artifact. I tried rebuilding all the curves and lofting them again but that artifact stays. Is there a better way to form that shape? What am I doing wrong?

NOTE-
- The shape or position of the PINK line can't change as it has to match another seperate piece.
- The blue lines were not used for lofting or anything, it is just used as a guide.
- The shape HAS to come to a flat surface where the vertical blue line is. As it has to match a seperate piece which is flat too.

Thanks :-)

Hi Curious, the artifact you see there is just a display artifact, it's caused by the display mesh not generating a lot of triangles in that particular area.

It's something you should just ignore, if you want to check if it's an actual surface defect you can do that by exporting to a polygon format and cranking up the density. If the artifact goes away then it's just a display artifact, if it comes into more detail with a higher density mesh display then it's an actual surface defect.

In general the viewport display is oriented towards speed so that you don't have to wait around a long time after every operation to see anything. So part of what goes along with that is that there are different kinds of display artifacts that are just normal behavior.

In the future I would like to improve the display quality by doing something like calculating a higher density display mesh on a background thread. Such things are difficult to implement well though.

Here's what your surface looks like with a high density mesh, seems to be fine:

Have you render your object ? I don't see any artefact! (Michael was more speedy than me! :)
(with the free real Time SimLab Composer Lite - Maxi 1920 *1080)

Thanks Michael for both the answers and Pilou too :-)

Q3- Can I keep the Draw Curve, Draw Solid, Edit, Construct, Transform etc UI menus/tabs open independently in their own windows rather than docked? I tried pulling them apart like in Photoshop but does not seem to work.

Shortcuts will take care of everything with practice but I was wondering as I have multiple high res displays so screen space is not an issue.

Thanks.

There have been 1 or 2 or so separated menu alternatives posted on the forum. You may need to make modifications to do exactly what you want...
One of them split Construct and Transform menus.
- Brian

There is MiniSidepane.js, cannot remember what it does. (Not quite what I wanted.) https://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=9420.2

SidePane.htm can be modified: https://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6507.386

with a high def monitor, I might like a more separated SidePane of commands, if a talented person would make one.
I would want each submenu to be organized the same, not have some commands moved to the bottom of the screen, or ...
With regular def monitor, there just is not enough room IMHO.

Hi Curious, the MoI UI is designed mostly to avoid tons of floating separate windows so no there isn't a built in way to undock tool palettes into separate floating windows. But like Brian mentions above it is possible to reconfigure the palette arrangement in the side pane so that each one is in its own individual section. There's a startup script for v4 that you can use for that here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=9439.3

- Michael

SeparateSidePanePallets.js in Startup folder is working great in MoI4Beta, High Def monitor.
I had to open the Beta twice, initially.
20/20 corrected vision recommended:-)

With Subd menu minimized, all the other menu's, including Dim, are open, and Just fit.

- Brian

Start up .js worked perfectly to keep the pallets open. Thanks.


Ok back to the loft/fillet question :-) Sorry!
I have created a test file which has 3 sets of curves to loft (Green, Blue & Red).

Red curves was rebuilt version of blue curves.
Green and Blue curves were hand built.

After lofting...

1- I can apply CONSTANT DISTANCE fillet of 3 units on all surfaces at the lower part.
2- On the highlighted upper part I can apply CONSTANT DISTANCE fillet of upto 6 units on the green model but absolutely nothing on the blue and red model.
3- The 6 unit fillet that I can apply on the green model's upper part results in pinching in the corner though. I understand when you said that dense geo on the corner etc but here it does not seem dense or going in odd directions.

I am trying to get my head around this as same type of issue keeps cropping up for me and I end up going around in circles lol.

Thanks you.

Hi Curious, yeah filleting really doesn't seem to like the shapes you happen to be making here. I think it's a combination of bending plus that twisting effect I was talking about earlier.

The way to impose very regular surfaces on this would be to build it in some sections like this that are all of the same size:





So each of these surfaces are very simply structured, there isn't any sort of warping or twisting type effect on them.

They're squared up and they stick out past each other like this:



Then using Edit > Trim they can be cut against each other:



This type of structure should be vastly more reliable for filleting:



The thing you give up is direct control over the bending shape, since it's built for you by filleting. I'll see if I can give some tips on how that might be tweaked.

- Michael

>> yeah filleting really doesn't seem to like the shapes you happen to be making here. I think it's a combination of bending plus that twisting effect I was talking about earlier.

Yes but that applies to the green model too but on it everything works better. I am just wondering what is special of the green curves that I used to loft the green model :-) If we figure that out won't that help?


Regarding your uploaded file, if I select the entire model I can apply a fillet of as high as 8...17 units on it. If I select any of the curves on their own, fillet completely fails (8 or 17). Plus the surface quality of the fillet in the corner seems not nice in reflections.
Ok no problem. Thanks for helping though.

Hi Curious,

re:
> I am just wondering what is special of the green curves that I used to loft the green model :-)

Nothing really jumps out at me, it would take quite a lot of analysis effort to try and find out the answer.


> Regarding your uploaded file, if I select the entire model I can apply a fillet of as high as 8...17 units
> on it. If I select any of the curves on their own, fillet completely fails (8 or 17).

Selecting only some of the edges that come off of a common point instead of all makes the filleting process a little different - it can't build a corner patch and instead has to intersect the fillets with each other and that can be difficult when they are different sizes where they meet up. In that case there the intersection is failing but the fillet pieces are still generated so that you have something to work with and can put them in place using trimming.

If you did want to only fillet some of those edges for the horizontal ones it would be good to do it at this stage before trimming the pieces against each other:



> Plus the surface quality of the fillet in the corner seems not nice in reflections.

Yeah it looks like the corner juncture patch is a little bunched up. Probably a different CAD program with more sophisticated fillets would do ok on that one.

- Michael

Vertical Lofting with rebuild curves with same number of control points can't not make the trick ?
(in this particular symmetric piece)

Hi Pilou,

re:
> Vertical Lofting with rebuild curves with same number of control points can't not make the trick ?
> (in this particular symmetric piece)

When curves are of different lengths and also changing in shape the difficult thing can be about how the surface is formed by the connection between the curves. Just connecting the same percent distance along one curve to the same percent on the other sometimes isn't good. There can be too much slanting.

When that's the case it can be good to build separate surfaces for the different shapes rather than trying to squeeze it into one single surface.

- Michael

>> Probably a different CAD program with more sophisticated fillets would do ok on that one.

Would you class Fusion 360 or Rhino better for filleting and a good companion to Moi3d? I hate Autodesk's online staying connected game though!

Thanks for all the help and tips though.

Hi Curious,

re:
> Would you class Fusion 360 or Rhino better for filleting and a good companion to Moi3d?

Fusion 360 - yes better at filleting.

Rhino - not really better at filleting but has other kinds of surface modeling tools that can make it a useful companion.

Some other ones that are good for filleting are ViaCAD and OnShape.

- Michael

...and the free DesignSpark Mechanical ;) (not a monster like Fusion 360 or OnShape , just a little cat! :)

https://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6186.51
(Scroll some posts for see all tricks import-Export Moi / DesignSpark - Step - Sab - Sat ) ;)

Fillets in direct Modeling!


Rendering inside the free Real time SimlabComposer Lite (maxi 1920 * 1080)


Subdivision inside Moi



After Subdivision Moi can only make a little fillet! DesignSpark can make many more!
And of course also when Moi fails for complex fillets!



Of course without Subdivision ...in pure Moi Nurbs...no problem! ;)