I am pretty impressed with the ease of use of MoI 3D

I am a Law Enforecment officer/Trainer and I would like to use this program to make
Handguards, Muzzle Brakes, magazines and flash lights.

CNC machine shop usually like these drawings in 2d Sketch blue prints with dementions.

Would this program allow me to print such data in a blue print format with dimentions.

also can I have these files imported as DXF or DWG format?

please take a look at this software called ALibre can I do the same thing with MoI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Ion61SDo4

I appreciate all your inputs

To take advantage of the ease of use of MoI, you could re-create the 3D model in MoI and copy paste the surface into Alibre.
Use Alibre to print the blueprints. (Or just use Alibre to re-create the 3D model, and print blueprints.)
This places all of the burden of using a CAM program such as V-Carve Pro, or Aspire, or Deskproto, AlibreCAM etc, onto the machine shop, to convert
blueprints into gcode.

To mill your own, import the 3D model into say Aspire, and create your own toolpaths (gcode). Run the gcode with Mach3 on your personal
CNC machine.

It is all do-able, just takes a lot of study to climb the learning curve...

There is also a matter of safety. Some machined parts are inherently more dangerous than others, for us amateurs.

MoI does dxf export. I do not think MoI is meant to do more than very simple "blueprints".

I was talking with Ram in another forum.

MoI does not do dimensions and blueprints yet, but his intent is to send models to an outside shop to be cut.

It seems like it may come down to whether he wants to send them "2d drawings with dims and printed layout" which may be better done in another package, or whether he wants to model his parts and send the shop the model.

Michael Gibson, the programmer of MoI will respond here too.....

Here is a nice gun in the gallery that was made with MoI by Oliver:

http://moi3d.com/gallery/viewitem.php?id=571&subid=0

Hi Ram - MoI is currently focused only on generating 3D model data, not 2D blueprint type output.

But these days it should work pretty well for you to be able to transfer your 3D model to the CNC machine shop and actually having the full 3D model of the design really is less ambiguous in many ways than blueprints anyway.

MoI can export to several different 3D model formats that are often used for 3D milling, like STL, IGES, and STEP file formats, it would be a little surprising if your machine shop was not able to take in 3D model data directly, and most likely they would actually prefer that rather than only 2D drawings. I would recommend asking them about that specifically though.


If you do need to generate 2D printed data, you would need to use another program in combination with MoI and import your 3D model into the other CAD program for generating drawings. Alibre which you mention can work well for that, or also another inexpensive program to do that is ViaCAD 2D.

But definitely check with your machine shop first, don't assume that they really want dimensioned 2D drawings, it's actually much more likely that if a 3D model exists that it would work a whole lot better for you to send them just the 3D model data directly and not do any 2D drawings yourself at all. Once they have the 3D model themselves it's far more flexible, they can do a whole lot of things to that model data including even generating their own 2D dimensioned drawings if they want to at that point.


> also can I have these files imported as DXF or DWG format?

Not currently in MoI version 2.0, since these are primarily 2D drawing oriented formats, while MOI is primarily focused on 3D model generation and not 2D drawing generation. I have added DXF import and export into MoI v3 though.


> please take a look at this software called ALibre can I do the same thing with MoI
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Ion61SDo4

You can do something similar with generating a DXF file to go into VCarvePro with MoI v3 which is not quite finished up yet, it's still in beta release with the beta available to existing customers.

But sending 2D drawing data to VCarvePro is a little different than making dimensioned drawings.

- Michael

Burrman you are great nice to see you here
unfortunately the Machine shop I am dealing with mainly deals with 2D sketch-blue prints. I see lots of those on thier desks
so I need a program that is going to do both

Mike thanks for your reply

MoI is a great program love using it, but I the machine shop needs a 2D blue print with dementions included.
I am not a machinist but I am reading and studing lots of things about CNC. My major is in Electronic Engineering. then I became cop
do not ask me how that happened. Now I am building AR15s and teaching active shooter response and swat stuff.

I am looking forward your suggestions here I am limited money wise but I like MoI the best so far

I will recommend via cad pro 8, or viacad 2d/3d form punchcad, I am a intensive SharkFX user and it is the whole complete package, i use moi for modeling some surfacing where is much better then shark, and also flow command.

shark-viacad are still buggy and have many glitches, but it worth for the price and all the features that include, for 2d sketches, the model to sheet feature is very good, just stay very organized and you are done.

Hey Ram,
I would suggest you get to that shop and speak to somebody regarding what you have been discussing and the responses. For instance, designing a handgaurd may not be too difficult, but a 2d sketch will convey the basics (ribs, dimensions/spacing) but if you are going for something more unique than the 10 trillion that already exist, just holding sights on the side and the m240 where the scope goes ( :o ), it may be hard to convey that intent in a 2d drawing.

With that said, Luis suggested ViaCad which I would also agreee with. Huge bang for the buck. You would only go with BobCad in the instance that you planned on moving to doing the cnc yourself. (And even then, some of these others are more powerful "CAD" applications)

Anyway, good luck with it.

Hi Ram, yeah like Luis and Burr write above ViaCAD is probably a good choice for including 2D drawing stuff.

If you find yourself struggling with building 3D models with it and are more comfortable with constructing things in MoI you could also use both MoI and ViaCAD in combination with one another, sending the 3D model data constructed in MoI over into ViaCAD for generating drawings.

But definitely go and specifically talk to the shop about what they can handle, maybe they still receive a bunch of 2D blue prints from people but most of the time shops would actually prefer to receive 3D models instead if they're available, there is much less chance to misinterpret the design when they are looking at the 3D model.

It also depends on what particular CNC process is going to be used - some things like a laser cutter are done totally by a 2D outline only. For other processes like milling the shop would basically have to construct a 3D model from your blue prints which is why it can be better for those cases to give them the 3D model directly instead.

- Michael

You guys are great thanks. I spoke to a rep in Rhino today, he told me his program is not the best for my type of work.
I need something in a mechinical field such as inventor, Solidworks, solide edge, or Alibre. If I am going to spend the money for
Punch CAD I just buy Alibre. I am little lost with these software but I will find the right one with all your hlep. GOD BLESS