Hexagon vs. SketchUp

[Markku]

Let me first start by saying that Hexagon is a great modeling app. Personally I have little experience with it but I have seen what it is capable of creating in right hands.

Having used SketchUp quite a bit the thing that keeps me from getting into Hexagon is the notion of not being aware of the size and distance of things precisely.

Those who know SU know it's tape measurer and how you can set a precise distance to a duplicated entity of any kind. How do you do that in Hex? How do you know how far you are extracting an edge along edge for example?

To me as far as I know Hex seems like a great tool for making artistic creations but is it for machanical designs at all? Anybody making any industrially engineered stuff with it in CAD precision?

Right now I'm using it for translating file types and making cables. It's great for both but feels like wast of good software.

Please give some pointers that would help me find precision in Hex. Or am I expecting too much?

- Markku

[AlainK]

Hexagon is designed primarily for artists and illustrators as Eovia's website clearly states. If you want CAD precision, go for Amapi Pro instead, Rhino, or some solid modeling apps such as Pro Engineer, Solidworks and Inventor. There's just no point in using Hexagon when all you want to utilize are the booleans, chamfering, filleting, etc, with no intention of using subdivision surface modeling, which is it's main feature.

In a way you could say that Hexagon could also be used by engineers, but mainly for presentation and illustration purposes.

[Markku]

Thanks AlainK.

Clearly my fears were true. But at least I know which tool is for which job.

Even if you were using Hex mainly to illustrate products would you not want to know how far from the first edge you copied the second edge? Currently the only information about things is regarding it's position and size on the grid.

Still people are making non-organic stuff with Hex like cars and spaceships. Don't they want to know if the cars are true to the real thing? Either they have a very good sense of space and distance, or they use calculator a lot, or they don't care.

- Markku

[AlainK]

I don't think you can find any surface modeler without any basic measuring feature. When you say CAD precision I think of it as about drawing plans and models designed to be used by manufacturers and builders where every nut and bolt is measured down to the last millimeter.

Design engineers, for example, use solid modeling apps such as Pro Engineer and the like so they don't have to build the actual physical model. They use them to detect inconsistencies in the design such as tolerances, surface collision, etc. These apps also feature basic animation with physics properties.

I recommend apps such as Rhino, Amapi, etc, because they don't rely on smoothing models the "SDS way", if I may use that phrase. They rely on booleaning, filleting, chamfering, etc., which makes the model accurate in "CAD precision" as your application demands.

[bwtr]

You produce scale drawings and those you use, on the planes, to produce accurate(!) reproduction in Hexagon. Visual accuracy is obviously attainable from the works done in Hexagon by many. Mechanical accuracy is still, and probably always will be, more for cad type programmes.

[bwtr]

Because Hexagon, ANNOYINGLY!, cuts off access to the "Start" row of information access at the bottom of the screen, you can not access such things as the Screen Callipers from www. iconico.com. See attatcched screen shot.

I just found the preference to change from full screen!!!. You can access the freebe cali[pers into Hexagon.

[Couerl]

Hey, cool caliper model old man.

hahaha.... erm. joke... ;)

[AlainK]

Originally Posted by Markku

Still people are making non-organic stuff with Hex like cars and spaceships. Don't they want to know if the cars are true to the real thing? Either they have a very good sense of space and distance, or they use calculator a lot, or they don't care.

Don't get me wrong. Of course you can use Hexagon to model realistic-looking cars and ships as well as a lot of mechanical objects and electronic stuff, but don't expect it to have the precision of a CAD program with something like 16 decimal place accuracy.

Sure, SketchUp is nowhere near Hexagon's capability when it comes to modeling airplanes, for example. However, I wouldn't trade SketchUp when it comes to modeling buildings and structures in a fast-paced environment.

And as you can see from Hexagon 2's previews, it's moving closer towards organic modeling, instead of industrial design stuff and such... I just hope there were, at least, some extra enhancements in the non-organic area such as better boolean, filleting, etc.

[Markku]

Two words "CAD precision" lead to a total misunderstanding. I was not initially asking for more precision/accuracy into Hex let alone 16 decimal accuracy as you said. My enhancements would be within the area of being able measure objects and their transformations. So once more I don't need 16 decimal accuracy or any accuracy for that matter. There is enough accuracy in Hex for my use. What I need is to know how far something is from something else. When I duplicate an edge I want to type somewhere how far the edge must go to the given direction. Only visual change to Hex would be an input box showing the measurement of the last action which I could then change if I wanted.

But I can want what I want and it's not going to be there if nobody else wants it and judging by the respond - nobody wants it.
AlainK - your respond was important in that sense that I don't have look for something there is not.
And bwtr gave me a good laugh with that gadged. Thank you both!

[WillBellJr]

I love what W-Tools has done for Lightwave:

LWCAD
LWCAD 2 Preview

It has renewed my interest in using Lightwave's modeler!

I feel all 3D modelers should provide this kind of feedback when drawing entities! Makes using Modeler a complete joy IMO!

If Hex had this kind of GUI feedback with its line tools, it couldn't be beat!!

With these tools, I now typically start off my hardbody stuff in Modeler and then move it into Hex and Carrara...

-Will

[efflux]

Hexagon is as bit poor on precision. It's one of my main gripes with it. It's down to limited UI feedback. Only two decimal places show up in properties when there are actually three and another example I recently found out is the no proper degree of angle feedback for twist and bend.

I disagree that organic modelers or subdivision methods mean that we don't need this precision. I can't line my models up to sufficient accuracy in Hexagon without trouble whether they are organic or more achitectural. An organical form may have certain dimensions that need to be accurate or be able to line up with something else.

Silo is a program that works in a very organic way with limited ability to accurately control geometries easily so it is used mostly for character type stuff. Basically meaning it has limited use. Great for character creation, not so great for other stuff. It has no deformers and nothing to compare with the line tools in Hex along with many other extra tools in Hex. Hex has this other stuff and it can be very useful to be able to precision control these tools. In my opinion this control needs improving.

[Thomas]

Hexagon 2 have 6 decimals.
In fact, you can enter 6 decimas in Hexagon 1.x, even if it display only two.
Hexagon is build for Illustration, not for CAD ;)
I use values a lot in Amapi Pro... never in Hexagon (except some design stuff, but milimeter precision is enough...)

[TheRetiredSailor]

Just my opinion here...

I have found that Hexagon has sufficient precision for modeling things like rooms and furnishings, the point being (as Thomas said) that it is for illustration. In terms of illustration, the difference between a wall 8 feet tall vrs. a wall 8.05 feet tall will not be noticed. Not so in CAD, the object must be the proper size or the dimensions will be all wrong.

Perhaps I'm missing the point here, and if so I apologize.

[medeamajic]

I know Eovia wants Amapi and Hexagon to be seperate programs but I think it might be wise to merge them ASAP. I think the world of 3-D is getting very competative. In the not so distant future we may see 3-4 programs dominate 90% of the market share. Every program will have to do what the competiton does in order to stay alive. The competition does not sleep.

[efflux]

OK Thomas. The problem is not that we need loads of decimal places but that you can move things or think that things are perfectly aligned but find that the hidden decimals take it out of alignment without you realizing. Probably once you know these things you can allow for it. For example you may build two objects and want to weld them together or something but find that they are not parallel, perpendicular, vertices not in the right position. I don't care about minute accuracies of size but I do about the relationships between components in certain cases.

Is the numerical readout for Twist and Bend going to give us degrees in future Hex versions?

[Markku]

If I may I would like to summarize some of what's said in the discussion so far.

a) Hex 1.2 has enough decimals - everybody seems to think so. If the user can set any measurement to - say 1,01 mm, then that should be sufficient to most people except for those working with some extreme fine mechanics. I'm not one of those. 1.01 mm is excellent for me.

b) Most participants in this discussion are obviously happy with the way things are working now in Hex. No more control is needed when moving things (edges etc.) around concerning precission. Hex is not a CAD program and should be left as an artistic program.

c) Then there are some people who would like to see some improvement in this area involving more precise movement and feedback. I'm obviously one them. Fellows, correct me if I'm wrong. Precission is not about huge amount of decimals. Two is enough - more is fine. Precission is about the feedback and control that Hex should give us when we make different operations.

Some examples as a reminder: efflux wants to control the bend and twist in degrees, which are a common way to measure rotation in real world. Natural, real-life measurement units like degrees make such operations easier to understand and more accurate to manage when performed to multiple similar objects.

I for one was looking for a way to divide surfaces accurately with the means of duplicating an existing edge and placing that new edge to a point that is a certain length from the first edge.

I bet that most of you guys would follow this method too if you were making a real garden house for example. You would build the lumber frame at certain dimensions, and when it would be time to make the door or windows holes, you would pull out your tape measurer and mark the points for the window poles measuring from the corners of the house's frame or the next window. It should be the same thing here with Hex. Many times you need to move or create something that is a certain length from some other point in the model. Why not allowe that? Surely we don't need a tape measurer in Hex (wouldn't hurt though), just a place where to input the new location in reference to the first.

What ever you make I think that the above idea is the most natural way of measuring in situations like that. I think that somewhere deep in it's brain Hex has this knowledge already but it has not been uplifted for us to use it. How hard can it be to make it happen?

In the beginning I made a mistake by bringing up the word CAD. At the end of the day this is not about CAD, this is about natural ways to build your model up.

[TheRetiredSailor]

Yes, I follow your point now. Your analogy of the garden house and door works. As an example, I have indeed found myself doing a tesselation, then going back and editing the location of the new vertices to put them where I want them. A numeric input to define exactly where on an edge the tesselation should be would be handy. Other examples apply for other operations.

[WillBellJr]

Which is also why I pointed to the W-Tools GUIs as an example.

I'm sure Eovia understands what we're asking here - just more and better feedback while distancing entities from one another.

I was working in Hex some last nite and the little rulers and the numeric coordinate displays (ruler preferences) that display when working with lines are a good example.

I don't believe it would be hard at all for Eovia to add similar LWCAD like angle and distance and snap GUI feedback to Hex and it would certainly be appreciated! (Does Amapi have this? - I'm not familiar with Amapi at all.)

I don't want to turn Hex into a "CAD" program and I don't believe anyone asking for these additions are either - just a hint more feedback to help with hard body work - that's it...

-Will

[efflux]

No, of course I don't want a CAD program. Point C/ in Markku's message explains what I think is needed. At present I use Wings for some tasks that with a little extra numerical feedback could be done in Hex. Wings is a subdivision modeller than can be used for just about any purpose. It's not CAD.

Sure, you can be aware of possible inaccuracies in Hex and make sure vertices are definitely aligned the way you want but in Wings the feedback I see is exactly what is happening to the model.

I think the lack of degree feedback for twisting or bending is the worst Hex drawback in this area. It basically means there is no way to use these tools for anything other than purely organic sculpturing. This would be top of my list for things to improve.

Amapi uses nurbs so I guess it will always be different from Hex anyway.

[AlainK]

Just curious, Markku. What don't you like about SketchUp?