Hi All,

3D Canvas 6.1 development is now underway. I previously provided a list of items expected to be included in 6.1: http://www.amabilis.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=3DC6Discussion;action=display;num=1047246233

You may notice that enhancements 1 and 2 have already been implemented in the 6.0.x series. I can't say for certain that all items will be included or not, but that is my "base" target for this release. I'm still not certain whether I will be able to include the recovery of your "selection" on undo/redo.

I'm going to post my progress here as I complete functions.

Richard

The first function completed for 6.1 is a partial re-write of Boolean operations (3D Canvas Pro/LP feature). They are now much more reliable and produce fewer faces/points. The image below shows 6.0 (on top) vs 6.1.



This image probably shows the "best case" for 6.1. You will still see faces split but in general this will only happen when required to ensure that the faces are convex and relatively planar (they need to be in order to be rendered properly).

Richard

I've made a small change to the renderer that makes overlapping transparency (and transparency in general) render much better. This will be of particular use to those using transparency to reduce face/point count.

The left image was rendered in 6.0 the right image in 6.1.



Thanks to Paul and Patrice for the help!

Richard

The new release will include the new Divide operation which hasn't been part of any "official" release yet.

For those who don't know, the new Divide operation that will divide a quadrilateral (four sided face) either horizontally or vertically into two quads.

In the following picture I have selected a group of faces that encircle the arm:



Applying the Divide opearation horizaontally produces this:



To this operation "horizontal" has a distinct meaning. For primitives this is actually "horizontal". At least with the primitives in their standard orientation. But, horizontal for extruded faces means horizontal with respect to the extruded face.

Richard

These will be great improvements!

I've made some changes to the Crease operation that I believe makes it work better on faces that have collinear edges. Keep in mind that I have only tested this on a very small number of objects, but so far it looks good.

In the picture that follows I showed the edges in the 6.0 version (left) so you can see there is a collinear edge (two neighbouring face edges that have a 180 degree angle between them).



So perhaps we have an end to the dreaded "dark face" issue. It certainly appears to be improved. Once the alpha comes out you can tell me for sure.

The downside to this is that the Crease operation will run more slowly since I have to do more processing.

Richard

Wow. Fantastic new operation results and improvements. Now I Know why I chose 3D Canvas as my creation tool of choice.  ;D

Looking good Richard - your work is appreciated.

The new divide operation is EXACTLY the kind of thing i was hoping for, and the booleans should be pretty nifty as well.

Keep up the good work

Simon

The new Repair Geometry operation automatically repairs (by triangulating) collinear edges and non-planar faces.

For example, in the images that follows I selected a point (first image), moved it so far towards the center that it no longer rendered properly (second image). The third image is the result of running the Repair Geometry operation.



The operation has a "Level" slider that can be used to increase/decrease the amount of repairing done. At the lowest settting, only colinear edges and heavily non-planar faces are repaired. At the highest level even faces that are only slighty non-planar are repaired.

Note that the current Triangulate operation cannot triangulate concave faces properly. If this operation is run on the model before the Triangulate operation the Triangulate operation will produce much better results.

This operation will be a 3D Canvas Pro feature. Users of Plus/LP can accomplish the same thing manually using the Edge operation.

Richard

In 6.0 3D Canvas automatically creases after many destructive operations using a "quick crease" function. Rarely does this produce great results. 6.1 will automatically crease using the same crease method as the Crease operation. This should reduce considerably the frequency that you have to apply the Crease operation.

Richard

Richard - I hope that the Repair Geometry option can be turned off - in the example you show maybe the user  wanted the moved top point to be connected to the two outer lower points - maybe you can add a cycle through avaliable points option ?

It isn't something that happens automatically. You need to actually "apply" the operation. After it applies it highlights the faces changed. You can then undo if you don't like what it did. But even if you undo, it gave you a hint as to where you might want to look to correct geometry problems manually.

Richard

I got it into my head that it was going to be automatic - I don't know why  :-[  thanks for correcting me.

The new Consolidate operation merges faces where the merged face is convex and planar. A slider is used to indicate the amount of permissible out-of-planeness.

It also merges collinear edges when possible.



In the left image the top object has one colinear edge (at the highlighted point), and a few unnecessary divisions. The bottom object has too many divisions.

In the middle picture the Consolidate operation has removed the collinear edge and consolidated faces. Note that when it consolidated the top object it actually created non-removable collinear edges which is why the the face is dark. (you could correct this with the Repair Geometry operation if wanted)

In the final picture smooth rendering is turned on and the dark face looks OK, thanks to the new improved auto-creasing.

This operation will be a 3D Canvas Pro feature. Users of Plus/LP can accomplish the same thing manually using the Trim operation.

Richard

Jeez Richard, these things are looking amazing.  It's like you're looking in my window at me as I sit here spending huge amounts of time trimming and deleting these things.  Now it'll be done for me!  Nice!

Troub,

Yeah, I am adding a few "utilities" that I think would be useful based on what I have seen in the past. Hopefully these new operations will work in the real world, not just in the lab.

Richard

The new Merge Triangles operation merges triangles where the resulting merged quadrilateral is convex and planar. A slider is used to indicate the amount of permissible out-of-planeness. It also attempts to merge triangles such that the resulting quadrilaterals are as square as possible and run the same direction.

The left image is the Ant downloadable from the Amabilis website. The right image shows the result of the Merge Triangles operation. Not only are triangles merged, but the resulting faces run in the same direction. With a complex model such as this perfect isn't an option, but it dramatically reduces the effort required to create quadrilaterals from triangles.




In the following image (left) I've circled a location where the Merge Triangles operation produced quadrilaterals that did not run the same direction. It seems to be unavoidable, but the Level setting can be reduced so that a minimal number of faces such as these are merged (right). They can then manually be merged.



This may sound like the Consolidate operation, but actually they are quite different. Not only is the implementation different, the goal of the operation is different. The Consolidate operation will merge any face to any other face regardless of the number of points, and is not concerned with the resulting direction. And of course the Consolidate operation removes collinear points. This operation's goal is to recover quadrilaterals for the purpose of making the model easier to work with and make subdivision surfaces (auto-smoothing) work well on it. It would normally be used on imported models, but there are other applications. For example, the "Reduce" operation in 6.1 triangulates objects. (more on that later).

I ran the Consolidate operation on the Ant to show the difference:



The Consolidate operation is basically a mesh simplification operation. It is somewhat like Reduce, but on its lowest setting it will remove only collinear edges and merge faces that obviously can be merged. Unlike Reduce it retains quadrilaterals that it can't simplify (easier to model with).

This operation will be a 3D Canvas Pro feature. Users of Plus/LP can accomplish the same thing manually using the Trim operation.

Richard

The final operation for 6.1, but not the last new function, is the Detriangulate operation.

This is a very simple operation that just reverses the standard "triangulation" method. It will not be at all effective if the model was triangulate using the typical (obvious) way.

It will be used mostly for detriangulating imported models, and for the case where a model was triangulated by 3D Canvas and no untriangulated version exists.

The following picture shows a before and after of a sphere primitive triangulated and then detriangulated.



The following picture shows the Ant detriangulated using the Detriangulate operation. Clearly this model was not triangulated using the same method as 3D Canvas uses to Triangulate.



This operation will be a 3D Canvas Pro feature. Users of Plus/LP can accomplish the same thing manually using the Trim operation.

Richard

These new operations, with the existing related operations (Optimize, Triangulate etc.), are intended to provide a "tool set" for working with faces/points en-mass. Probably it will be a bit tricky to know which operation to use when. That's going to come from experience I think.

As I said previously, hopefully these operations will be useful in the real world. I haven't spent a whole lot of time using them on a variety of models. Hopefully you can give me some feedback during the Alpha/Beta period.

Speaking of alphas/betas, I think I will be able to keep the file format the same for this release as the last so models you create in the 6.1 alphas/betas should be openable in 6.0.2.x.

Just in case you are wondering, I didn't actually write all of this stuff in the last couple of days.

Richard