EIM Good

#9

(Whatever happens, please don’t change the way EITG’s apps rotate Iso or perspective views to ViaCAD and Modo’s; their “virtual Trackball”-style applies roll based on clicking distance from window center, so usually one has to do small roll corrections after any major rotate gesture. It’s really off-putting and makes me want to behead Tim Olson and Brad Peebler. Slowly. Twice)

EIM Additions:

-OBJECT/LAYER INSTANCING: where clones accept at least position/rotation/resize data that gets carried over to Animator (I seem to remember someone saying a long time ago that duplicating objects inside Animator was less efficient that having these duplicates actually being inside the FACT files already. Was that so, and is it still so?). As cloning usually makes more sense for complex groups of objects rather than just single ones, I guess Layer-level instancing would be required, or one would need to Join objects previous to cloning.

(The best instancing feature I ever saw was StrataStudio’s: you could really apply nearly all sort of changes to an instance without breaking its link to the original object set)

-ALIGN/DISTRIBUTE TOOLS: these would be handy in Animator, too.

#10

please please please… standardize 3d navigation between EI & EIM

Cj

#11

EIM has a lot of good, I use it for many projects and I am really glad it’s coming back. To make it even better…

(1 & 2 are really improvements to EIAS but they relate to EIM)

  1. Better communication with EIAS. The ability to save a file from EIM, import to EIAS, then when edited and saved, it is automatically updated in EIAS. Similar to a placed psd in Illustrator.

  2. Move the tessellation function to EIAS. I have no idea if this possible at all but it would be nice to export, for example, an SAT file and import it into EIAS then apply the tessellation in EIAS. You could even have separate settings for Animator and Camera.

  3. Construction history and editable construction curves.

  4. Update to current ACIS version (and keep current).

  5. Customize interface, keyboard shortcuts.

  6. Image Template should be behind the grid and path drawn on top.

  7. Selecting and translating multiple points in Bezier curves.

bw

#12

  1. Selecting and translating multiple points in Bezier curves.

    bw[/QUOTE]

Yes, I forgot about that one. Despite all the talk of how splines are better and cleaner I still have more luck with Bezier’s most of the time and this would be a real time saver.
I was trying to do something in ViaCad with the Bezier’s yesterday and eventually just gave up and went back to Modeler - one of those tools I just find better implemented, even as is.
Also tool selection consistency would be good. I don’t know how many times I have saved and then started work again only to find that the particular tool I have been using had been deselected.

#13

Yes: ViaCAD Beziers are just terrible. EIM’s are quite Freehand/Illustrator like, and could get even more so. I know one oughtn’t rely on them because the resulting 3D surfaces and objects are multipatch ones, but at least one knows where these patchs and seams will appear, so one can deal with them.

(Tutorial #1: how to get used to pure NURBS and learn to draw them as precisely as Beziers. I’d put an smiley there if not for this being actually a very real need)

#14

EIM’s bezier curves are quite nice - multiple select would be even nicer.

Just view the bezier curves as multiple nurbs curves and/or poly lines joined at each knot.

#15

The layers system is great - with one caveat - I don’t like the fact that when you are using a tool and select something from there it automatically defaults back to the main selection tool. It would be a great time saver if the current tool remained selected.

Also a hot key or button for smooth shading from wireframe would be nice. This is one of the things that come in very handy in ViaCad.

#16

If I understand your request you already can - ‘option + V’ toggles the smooth shading on and off.

#17

Is that on a Mac or PC Paul? Won’t work for me on the PC.

#18

‘Open Recent’ I use this all the time in EIAS. Miss it in Modeler.

#19

That’s on a Mac.

#20

I’m trying the ‘option+v’ toggle in EIM 5.0.2 on a Mac. It doesn’t affect the shading mode. Tried some other combinations too. Shading mode unchanged.

I’m on a Mac mini 1.42Ghz PPC. Maybe my graphics card doesn’t cut it?

#21

[left]Option + V didn’t work for me either. Selecting the Control key or right mouse button does give you access to the Draw level.

I also did a quick scan of the manual’s shortcuts and didn’t see anything… but it was a quick scan…

I’m on a G4/400 OSX 10.2.8 EIM 5.02

I’m curious… how well does the Mac Mini work with EIAS/EIM? I’m in a bit of a pickle, I’m buying a house but my Mac is a vintage '99 machine and the monitor is acting up a bit. I was hoping to raise some cash selling off stuff before/during and after I move so I could upgrade my machine and EIAS.

I’d love to go with the Pro stuff, but reality for a struggling hobbiest/dabbling artist says a Mac Mini and a Macbook pairing would smoke my G4/400. I’m just a little worried about EITG’s new version requirements vs a low end Mac. I was considering a PC…but my gut instinc says Apple still has the ease of use/less pain in the butt OS.

Thanks,

Mike
[/left]

#22

my guess is paul is using the ‘last’ beta of EIM, which is not able to release…

#23

Hi Mike,
I’m using EIAS 6.5.2 and EIM 5.02 on my ‘ancient’ PPC Mac mini maxed out to 1GB RAM. They run quite well. For demanding renders I use Renderama and render out to a dual 2.0GHz PPC G5.

I think an Intel Mac mini would perform better than my configuration, as long as you have versions of EIAS and EIM that can run native or in Rosetta.

Aziz.

#24

I’m using EIM V5.0 - it was the last release and not a beta.

I’m surprised option+V doesn’t work for you. It worked under OS 9.2 and also on OSX 10.4.2.

#25

I have a mac mini I use with EIM, works great. I dont really render on it, but the 6.6 render times I got were faster than (6.5 or 6.6) my G5.

Note, RAM is limited, and the graphics card is not bad, but not professional by any stretch. But I would replace an old machine in a heartbeat with a mini.

Cj

#26

cjberg & AzOne thanks for the info.

Sure wish Apple would offer a $1500 tower…

cheers,

Mike

#27

EIM addition: BREP (Boundary Representation AKA Manifold Volume) tool.

This is something Amapi Pro has: you create a series of intersecting surfaces that describe an enclosed volume, and this tool will do the necessary booleaning and stitching and flash-deleting to produce this enclosed volume in just one step.

#28

Post-resurrection, I’d encourage the EIM team to really take a look at the ways Amapi Pro (an app with an uncertain future, as the original French programming team has been disbanded) does certain things in a very interactive way. Here I am beveling this cube by clicking each edge while in the beveling tool context, the app recomputing the bevels as I add or substract edges (it can work non-interactively, too, if I anticipate it’s going to be too processing-heavy), and letting me try tool variations instantly (see the top center bevel options toolbar), or increase and decrease bevel depth by means of the + and - keys. When I am satisfied, I OK the operation.

In general, Amapi feels like a NURBS-based Hexagon (it’s the other way round, actually). What Amapi and most SDS apps do quite well is provide very interactive tools. On the other hand, they lack the robustness, exactness and ease of use a traditional four view 3D modeler has, them being so single perspective view-centered, four views sort of an afterthought (ViaCAD suffers from being a single viewer app big time). As fun as Amapi is supposed to be, its single window cursor system is so irritatingly cumbersome and its four view system so unconvincing that I always gravitate back to EIM: it is far more agile.

But there are things to be learned from it and the like.