Dear Michael,

I had the great good fortune to come upon MoI a few days ago. I am strictly a pencil and paper designer (freehand at that!) and did try several CAD programmes. I found the learning curves too steep for my 67 year old brain.

But bloody hell! MoI is as instinctive as you can get. I am enjoying learning it. Just love the curves...

As a Beta version are you expecting those who would mainly benefit from the utter simplicity of your programme to interact with you? Or, as seems to be the case, most experienced users seem to be writing in with difficult problems?

Because: the final programme will probably maintain its simplicity, for simple users like me.

My problem as a RANK beginner is: I do not even know what the terms mean !!! After making a simple brooch, with holes for precious stones usw., I KNOW that I should be able to "Loft" parts of it into 3d levels. But WHAT is "Loft"? How to use it? What is "trim"? "Extend"?

If the beta needs duffers like me to post comments, then please can there not be a brief description of each command and the method of use? I accept that two months into the project, no-one can expect a full-fledged manual, but your beginning prospectives need JUST a little help, without running to the other group members for clarifications or ideas.

Too, please, please give me an idea of final price before I get completely hooked on this thing!!! Ballpark-ish?

...and the NAME !!! Moment of Inspiration - itself an inspired choice.

Guru of Gold

< My problem as a RANK beginner is: I do not even know what the terms mean !!! After making a simple brooch, with holes for precious stones usw., I KNOW that I should be able to "Loft" parts of it into 3d levels. But WHAT is "Loft"? How to use it? What is "trim"? "Extend"?

Take a look here (slide the page there is "Surfacing" Lexicon")
http://www.coe.org/newsnet/July05/tips.cfm

Dear Pilou,

Thanks for the INSTANT reply. I saw the site, and yes, indeed the definitions were there.
But remember, I AM NEW at this whole cad thing.
It is impossible for someone even as kind as you to tell me, "Open your file, click in the centre of this; now do this; now try that; AHA! see? THat is lofting.... USW.

Which is why I am hoping to find a MoI specific couple of pages. Videos are no good: this is India, and domestic connexions are s..........l........o........w............... .

Your help is GREATLY appreciated.

GofG.

Do you prefer this?

Another link to 3d terminology
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/downloads/3d__and__animation/the_3d_world_glossary

Regards

Hi Guru, I'm glad that you like MoI!

> As a Beta version are you expecting those who would mainly benefit from
> the utter simplicity of your programme to interact with you? Or, as seems
> to be the case, most experienced users seem to be writing in with
> difficult problems?

I'd say that I'm not particularly expecting only one type of user to contact me. It is rather useful for me to interact with both beginning as well as more experienced users.

MoI is designed to be easy to use, but somewhat more in a sense of easy to get tasks done quickly once you have learned how some things work. I've put quite a bit of effort into trying to reduce the learning curve, but it is not as if a learning curve doesn't exist, there is definitely still one there.

There is kind of a fine balance, because simplifying things can in some ways also reduce the flexibility and power of a tool, and I wanted to try and keep quite a strong element of flexibility and power in there as well.

As an example - perhaps it would be easier for beginning users if there was some kind of "surfacing wizard" that walked you through the creation of a surface through dialog boxes with many steps and illustrations along the way. This would make it easier for someone to create a surface at first, but it would then become cumbersome and get in the way if you needed to go through those steps all the time...


> Because: the final programme will probably maintain its simplicity, for simple users like me.

Yes, I do expect that the final V1 release will not be particularly more complex than the current beta. There will be some additional tools and refinements to some existing tools, but nothing too terribly dramatic. The basic structure will be as you see it now.


> My problem as a RANK beginner is: I do not even know what the terms mean !!!

Yes, I know this is a problem. It should greatly help once some proper documentation is available. I expect that there will be a reference section of documentation that will give a summary of all the available tools within maybe another month or so.


> After making a simple brooch, with holes for precious stones usw., I KNOW that
> I should be able to "Loft" parts of it into 3d levels. But WHAT is "Loft"? How to use
> it? What is "trim"? "Extend"?

I think one of the easiest ways to help you with this would be to show you some steps in creating a specific model, rather than just talking about loft/trim/extend, in the abstract. There are actually several tools that you won't really need to use for any one particular task... Like extend for instance is used primarily for drafting/blueprint drawing type tasks, you probably won't need to use it at all for a brooch.

Do you have some basic curves from your brooch, and possibly a drawing or image of what you want to create? If so, please post this stuff and I can show you some steps in making progress towards constructing that.

I just find it's often a lot easier to explain things when working on something specific.


One thing that you may want to do is to download the Rhino evaluation version (http://download.mcneel.com/rhino/3.0/eval/) and take a look at its help file. Although there are many differences beween how Rhino works and how MoI works, you still might find it useful just to see some images that summarize the overall use of a particular tool - for instance you'll see some images of lofting there that would probably help you to understand what a loft generally does, as in how it uses the curves to create a surface.


> Too, please, please give me an idea of final price before I get
> completely hooked on this thing!!! Ballpark-ish?

The final price hasn't been completely set yet, but it is intended that it will be inexpensive compared to other CAD programs. The initial release of MoI will actually be missing many features that a lot of CAD programs have such as printing. So I kind of expect that a lot of times you'll need to use MoI (especially in its early release versions) as a companion to other programs, and it will be priced to make it easy to afford along with other programs. Sorry I don't have any exact figure to give you right now, but I don't think it will be a problem for you, unless you're expecting to pay less than $100, I can tell you it will be more than that at least... :)

- Michael

Dear All,

So many helpers !!! Wow!

Thanks Pilou ! In four small drawings you have explained EVERYTHING. How can I thank you?
Did you make those sketches especially "pour MoI" ? Excuse the horrid pun - it was intentional.

Now, we have the candlestick sort of figure in the top left corner; how could I pour cement into it (so to speak) and make it a solid?
If I am taking advantage of your favour, then forgive me. We Zoroastrians have a saying," I extended one little finger, and he grabbed my whole arm!".

Thanks George. A sweet, short list that I shall definitely refer to many times. It did help.

Last but hardly the least, Thanks Michael. Yes I know Rhino; I am a sort of paterfamilias and mentor for several jewellery (jewelry to you) schools in Bombay. Strictly honorary jobs and a personal pleasure to do. I had suggested Rhino to several junior colleagues, and together with Ideas it has become almost a standard for us here. I tried it for myself, along with the first several pages of tutorials, but I did not have time to persevere, and so there are specialised teachers in the schools. (Hence the POMPOUS handle Guru etc.).

But, in sheer simplicity, in sheer intuitiveness, in the cleanliness of its interface, its INVITING look, your programme emerges a winner, many lengths ahead. I wish you great luck.

And, when you are ready, perhaps you will allow me to introduce it as distributor to India. My name is Nariman H. Wadia, and I am a consultant to most of the jewellers in my country, mostly as a friend, sometimes as a paid consultant. I make my bread and butter selling complete factories, equipment and supplies. Casting machines, laser welders, laser engravers, small CNCs, usw. I am well known in my field (again the pomposity!) and most designers and manufacturers do know me, as I have been in this line since my early teens, over 50 years. Your price point will sell well here....

Once again How can I thank you, ALL?
Nariman.

<In four small drawings you have explained EVERYTHING. How can I thank you?
Nothing It's my pleasure :)
< Did you make those sketches especially "pour MoI" ?
Yes just used the key "Print Screen" from my computer of the Moi Canvas and past it in any 2D prog!
5 minutes :)
How could I pour cement into it (so to speak) and make it a solid?
Look the image following : it's an modern candel concept :)
You can apply on some many thing :)

PS < We Zoroastrians have a saying," I extended one little finger, and he grabbed my whole arm!".
It's an universal story it's the same for european people :)
So we are all Zoroastrians :)

> Is that normal?
> An internal revolve's axe of a close curve don't works?
> Maybe a stupid question...but I am perplex :)

Eventually I will automatically trim the profile curve in half at the axis so that this will work.

Without trimming the profile, such a revolve would create a bad surface. I'll try to illustrate why - here is an image of what such a revolve would look like, just revolved by 90 degrees:



You can see that at the top and bottom the surface is compressed to a point in the middle and then flips over itself. This type of a surface is a problem. For things to work well, you should only have surfaces collapsed to a point along an edge (such as with a sphere), not at a point interior to the surface.

You can also see that if you were to continue to revolve another 90 degrees (for 180 total), it would be a closed surface, but it would not close cleanly since the surface's normals would be opposite at the spot where it was touching itself, and it would still have the collapsed point in the middle of it.

Then if you were to try to go by 360 degrees, it would cause it to be doubled over top of itself.

Does that make more sense seeing it in that small increment?

So to make a clean revolve your profile curve should be only to one side of the axis (until I do the automatic trimming). That will create a surface that is collapsed to a point only at its very edge and not right in the middle of the surface.

- Michael

> If it's not a hard work and don't change your pilosophy of the prog that will a cool addition :)

Nope, not too excessively hard. It has actually been on my list for a while. It is not uncommon for people to want to revolve a closed shape through the middle like that.


> But what append with a curve like that ? That will work too?

I'll probably try to cut it with a plane going through the axis line, and then take the larger piece to revolve. So it will work, but you're probably better off making a cleaner profile, you'll just have more control over it.

- Michael

< want to revolve a closed shape through the middle like that.
Not only by the middle, by any internal axes !)

< probably better off making a cleaner profile, you'll just have more control over it.
Of course! It' was just for the concept :)