Three Edit Mode feature requests

FourMadMen · Post by **FourMadMen** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 6:00 am

Longtime Blender user, first time poster.

Please forgive me if the presentation of my requests is considered crude. Thanks in advance for you attention...

Request #1 - Vertex sliding (i.e. constrained to edge)

A) Select vertex to grab.

B) Enter slide mode. Related edges are highlighted in some fashion (red in this case).

C) Move vertex to desired position along edge. New edge positions are highlighted.

D) Confirm new position as in any other grab. And your done.

Request #2 - Using secondary object (Path, Circle, Plane, that sort of thing) to determine knife points.

A) Select all desired verts.

B) Enter knife mode (sorry but I forgot to show the new menu option which might be labeld "Control Object"). After selecting the new menu option you would then select the object whose verts will be used for the points of the knife operation.

C) Confirm operation. And you done.

Request #3 - Group Snapto

A) Select desired verts, position cursor, and request the snap options. Select the new "Group to Cursor"

B) The verts snap to the cursor as a group so they retain their co-ordinates relative to each other. Now to determine which vert ends up at the cursor position you might use the last selected vertex or perhaps you must click on the vertex to use after selecting the new menu option (maybe an option for either of those?). In either event the verts move to their new positions as a group.

Again, thanks in advance and hopefully others will find these ideas good enough to put into Blender at some point in time.

ideasman · Post by **ideasman** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 9:02 am

Ill have a go at grouped vert snapping in tuhopuu2- shouldent be that hard

FourMadMen · Post by **FourMadMen** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 9:21 am

Thank you, sir.

theeth · Post by **theeth** » Tue Jul 13, 2004 2:16 pm

You request #1 is already in my plans for the transformation makeover.

Martin

FourMadMen · Post by **FourMadMen** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 6:10 am

Good deal. I look forward to it. Now at the risk of being greedy anyone have an opinion on the advantages (or lack thereof) of the knife request? From either a funtional or coding aspect. In other words is it something others would find useful?

ideasman · Post by **ideasman** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 8:47 am

FourMadMen wrote:Good deal. I look forward to it. Now at the risk of being greedy anyone have an opinion on the advantages (or lack thereof) of the knife request? From either a funtional or coding aspect. In other words is it something others would find useful?

dont worry about being greedy, just dont expect anybody togo and do it

If sombody suggests a feature that I like and can impliment in an afternoon or so then Ill have a go and commit it to tuhopuu2 (Im still new to C) so its good for people to suggest these features.

* think #2 could be implimented as a type of booleans

* and #3 would be cool as a vert snap option while dragging but your way would still be usefull.

- Cam

FourMadMen · Post by **FourMadMen** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 6:48 pm

Well I'm grateful for anyone who sees fit to at least try. I have however refined #2 above. Orginally I had just intended a single "shape" (either a closed object like a plane or circle or a spline of some sort), however I it would really be nice to be able to use it for say creating a stencil that can be used to knife a mesh.

For example create severl planes/boxes/faces (however you wish to describe them) and use them to say create cut points for a row of windows. This would greatly speed the time to create such things on say a curved surface. If any one wants a picture of what I'm describing or more info just let me know.

ideasman · Post by **ideasman** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 7:48 pm

FourMadMen wrote:Well I'm grateful for anyone who sees fit to at least try. I have however refined #2 above. Orginally I had just intended a single "shape" (either a closed object like a plane or circle or a spline of some sort), however I it would really be nice to be able to use it for say creating a stencil that can be used to knife a mesh.

For example create severl planes/boxes/faces (however you wish to describe them) and use them to say create cut points for a row of windows. This would greatly speed the time to create such things on say a curved surface. If any one wants a picture of what I'm describing or more info just let me know.

What you propose would require serious booleans code, I have had a tinker and Laurrence has made some progress but youll probably have to wait for this one.

FourMadMen · Post by **FourMadMen** » Sat Jul 17, 2004 8:00 pm

Understood. Although going back to a single plane/circle/curve (I'll call it the control object) situation. Could you not leverage the current knife tool code and simply use the verts of the control object as the points of the knife selection? The goal being that it would be nice to have a finer level of control over the knife tool.

Although in the end it's as you say and I don't have any expectations that someone will jump all over this afternoon. But it would be cool if they would

lightning · Post by **lightning** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 1:45 pm

I'm not a coder, but it seems to me that #2 is a very 2d based idea. For example, it will depend which viewpoint you're in as to where the verticies are placed, just as it will depend on perspective mode and 3d positioning. To me, it sounds like somthing that would create lots of errors for newbies. I'm nott saying it is bad, just that it will be a very advanced modelling tool, and probably difficult to code.

Just my $.02

FourMadMen · Post by **FourMadMen** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 3:17 pm

Except for the fact that it's already coded as the "Knife" tool. But instead of getting the cutpoints from a curve or plane the points come from the mouse cursor.

lightning · Post by **lightning** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 5:11 pm

But the knife tool is different right, because it takes the verticies from where the face of the 'knife' intersects the target, instead of working out where the verticies 'should' go.

Am I right?

FourMadMen · Post by **FourMadMen** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 1:56 am

Well I've had a look at the code in an effort to perhaps code it up myself (I'm really busy with other stuff so no major progress) but essentially the knife code calls a funtion that creates a simple structure (CutCurve I believe it was called) that stores a list of mouse x and y co-ords. This list is used as you say to compute the intersections (along an infinite plane if you will) with the mesh. My feature request was simply to use say a curve object to define those x and y co-ords. Of course the verts of the curve have 3 co-ords but I'm sure those are easily converted to the x and y of the view plane. So basically the verts of the curve (or line, or plane, etc) are converted to a list of x and y and used by the knife tool just as it uses the list of x and y co-ords gathered by the function that reads the mouse cursor position.