Hi Michael....

>> This new system will also allow you edit the size of a sub-object like an edge or a face
Nice, I want to see the effect if "Maintain Proportions" is unchecked.

I know your idea behind MoI is not for replacing some constraint base software.
Here I just want to give you some feedback to improve MoI, I dont want to push your original idea into a wrong place....

Attached is another video ( I dont know how to embed swf file directly to this forum )

Hi Michael ...

Please don't get diverted from your original 'moment of inspiration' ...

I greatly appreciate your willingness to be flexible and to try to include users' wishes but no program suits all potential users.

SketchUp is a personal example ... I actually purchased it few years ago and was initially very impressed with what it would do. And it does what it does pretty well most of the time. Some of my architectural friends rave about it. However, I stopped using it rather quickly and though I still download the latest versions I find it still does not work well for me. It is really not very flexible.

I use Rhino for almost everything, from architectural design to presentation and final drafting ... but I am really excited by MoI ... both because of the more intuitive approach you have taken, to the simplicity of use by comparison to Rhino and numerous other programs. MoI may not replace Rhino for me but I will be using it more and more frequently as a more 'friendly' and flexible companion.

Thanks for all your work and your patience.

eric

Hi Anis,

> Nice, I want to see the effect if "Maintain Proportions" is unchecked.

It will be the same as using the Transform / Scale / Scale1D command - the full object will stretch in that one direction, like this:




> I know your idea behind MoI is not for replacing some constraint
> base software. Here I just want to give you some feedback to
> improve MoI, I dont want to push your original idea into a
> wrong place....

I appreciate the examples! Sometimes it may be possible to see an element of something in there that I could incorporate into MoI. Like the new "Distance from edge" option in the MoI v2 Move command basically happened like that.

But your last examples are not really like that, those are more like things that I would probably need to work on for several years before they would work in MoI (on something other than just a box), either that or I would have to license some expensive components and move the price of MoI up more in line with the price of SolidWorks.

So I just want to make sure that your expectations are in line with what is possible for me to do.

When I see an example of something that is working well in other software and would be difficult for me to add into MoI (difficult either from the amount of work involved, or possibly just not a good fit with MoI's UI), it actually tends to make me think sort of the reverse actually. I mean that I tend to think that I don't really need to worry so much about adding that function into MoI because it is already being handled well by something else. So if you need to do that kind of task you are already covered by using that other software.

- Michael

Thanks George & Eric!

Since it is going to take a while longer to finish up the "styles" part of object properties, what I think I'm going to do is polish up this size editing part now (with a couple more pieces like some special UI for lines and circles) and then release a new beta without the styles part in it yet and keep working on that after.

- Michael

Hi Michael.....

Thanks for your clear explanations...
I wish the best for next release of MoI ;)

Btw, I am waiting for the next beta ( that will be launch this week, maybe... )

-Anis

Hi Michael,

Just got myself up to date with this thread and everything so far looks great and releasing the next beta is exciting news also :)

As I got the grips on what you have done so far, how I understand it is, that with the new scene management we can name an entity, be it a curve, solid or surface does that go for edges as well ? Can we name each edge of, say a rectangular solid ?
The reason I ask is that going off Diego's idea, which I agree was a good one, could we name an edge of one entity and then use that in an expression to get a proportion relationship of a separate entity ? e.g. 'wall/2', 'wall' being the name I gave to an edge, to get a door half the height of that wall.

BTW persistent expressions would be nice, but I guess you would have to store a lot of info with the file.

---------
~Danny~

Hi Danny, yes you can name an edge or a face sub-object... But mostly the idea behind the naming is to set up labels that will show up in the scene tree / scene browser thing.

Currently there is no restriction that the names have to be unique - you can have objects that have the same name and it is actually hard to avoid this since it is otherwise hard to figure out what to do when you split an object into multiple pieces.

It is an interesting idea to be able to use the names in expressions, but one problem right off the bat is I don't know what to do when there are multiple instances of the same name...


> e.g. 'wall/2', 'wall' being the name I gave to an edge, to get a
> door half the height of that wall.

It is possible to use construction lines now to get that kind of measurement... But I can see that if you are going to be using the same value many times it is better to be able to refer to it with a simple tag or name.

I'm not really sure that using object names would be sort of the best fit for that though, it seems like a kind of "variable manager" type UI would be the thing - like you would go somewhere and push a button for "define variable", and you could pick from different functions like get the distance between 2 picked points, take the length of a selected edge, radius value, etc... and then you enter a name and then that variable would be defined for use in expressions.

That could definitely be useful, but it is kind of going down a fairly specialized and "advanced use" type road, it will probably be a bit difficult for me to raise it in priority very soon.


> BTW persistent expressions would be nice, but I guess you would have
> to store a lot of info with the file.

It's not so much the storage - the main problem is I just don't have a constraint-based solver mechanism that has all the stuff worked out for how to alter interior regions of a shape (like by extensions etc...) separate from the whole shape.


- Michael

It looks like I will be able to get some custom readouts for spheres, cylinders, and cones.

Like when you select a sphere (either a whole sphere on its own or a sphere face sub-object out of a larger solid) instead of showing the Size: label, it will show Radius:

The way the readout works, is that for a general object or multi-object selection, it shows Size: which is the bounding box size.

If you have a single object selected, it can show information about these types:

Line - the length of the line.
Circle or Arc - the radius
Sphere - radius
Cylinder or cone - radius + height

- Michael

Hi Michael,

> I'm not really sure that using object names would be sort of the best fit for that though,
> it seems like a kind of "variable manager" type UI would be the thing -
> like you would go somewhere and push a button for "define variable",
> and you could pick from different functions like get the distance between 2 picked points,
> take the length of a selected edge, radius value, etc... and then you enter a name and
> then that variable would be defined for use in expressions.

Yeah that would work, but I was thinking even with the idea I gave there are too many steps and typing involved, something with less steps, like if you had that 'define variable' or 'reference' button beside each input box (x, y, z) as a small button and once pressed you can pick that edge mentioned previously and the length value would be placed in the input box.
But then as you implied, how many times would we use it, just thinking out loud.

Keep up the good work

Hi Danny, yeah another related idea is having that pop-out number pad panel thing work more like a full calculator and than having several different "memory slots" available on it for holding values that you may want to use repetitively.

But since you can just type in expressions now that really covers the calculator functions already, so possibly it could just get the memory slots added to that number pad panel and not worry about making it a full calculator thing.

- Michael

Ok, the size editor part is very nearly done:



So a new beta is getting pretty close, just a bit more work on this part tomorrow and then a few bug fixes that I've got stacked up and it will be ready.

- Michael

Insufferable suspense :)

hi, Michael

Very very interesting.

out new beta ????

Marco (marcorhino)

Hi Michael....

Make our live easier.... :)
Then how about :

Hi Marco,

> out new beta ????

It's not out yet, but very soon. I think probably tomorrow.

- Michael

Hi Anis,

> Then how about :

Right now it will do the second (scale arc around its own center point).

But I think that makes sense to do the other behavior instead and stay attached to a touching curve, I think it should not be difficult for me to set that up, I will give that a try.

If you have other curves touching on both sides of the arc, I guess I will just arbitrarily pick one of them to be the scaling origin.

- Michael

Hi Michael...

>> But I think that makes sense to do the other behavior instead and stay attached to a touching curve, I think it should not be difficult for me to set that up, I will give that a try.

Interesting, to see the next progress....

>> If you have other curves touching on both sides of the arc, I guess I will just arbitrarily pick one of them to be the scaling origin.

Correct, this will work like constraint base software.
This will make edit 2D sketch in moi more easy and precise...

Thanks Michael..... :)

Hi Anis -


> Correct, this will work like constraint base software.

Probably not quite all the way though... Just to clarify, it will do this type of thing:




It won't move any unselected other curves when you change the arc...

But keeping it connected to at least one piece will help reduce at least one step of cleanup to do after that.

- Michael

Hi Anis - I also set it up so that you can have some control over which end will remain fixed when the arc or line is touching other curves at both sides.

In that situation if you selected the arc with a click, it will anchor the resized arc towards the end closest to which you picked when selecting it.

- Michael