[Bf-committers] Feature Idea- cad like info display.

[Ton Roosendaal]

Hi,

Blender was meant as an intuitive (non exact) modeler for visualizing  
in the first place, so being able to create monkey heads and such  
remains an important focus. But I can well imagine that anyone - at  
least occasional - would like more exact measurement tools or display.  
For as long it won't intrude with the workflow that's no real problem  
to add.

For some things, like your very long selection menu proposal (same  
normal, same area, same vertexcol, same etc.) I think we should rely on  
Python more. There's been a wild growth of selection options in the  
past releases, and there's just no end in possible combinations you can  
imagine of being of use. Having it not only as scripts (so you can  
automate or modify) but also being able to use macro combinations  
(hotkeys or so) then can help best to assist in custom tasks you're  
doing, without adding an overload of options by default.

Options for measuring edge lengths, face areas, and angles we should  
look at a bit further. I can imagine that drawing it by default on the  
full mesh is too confusing... maybe do it for selection only? Or only  
while doing transform? Something to explore.

-Ton-


On Wednesday, Jul 21, 2004, at 07:07 Europe/Amsterdam, Campbell Barton  
wrote:

> Hi, I was in the bank today when I had this idea an the back of a  
> deposit slip.
>
> I was thinking about what kind of cad features could be implemented in  
> blender to make it better for designing thangs that useually require  
> cad type features.
> came up with and idea where edge/face lengths could be displayed in  
> the 3d view as well as angles inbetween faces/edges.
>
> This would be usless on a mesh like the monkey but it you were using  
> blender to create an edge in the shape of a floor plan having the  
> extra info would be good.
>
> Would add a button to the edit win where Draw Normals.. faces.. etc  
> are now. It would be called "Draw Geometry Info" or some such name.
>
> * Edge/Face Length (draw a number in the middle of the 2 verts showing  
> there length)
> * Face area- Draw the face area in the middle of the face (where the  
> normal is displayed)
> * Angle- if a vert shares 2 edges then display the angle between them  
> with a nice semi circle (like in geom diagrams), A square would be  
> drawn and No angle number if the angle is a right angle.
>
> As I sead, this would be utterly usless on a humen head mesh but for  
> making a template for a house it would be usefull.
>
> None of the math is that hard to do this, its just a matter of adding  
> it and fiddling  with the draw code etc.
>
> There is also are enough room in the Draw buttons win that it could be  
> split up into 2 colums so Draw Length/Area and Angle could be 3  
> seperate options.
>
> Am I posting in the wrong place for this? if so where  should I post  
> it.
>
> Its not exactly a feature request since Im willing to code it.
>
> - Cam
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-committers mailing list
> Bf-committers@blender.org
> http://www.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-committers
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--
Ton Roosendaal  Blender Foundation ton@blender.org  
http://www.blender.org