SketchUp's Inference system

[Sketchy]

Originally Posted by Thomas

"Sketchy: I take a look at your deleted messages. If it's what I understand (I don't know the english name), it will be integrated in Amapi. Please, create a posted dedicated to that and add some screen capture about what you say, to see if I understand well or not (and I'm in the Amapi Dev' Team, all the developpers are in the same office as me...)

I was just responding to larsen's earlier post about INFERENCE guides, which resulted in this another response of his.

Originally Posted by larsen

Sketchy, I've just seen some videos of SU and never used it. I use Amapi Pro every day and I know well what it's suited for. I don't think that an inference system would be out of Amapi's world because Amapi is a precise modeling application and I'm sure that some tools that hallow you to be more precise while drawing are welcome. Amapi already has a lot of great snapping functions and inference could bring them to a new level.

I've never said that direct drawing on surfaces is necessary, just that it would be time saving. Working in a beautyful 3D environment like in Amapi takes me sometimes to a strange alignment of my shapes which takes time to correct. A direct surface drawing tool would, again, be helpful for me. Drawing curves on surfaces is usually a common tool in nurbs modeling programs, isn't it?
I think that one of the most important things in today's 3D software is the speed of work. You can do almost the same models in every 3D app but the difference is in the time you spend creating it. This is the reason for those requests.
If the dev team doesn't agree with me or doesn't have the time to implement those features... ok! I just don't understand why you have to take their place and disagree with my requests...

P.S: : If you are part of the dev team, sorry!

larsen, I'm not against inference guides. I just thought they already have their equivalents in Amapi Pro such as the ruler guides in combination with the object snapping by way of the Shift key.

larsen, could you please post some screenshots illustrating their importance in your workflow? Or, at least, describe in words how you find them very necessary. Then let's compare Amapi's way of going about it. I may even be able to show you how.

[laughingnome]

Originally Posted by Sketchy

larsen, could you please post some screenshots illustrating their importance in your workflow? Or, at least, describe in words how you find them very necessary. Then let's compare Amapi's way of going about it. I may even be able to show you how.

why dont you just show us anyway sketchy, rather than trying to pick a fight.

stu

[Thomas]

SCREENSHOTS ! (requested in the previous thread..)

[Sketchy]

I don't know all the answers, stu. Like most Amapi newcomers, I'm still in the process of getting to know it. Frankly, it's not easy when you're so used to other apps' workflow. This hobby is an on and off thing for me. I wish I have a lot of time. I have re-installed Google's SketchUp a couple of days ago to check how its inference system will fit into an app like Amapi Pro and to be able to go back to this thread with complete objectivity. However, we all have our individual way of doing things. That's the reason why I'd like to know how important they are in somebody else's workflow. In my case I found their equivalents in Amapi, as I've mentioned.

I repeat, I am not against them. They are among the most natural features ANY drawing program could have to the extent of saying they are as normal as breathing. AutoCAD has them. (They are called polar tracking or object snap tracking.) Parametric solid modelers like Solidworks, SolidEdge and Inventor have them as well. Caligari is implementing them in TrueSpace's next release.

http://www.caligari.com/news/news_se...5_PE200609.wmv

I have to wonder why the others are not implementing them. Max, Maya, Lightwave, XSI, Rhino, Blender, and many others. Why? I don't know. I am not a programmer. Unless the Amapi dev team say otherwise, I have to conclude that they are hard to implement. And that's my concern.

[Sketchy]

Thomas, screenshots are not necessary. All you have to do is to install the free version of SketchUp and see what larsen is talking about. You will see how they work as soon as you draw your next line or object.




This is taken from SU's pdf manual. See the complete text at Google SU's site.

[Piem]

This is just constraints. Constraints exist since a long time, even if their workflow should be improved.

[Sketchy]

I'd also like to say that it is my impression that the Amapi Dev Team is trying to implement what Caligari's CEO calls a DIRECT MANIPULATION interface. Which means you start and end as much as possible using only ONE VIEWPORT. It's exactly the same thing they did with Hexagon. How many Hexagon users, for example, are using Hex's 2-4 viewports? Probably none. Like me, they, most likely, have learned to model using only one view and thought it makes sense. The reason why we use other views is for constraining purposes. The Universal Manipulator made it easy to use a one-view mode.

Point is, that's what SketchUp's Inference system is all about: to be able to use a ONE VIEWPORT comfortably.

[jbshorty]

i can't seem to figure out who is for which side of this argument . Pretty interesting to watch though... Here's my thoughts. Although I don't use Amapi, when i tried the 7.52 demo i didn't see anything that felt as natural as the auto-constraints in SU, Rhino 4, Moi, etc... What Sketchy is saying is absolutely the truth. With that style of auto-constraint it allows you to work in one viewport only. And that can have a major impact on the natural feeling (and speed) of modeling. Assuming you have 2 eyes, then you don't see the world orthogonally anyway. So... I would expect that using auto-constraints (with rulers built-in such as Rhino and Moi) will become a standard feature very soon for CAD-based modelers in the mid-range market... Now i politely leave the room, because i am not qualified to speak about Amapi in detail... just my opinion in general...

[Sketchy]

Oh yeah, jbshorty, I remember Rhino's equivalent to SU's Inferences are the Elevators in combination, of course, with the object and grid snaps. It has no polar and object snap tracking, though, like AutoCAD's. You know, when I use Rhino I always start with a 4 viewport mode. I don't know why. I guess I haven't explored Rhino that much.

[Frenchy Pilou]

7 views seems better
Front - Back
Left - Right
Top - Bottom
Perspective or ortho

Why it's not the normal way?

[Sketchy]

Originally Posted by Frenchy Pilou

7 views seems better

You must have a display as huge as your house. Sorry, that's not for laptop owners like me.

Why it's not the normal way?

C'mon, Pilou, try starting TrueSpace, Modo, Wings3d, Blender, C4D, Hexagon, Silo, Amapi, etc, etc.

Bugs even start to show up when you use more than one viewport in Hex, which goes to show that the coders didn't really spend that much time enhancing those alternative modes. They obviously were trying to implement a one viewport workflow which they started in Amapi.

As for what is normal, I don't think I have referred to one mode or the other "normal". To me it really depends on how the app was made. I can only say with certainty that TrueSpace was made to be used in a one viewport mode. The CEO, Roman, always mentions it in his posts as well as his video tutorials. Multiple viewports were meant to be used only when necessary. I could only guess that that's exactly what the developers of Hex and Amapi were trying to implement. Same thing with SketchUp's, Wings3d, etc.

[jbshorty]

Originally Posted by Sketchy

You must have a display as huge as your house...

No. He has 3 heads (named Pilou, Filou, and Frenchy Pilou). Each of them use dual screens. But i can't figure out who is using the 7th view...

Originally Posted by Sketchy

Oh yeah, jbshorty, I remember Rhino's equivalent to SU's Inferences are the Elevators in combination, of course, with the object and grid snaps. It has no polar and object snap tracking, though, like AutoCAD's. You know, when I use Rhino I always start with a 4 viewport mode. I don't know why. I guess I haven't explored Rhino that much.

You are referring to Rhino3? Rhino4 tracks object edges, same as Moi. Not sure what you mean by polar snapping, i don't use Autocad. Sounds cool, though. Get it? That's a pun ... Sorry, all off-topic. My point was just that inferrred contruction lines will become standard within the next few years. So an app without them will be considered "difficult" to use.

[Sketchy]

Oh, okay. You're right. MOI, too, has those inference guides, I remember now. You've nailed the right terms, bud: inferred construction lines. Polar/object-snap tracking are no different. You hover your cursor along any point of a line and a ghosted, temporary line appears. It constrains not only along the 3 axes but on pre-defined angles (polar) relative to a point.

Yes, I'm referring to Rhino 3. The Elevator lets you use imaginary tracks without ever drawing construction lines, again, relative to a point.

[larsen]

Originally Posted by Sketchy

I was just responding to larsen's earlier post about INFERENCE guides, which resulted in this another response of his.




larsen, I'm not against inference guides. I just thought they already have their equivalents in Amapi Pro such as the ruler guides in combination with the object snapping by way of the Shift key.

larsen, could you please post some screenshots illustrating their importance in your workflow? Or, at least, describe in words how you find them very necessary. Then let's compare Amapi's way of going about it. I may even be able to show you how.

Hi all,

it's nice to see what a simple feature request in the "Amapi 8 wishlist" thread has become. However, this is the first time I see in a forum that a feature I 've requested has to be explained by another member. Thomas has seen the post deleted by Sketchy and not mine which is present
twice in that thread? And then, I haven't been informed by any moderator that Sketchy was starting a new thread with my post as the subject and that he was asking me to discuss it... Nice
Nothing more to say except sorry for my bad english.

[laughingnome]

Originally Posted by larsen

Hi all,

it's nice to see what a simple feature request in the "Amapi 8 wishlist" thread has become. However, this is the first time I see in a forum that a feature I 've requested has to be explained by another member. Thomas has seen the post deleted by Sketchy and not mine which is present
twice in that thread? And then, I haven't been informed by any moderator that Sketchy was starting a new thread with my post as the subject and that he was asking me to discuss it... Nice
Nothing more to say except sorry for my bad english.

hello Larson, if you have any complaints regarding sketchy please sitemail me or any other moderator and action will be taken. sketchy was told to take his argument out of the wishlist thread and post his information here so as not to interfere with your post, he wasnt told to use your post or quotes as the subject, i have already told him here not to start an argument here but post images so did Thomas.


regards
stu

[Thomas]

Sorry for the delay of my answer on this point.
As you can imagine, i can't comment everything and say now what will be in Amapi, but i can answer to that question.

first, if I requested screenshots, it's because I didn't know the word "Inference" (I'm not as good as you can imagine in english). Now, I have my answer.

Piem give you an answer: Amapi already have such a system since.. Amapi 6! But the workflow really sucks and I'm the first one to say that and because of that, I never use it.

In Amapi Pro, we added the guides and new constraints, but the workflow is not enough good. you have to do CTRL+SHIFT to add them, no menu entry if you don't know the shortcuts, etc.
Well, improving that is in the roadmap of Amapi 8 (and not 8.x), because sometimes, drawing a simple path can be very hard in Amapi because of snaps and constraint which are missing.
We will have auto align, automatic guides, etc...

You will also be able to draw directly on a surface, if you activate the good constraint and use the shift key. We also have to improve the curve projection...

[gksl4]

Nice to hear all that from you Thomas

[Frenchy Pilou]

Precisions

No. He has 3 heads (named Pilou, Filou, and Frenchy Pilou)

No! Filou is not Pilou!
So only sometime 2 heads

[larsen]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Sorry for the delay of my answer on this point.
As you can imagine, i can't comment everything and say now what will be in Amapi, but i can answer to that question.

first, if I requested screenshots, it's because I didn't know the word "Inference" (I'm not as good as you can imagine in english). Now, I have my answer.

Piem give you an answer: Amapi already have such a system since.. Amapi 6! But the workflow really sucks and I'm the first one to say that and because of that, I never use it.

In Amapi Pro, we added the guides and new constraints, but the workflow is not enough good. you have to do CTRL+SHIFT to add them, no menu entry if you don't know the shortcuts, etc.
Well, improving that is in the roadmap of Amapi 8 (and not 8.x), because sometimes, drawing a simple path can be very hard in Amapi because of snaps and constraint which are missing.
We will have auto align, automatic guides, etc...

You will also be able to draw directly on a surface, if you activate the good constraint and use the shift key. We also have to improve the curve projection...

Thomas, I've tried a lot of times to use Amapi 'inference system' but with bad results (discovered the ctrl+shift function while experimenting keyboard shortcuts). The workflow, as you said, is not very good and I often get confused by it. I'm really happy to hear of these improvements.