Cyberstrak plugin

Plug Ins Cyberstrak
101

Yes, I agree.

102

Thanks for this @Peter_Salzman

Will be very pleased to have VSR like functionality again in R8!

Should we hope for new tools like Multi-Blend to be added overtime?

103

A McNeeler said in another thread that Mac is about 30% of the userbase. My hunch tho is the majority of this is architects, which essentially is drawing boxes and rectilinear things. Unless you work at Zaha.

104

30%? Thatā€™s significantly higher than I had anticipated. Thatā€™s excellent news. Letā€™s hope it continues to rise in the years to come. :clap:

105

I understood it was more like 25% but whateverā€¦

106

25-30% in such a short period of time is quite impressive. Letā€™s hope that plugin developers, like this one, are seeing the benefits of creating cross-platform add-ons.

107

That will also depend on the marketā€¦ I have a feeling a lot of the growth on the MacRhino side has been in Architecture.

108

Yes, but I believe that developing cross-platform plugins would be in the best interest of developers, especially if they intend to operate in the long term.

1 Like
109

so, just another important plug-in that completely ignores the crossplatform development of Rhino and have Mac users wonder and glare over in despiseā€¦ congratulations :man_shrugging:

110

Weā€™ll see. But for the next time some more basics may have to be added first (improved curvature alignment, accept trim edges as reference,ā€¦)

1 Like
111

Hi encephalon,
sorry for this, but at the moment I have nor the resources not the bandwidth to add Mac. I worked in the past for companies developing on multi platforms. Minimum you need more computers (on each platform also more than one OS), also installation, testing etc. requires more than double the effort. So at lease for the next foreseeable time I just cannot offer Mac in parallel.

3 Likes
112

@Peter_Salzman
Not trying to push you, just wondering if devs share some common things McNeel could do to help us.

Are you basically entirely within .NET that should run under 7.0, so that theoretically it should work for the Mac but the testing and deployment is just too much effort? Or do you have some really tough blockers such as third party native code math libraries unavailable for Mac?

I added a wishlist item this morning that would make it a lot easier for me to support Mac, WISH: Match Mac by Supporting Multiple Docs in Windows.

Is there anything else we can ask for to reduce the differences and development burden? Obviously, testing is required, but if we can get pretty close to a point such that ā€˜any difference in behavior is a question for McNeel or a .NET Core bugā€™ things are a lot easier for end devs.

1 Like
113

@Peter_Salzman
waiting a tool like this for many years, thanks for your working, giving a hope to us who trapped in rhino5

114

There was a discussion about VSRā€™s Multi blend tool here on discourse a couple of month ago and almost all VSR users (itā€™s a group of rhino users, myself included, you will find in nearly all Class A surfacing discussions on here) agreed that multi blend was amongst VSRā€™s least useful tools.
It should be far down the priority list of things to add in cyberstrak in my opinion.

On the very top of that list (I am sure you are well aware of all the following points) should be completing surface match and blend surface and the addition of blend curve.

match surface:

  1. make the existing functions work. They are currently very unreliable (see bugs reported by @Rhino_Bulgaria
  2. matching to trimmed edges (already mentioned by yourself) and matching to multiple connected edges
  3. matching to g3
  4. partial match
  5. edge start/end matching conditions g0,1,2,3
  6. keep opposite edge g0,1,2,3
  7. match to surface (projected)
  8. explicit control over degree/spans
  9. other advanced options like minimise changes of cp position, keep position

blend surface

  1. see match surface
  2. blending from trimmed and multiple connected edges
  3. blending conditions up to g3
  4. partial blend
  5. see match surface, additionally angled blend start/end vectors
  6. blend to surface (projected)
  7. numerical input for factor and ratio and optionally separate at start and end vector
  8. explicit control over degree/spans

blend curve

  1. numerical input for factor and ratio
  2. blending up to g3
  3. blend curve might be integrated with blend surface in the same way you already integrated match curve with match surface

Of course this list looks like a slightly amended list of the core features of Shape modeling, so you most likely already know what is needed.
I just wanted to emphasise the importance of getting the basics right first before getting into additional features, that are less urgent in my opinion.
The move control point panel is what should show the way to follow for the other tools.

Iā€™m really exited for this development, canā€™t wait to see the first updatesā€¦

6 Likes
115

Hi Norbert,

your list (thank you!) looks very reasonable and comes close to the planned roadmap for the further development.

Right now Iā€™m working on the reliability of Blend/Match, looks you will see some progress before Christmas.

Best regards

Peter

4 Likes
116

MultiBlend was one of the tools that I was really excited about when I first started using VSR, but over time, as my skills got better and I learned more about proper patch layout, I used less and less until over time I stopped using it entirely. So, I fully agree with @norbert_geelen here that it should not be a priority, in fact Iā€™d say it should not be bothered with at all. I think that @Peter_Salzman has the focus just right on this thing - it should be a really minimalist toolkit, filling in the areas that McNeel doesnā€™t seem to have any interest in fixing - Proper sculpting tools, proper matching, and proper blending. Iā€™d also throw a proper/improved Rebuild command into that mix, with the ability to have different paramerization.

2 Likes
117

A tool to consider and I use very much to analyze models are the highlights fixed in a specific direction (normally x, y, or z) like it has vsr.

2 Likes
118

I donā€™t want to discourage Peter from working on different features, but I do want to let him know that this is a feature I have started writing a prototype for in Rhino 9.

13 Likes
119

Hi Steve,

nice to hear from you!

Right now I use (via SDK) just the Rhino Zebra locally on selected geometry in the PlugIn. Iā€™m anyhow not the greatest graphics programmer, so glad to hear it is taken into consideration.

Best

Peter

120

Good to hear that McNeel listens to its users, as static zebra has been requested in this forum a couple of times.

2 Likes