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jayanam / fast-carve

Hardsurface utility Blender addon for fast boolean and bevel operations (it's now JMesh tools : https://github.com/jayanam/jmesh-tools)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Con5uMDwRQ0&list=PLboXykqtm8dxZxhA1P-iyy_vpis04Hyem
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Suggested feature: Inference engine+snap features in polygon #28

Open raindropsfromsky opened 5 years ago

raindropsfromsky commented 5 years ago

Google SketchUp (now Trimble) has an inference engine that allows us to draw lines that are parallel or perpendicular to other edges in the scene. (to identify our target edge, we have to simply hover on the mouse over it while drawing the line, and then move on.)

Apart from this, we can snap our line to the mid-point of any edge, or even snap it to the imaginary extension of an edge, or snap the line to normal passing through a point.

The target edges may belong to any object in 3D space (whether selected or not).

Can you do this with the polyline tool?

Alternatively, it would be great to have a separate addon for this functionality.

The inference engine is described here. (Please read till the end of page)

jayanam commented 5 years ago

Very interesting, I will analyze this and put some of these things into consideration.

raindropsfromsky commented 5 years ago

Hi!

Many thanks for implementing most of my suggestions!

The best way to appreciate the inference is to go through the following training videos published by SketchUp team:

(Each video is a little different, so it is best to watch them all.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J6rOkDqoOk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8Fc6sGWDVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y8hTeALb-w&t=13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzuFyVtzlpw

In the Blender 2.4 days, I was overwhelmed by the poor GUI of Blender. So I tried out SketchUp, and within a week, I became a power user of SketchUp. I illustrated a professional-grade book using SketchUp, with just one week's practice (link).

Therefore I am convinced that this tool can be immensely helpful, and it deserves to be a separate independent tool (not hidden inside the Fast carve tool).

jayanam commented 5 years ago

What do you mean by "hidden in the Fast Carve tool"?

On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 4:01 AM Narayan notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi!

Many thanks for implementing most of my suggestions!

The best way to appreciate the inference is to go through the following training videos published by SketchUp team:

(Each video is a little different, so it is best to watch them all.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J6rOkDqoOk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8Fc6sGWDVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y8hTeALb-w&t=13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzuFyVtzlpw

In the Blender 2.4 days, I was overwhelmed by the poor GUI of Blender. So I tried out SketchUp, and within a week, I became a power user of SketchUp. I illustrated a professional-grade book using SketchUp, with just one week's practice (link https://www.kspcb.gov.in/STP-Guide-web(Med).pdf).

Therefore I am convinced that this tool can be immensely helpful, and it deserves to be a separate independent tool (not hidden inside the Fast carve tool).

— You are receiving this because you were assigned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jayanam/fast-carve/issues/28#issuecomment-491557945, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEJUGIBALSY4RYE6QINQBMTPU527BANCNFSM4G5MLNIA .

jayanam commented 5 years ago

Most of the things in this videos are already possible with Blender, if you have special features wishes for Fast Carve then please describe them as separate issues, thx.

On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 12:41 PM Jayanam . jayanam.games@gmail.com wrote:

What do you mean by "hidden in the Fast Carve tool"?

On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 4:01 AM Narayan notifications@github.com wrote:

Hi!

Many thanks for implementing most of my suggestions!

The best way to appreciate the inference is to go through the following training videos published by SketchUp team:

(Each video is a little different, so it is best to watch them all.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J6rOkDqoOk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8Fc6sGWDVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y8hTeALb-w&t=13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzuFyVtzlpw

In the Blender 2.4 days, I was overwhelmed by the poor GUI of Blender. So I tried out SketchUp, and within a week, I became a power user of SketchUp. I illustrated a professional-grade book using SketchUp, with just one week's practice (link https://www.kspcb.gov.in/STP-Guide-web(Med).pdf).

Therefore I am convinced that this tool can be immensely helpful, and it deserves to be a separate independent tool (not hidden inside the Fast carve tool).

— You are receiving this because you were assigned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jayanam/fast-carve/issues/28#issuecomment-491557945, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEJUGIBALSY4RYE6QINQBMTPU527BANCNFSM4G5MLNIA .

raindropsfromsky commented 5 years ago

What do you mean by "hidden in the Fast Carve tool"?

I meant that if you decide to code the inference engine, let not be confined within the polyline of the fast-carve addon: It would be great if you make it available as a pen tool that has this inference behavior, and which can interconnect multiple objects with line strokes.

Most of the things in this videos are already possible with Blender,

IINW you mean that the knife tool can snap, and the grab/scale mode have constraints on axes. Yes, this is true.

But I had a very different idea when I made the suggestion, as explained below. (Sorry I did not make this clear beforehand!)

In SketchUp, the real power of inference engine lies in the pen tool, which can draw a line/polyline/curve/arc.

Blender has the knife tool, but it cannot double up as a pen tool. More specifically, it cannot draw lines that connect multiple objects. This requires multi-step manipulation.

So, if we need to add lines, we first take a 2D/3D object, and then delete most of the geometry to get a line or a vertex. Sometimes we also have to merge some vertexes. All these manipulations have nothing to do with our model.

The same thing can be much simplified if we have a pen/knife dual tool, which follows the inference and constraint rules:

When the pen tool interconnects the geometries of different objects, Blender should understand that we want to join the shapes in Edit mode, and then add more lines. In other words, we should not have to explicitly join them in edit mode and then toggle to object mode, etc.

I know this is not relevant for polyline feature of Fast-Carve. But before closing the suggestion here, I may as well explain the idea, in the hope that you'd make another tool that changes the way we use Blender!

Thanks for your time!

xavier83 commented 5 years ago

@raindropsfromsky Found a snap addon https://blenderartists.org/t/cad-snap-utilities/635301 but it is not as convenient/generic as the one in SketchUp.

Edit: There seems to be an effort to implement this in Blender core https://devtalk.blender.org/t/discussions-for-better-snapping-and-precision-modeling-to-come/5351