Preview of Preview Dialog features.

[optigon]

One major change I've been working towards finishing is a group of features that will let user see the updates to models that are made through dialogs.

For instance when you are in the middle of an op and press [Tab] to bring up the Numeric Entry Dialog, you will now be able to see the model change as you type new values. That is the main feature, anyway.

Another useful deployment of this feature set comes when creating a new primitive, such as a Torus. Changing the shape parameters updates the model automatically. This way you can see what the model will look like before hitting OK.

To complement this new feature I've also made some changes to the dialog ui.

• Numeric text entries and sliders can be adjusted using the mouse wheel.
  
• When using the mouse wheel to adjust numeric or slider values, Constraints via the [Ctrl], [Shift], and [Alt] are supported.
  
• 3 Preview Modes are available:
  • Auto - Updates the model as values are changed.
    
  • Delayed - Updates the model after a short period of no changes.
    
  • Manual - Updates the model when you press the Update button.
    
• Basic Camera operations can be used to observe the model from different angles. The camera is active using your default mouse and key combos when focused over the model space. Camera does not work when focus over the dialog. Axis alignment and other options from the view menu are not supported.
  

I've ported the changes to as many tools as I could see as benefiting from these changes including:

• Selection tool dialogs
  
• Primitives creation dialogs
  
• Numeric dialogs called during drag sequences
  
• Absolute Commands
  

I think these new features will be really useful in all aspect of using Wings.

Additionally, I am currently making changes to a few of the Primitives; combining their dialogs into basic shapes. So far I've combined the Cube and N-Cube into a new Cube dialog, and I finish the new Torus dialog today combining the Lumpy and Spiral tori into a single dialog. Currently I'm trying to combine all the cylinder varriants. The result should be a more dynamic primitive creation process and a shorter menu.

Here's an image of the new Torus dialog. You can see the new Preview options on the right side of the dialog. The torus in the image is the preview of the settings shown.

[Fonte Boa]

You are terrific, Optigon!
It will be very useful to Numeric Entry Dialog imo.

Could this preview works to Absolute Commands dialogs?
(Absolute Command/Move would be particulary useful to create a more efficient array tool in Wings, and the preview is essential to turn the operation interactive)

Thanks!

[optigon]

Yes the changes include Absolute Commands

Part of the reason there are 3 Preview modes is because there when there is a lot of geometry, it is best to switch to Manual to prevent wings from getting bogged down.

[Fonte Boa]

Great! Really great! Cant be best.

If user could (in your last picture) to select the duplicates (just imagining), it would be possible to build more complex arrays in a single operation... Just thinking loud, since this is a "preview", not a set scene, right? I suppose there isnt how to interact with geometry during preview...

Any chance at some point of the development you release a non-official Wings version with new tools/resources (since it seems that isnt the case of just a separate "beam" file, as some plugins)?

Finally Absolute Commands will become interactive! Nice!

[oort]

optigon,
Can't wait to see this in the next release. Since you are working on the dialogs I wonder if you should have settings used saved so that the next time a primitive is created the last settings used are remembered by Wings3d. Then also add a button to reset to the wings3d default settings.

Just a thought and wondering what others think of this?

Thanks,
oort

[Geta-Ve]

Just want to add my +1 to this preview mode. I can't count how many times I've applied numerics only to find that it wasn't quite what I wanted, and was forced to undo and try again.

Great idea, and great job optigon.

[sleepwalker]

I like how you can parametrically change the primitives on the fly. Definitely looking forward to these new features being implemented.
It reminds me of this website that deals with Archimedean solids - a certain group of multi sided primitives. Another cool feature that it had on this website was the ability to interactively and parametrically change the primitives using a truncate, expand and snubify slider. Would a feature like this be possible to implement or am I just blowing smoke here?
link - http://mathsci.kaist.ac.kr/~drake/tes.html

[optigon]

I can't count how many times I've applied numerics only to find that it wasn't quite what I wanted, and was forced to undo and try again.

Very true.

The other thing I end up redoing a lot are vector ops. Maybe one day we can tackle that somehow. Not sure how though.

I like how you can parametrically change the primitives on the fly. Definitely looking forward to these new features being implemented.
It reminds me of this website that deals with Archimedean solids - a certain group of multi sided primitives. Another cool feature that it had on this website was the ability to interactively and parametrically change the primitives using a truncate, expand and snubify slider. Would a feature like this be possible to implement or am I just blowing smoke here?
link - http://mathsci.kaist.ac.kr/~drake/tes.html

Certainly possible if someone writes the plugins to support those kinds of geometric transformations.

[Fonte Boa]

It would be very useful to see this implemented for Create Bounding Box (at context menu) dialog!

[optigon]

Can't wait to see this in the next release. Since you are working on the dialogs I wonder if you should have settings used saved so that the next time a primitive is created the last settings used are remembered by Wings3d. Then also add a button to reset to the wings3d default settings.

Not that it's a bad idea, but saving all dialog data to the prefenences would be a lot of work if done dialog by dialog. Another way, perhaps the easiest, would be to save a dialog's data upon pressing OK and auto generating a key to save it under. This would save the coder the task of visiting various location in the code.

But it might be that most users might only want to save a handful of settings from time to time, and thus saving everything might be over compensating. Another problem would be when users need multiple settings saved from the same dialog.

For custom shapes, Saving the file and Merging the file might also be a way to go, and that facility already exists. Perhaps adding a merge file command to the primitives menu would be good?

Maybe a solution might be based on what users would use saved settings for most often.

However, regarding the Reset button, I did manage to add this
It resets the setting to their initial states.

It would be very useful to see this implemented for Create Bounding Box (at context menu) dialog!

I'll see about this.