Hi !

I've selection problems with Moi, here is a screenshot example what I mean - I have lineup shapes in same axis I choose one in top view I move my mouse to right view (to move shape up) when I mouse over the shape I've selected in top view is not moved - instead it is highlighted and moved the shape which was closesest to mouse pointer (most outer shape) the result is, I've moved not the shape I wanted.

Also when there is a lot of isoparms it's difficult to select 3d shape made of these isoparms it would be really useful to have hotkeys to select only special kind of objects like hotkey for selecting 3d shapes only and hotkey for selecting isoparms or faces only.

For your first problem, it's curious, because it's works fine for me

Hi knightxor - thanks for reporting this problem. I can repeat it here - it sometimes won't happen because it is dependent on the order which the objects were created in.

I think I should be able to fix this up, but in the meantime you can instead use the Transform / Move command to reposition the object in this case. That command is a little different than direct dragging since dragging has the possibility to alter the selection, while Move will not mess around with the selection.


> Also when there is a lot of isoparms it's difficult to select 3d shape made of
> these isoparms it would be really useful to have hotkeys to select only special
> kind of objects like hotkey for selecting 3d shapes only and hotkey for selecting
> isoparms or faces only.

I definitely want to add a kind of selection filter mechanism to v2 to help with selecting only certain types of objects.

For now sometimes it helps to hide other objects (you can also hide edges and face sub-objects) if they are interfering with selections.

One thing that I'm not quite sure about with your request - when you say "isoparms", do you mean edge curves of a solid or are you talking about regular curve objects that are not attached to the solid (like just a line segment drawn with Draw curve / line) ? Because there is already a mechanism in place that prevents sub-object edge curves from being selected if the solid is not selected, you can only select them on a second click. The first click will never target edges and only target the solid as a whole.

If you see something that looks like an edge being highlighted on the first click, that means it is a curve object that is not attached to the solid. Often times this will be the original curves that you used to create the solid, like the curve that you extruded from, etc... It can be a good idea to hide or delete these original shapes to get them out of the way.

Here are some scripts that you can set up on a shortcut key (go to Options / Shortcut keys) that may help you:

Select all curve objects:

script:moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects().getCurves().setProperty( 'selected', true );

Hide all curve objects:

script:moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects().getCurves().setProperty( 'hidden', true );

Hide all surface/solid objects:

script:moi.geometryDatabase.getObjects().getBReps().setProperty( 'hidden', true );

There are several other ones listed on Petr's web page here: http://kyticka.webzdarma.cz/3d/moi .

- Michael

Maybe my terminology is bad - by isoparms I mean just edges,anyway,current selection system is fine but I think good solution would be to be able to have also seperate hotkeys for selecting :

- solid object
- edges
- construct edges(the edges which very used to construct object)
- faces

Like in poly application, when I press proper hotkey will be able to select faces only or only edges.
It could be useful when you are working with only one object,so you don't have select solid first all the time just to select edge or maybe it's complicated object and you want to filter some selection possibilities.

I think it could be useful to have an option, when you disable history, to remove construct edges because for example you don't need them anymore and you don't want to clutter workspace with them.

Hi knightxor, yes the filtering system that I want to add in the future should work like you are asking about.

It will probably be a drop-down under the Select tab on the right side pane, the default will be "Auto" which will behave like the current system in V1 (one click to select whole object, second click to drill-in to an edge or a face), but you'll be able to set it to options like "Faces", "Edges", "Curves", etc...

But I didn't have time to implement this for version 1.0 though.


> It could be useful when you are working with only one object,so you don't
> have select solid first all the time just to select edge

Well, it is kind of a trade-off - instead of selecting the solid first all the time you will instead need to switch the mode all the time to do different things. So I don't really think it will be a speed up for just regular use.

MoI works quite a bit different than a polygon modeler - in a poly modeler you will likely stay in one of those modes for a longer time, like stay in vertex mode while you are tweaking the location of a bunch of individual vertices. In MoI with its different style toolset, you are much more likely to need to switch the filter more often. That's why the current method that lets you drill in with just a second click instead of setting a special mode (and unsetting it later) is so important, I wanted to get this style to work well first before relying on more specific filter modes.


> or maybe it's complicated object and you want to filter some selection possibilities.

This is definitely more what I think it will be useful for - to help with making more difficult selections where other stuff is getting in the way.


> I think it could be useful to have an option, when you disable history, to remove
> construct edges because for example you don't need them anymore and you don't
> want to clutter workspace with them.

Usually they are pretty easy to select since curves are targeted by the mouse first before solids are.

You can automate this with a keyboard shortcut script though - put this under a shortcut key:

script:var gd = moi.geometryDatabase; var objs = gd.getSelectedObjects(); gd.deselectAll(); for ( var i = 0; i < objs.length; ++i ) { var parents = objs.item(i).getHistoryParents(); parents.setProperty( 'selected', true ); }

That will enable one keystroke to switch selection to all the objects that went in as input to the current object.

So for example if you created a loft through 10 curves, select the loft and use that shortcut and then selection will shift to the 10 original curves and you can delete them.

If you want to get rid of the construction geometry, it isn't really necessary to disable history on the object first, history only has an effect if you edit the original objects. You only really need to disable history if you want to edit those original curves for some other purpose like to construct a second object with them or something like that.

Hope this helps!

- Michael

Hi knightxor - the first bug you reported in the start of this thread (dragging not targeting the selected curve when switching to the front view when there were curves kind of stacked on top of each other in that front view) is fixed for the next beta that I think should be putting out later today. Please let me know if you run into it after you get the next beta.

Thanks!
- Michael