Scribbled notes

[drifkind]

Stuff I’ve made note of, big and small, in no order.

• There’s a significant difference between a straight-on view (top, left…) and an ordinary view. It snaps back if you try to change it, you can’t select bodies, etc. I don’t understand why.
• Having no straightforward way to duplicate an entity seems strange.
• Names of duplicated things are a little too simple-minded. Body 01 Copy → Body 01 Copy Copy → Body 01 Copy Copy Copy.
• Too easy to change the layer you are drawing on. Just touch something on a different layer. Also you bounce in and out of sketch mode very easily.
• Some gestures are too subtle for my mind to handle. Touch and drag vs. touch, release and drag, e.g.
• Spent a lot of time wishing for a “collinear” constraint before realizing tangent does that for two lines. And I just found out a point connected to a line can stay connected moved past the endpoint. But there’s no explicit way to connect two points, or a line and point.
• Occasionally would be willing to kill for construction lines.
• Also independent sketches on the same plane. I use folders for different features and bodies, but it insists on merging the sketches.
• The parts of a sketch are lines, not sketches (as it says in layer view).
• When you switch the grid between planes it reorients the view. I get disoriented.
• Number one tool I miss: fillet/chamfer. (Number two, patterns or arrays.)
• Using height and angle with rotate for threads or helices makes you do too much arithmetic. Maybe a computer could figure it out for you.
• The undo buffer has to do a lot of things the timeline would in other programs. But it’s hard to find your way around. Make it visible as a list you can navigate. See Affinity Photo or Designer for example.
• Also need snapshots of design in previous or alternate states.
• Need to save and reload undo buffer with design.
• Folders for organizing designs.

[JasonBelec]

Yes in total agreement.

[Istvan]

Hi @drifkind, thanks for the notes, super helpful.

@drifkind

There’s a significant difference between a straight-on view (top, left…) and an ordinary view. It snaps back if you try to change it, you can’t select bodies, etc. I don’t understand why.

Because that switches to sketching (2d) mode. If you could give us a few examples why this is a problem, it would help us coming up with a solution.

@drifkind

• Having no straightforward way to duplicate an entity seems strange.

What’s the biggest problem with the current one? (select object, check ‘copy’, move)

@drifkind

• Names of duplicated things are a little too simple-minded. Body 01 Copy → Body 01 Copy Copy → Body 01 Copy Copy Copy.

What would be a better way to do it? What would you expect?

@drifkind

• Too easy to change the layer you are drawing on. Just touch something on a different layer. Also you bounce in and out of sketch mode very easily.

What’s causing that? What makes you switch in/out of sketch mode?

@drifkind

• Some gestures are too subtle for my mind to handle. Touch and drag vs. touch, release and drag, e.g.

This is super helpful feedback, if you could elaborate on it (which gestures exactly) that would be really helpful.

@drifkind

• Spent a lot of time wishing for a “collinear” constraint before realizing tangent does that for two lines. And I just found out a point connected to a line can stay connected moved past the endpoint. But there’s no explicit way to connect two points, or a line and point.

Why would you prefer a button for this over just dragging the point onto a line or another point?

@drifkind

• Occasionally would be willing to kill for construction lines.

We do have construction lines: https://support.shapr3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001857065-Construction-geometry

I guess you would want to convert a sketch line to a construction line?

@drifkind

• Also independent sketches on the same plane. I use folders for different features and bodies, but it insists on merging the sketches.

Yes. We are aware of this issue.

@drifkind

• The parts of a sketch are lines, not sketches (as it says in layer view).

Not sure I get this one.

@drifkind

• When you switch the grid between planes it reorients the view. I get disoriented.

Yes, I think we will have to do something about this.

@drifkind

• Number one tool I miss: fillet/chamfer. (Number two, patterns or arrays.)

I assume you ask for sketch fillets/chamfers, right? The reason we don’t have them, because in Shapr3D there is no difference between a fillet created on a body and a fillet created on a sketch. I mean if you extrude/revolve etc. a profile, and then add a chamfer/fillet on it, the result will be the same as you would have added that fillet in the sketch. See direct modeling: https://www.shapr3d.com/videotutorials/parametric-v-direct-modeling

Patterns/arrays: yes. Very important feature that we miss currently.

@drifkind

• Using height and angle with rotate for threads or helices makes you do too much arithmetic. Maybe a computer could figure it out for you.

By this you mean that you wold prefer a thread tool, right?

[drifkind]

@Istvan

Hi @drifkind, thanks for the notes, super helpful.

@drifkind

There’s a significant difference between a straight-on view (top, left…) and an ordinary view. It snaps back if you try to change it, you can’t select bodies, etc. I don’t understand why.

Because that switches to sketching (2d) mode. If you could give us a few examples why this is a problem, it would help us coming up with a solution.

It doesn’t look like sketch mode–you can close the sketch palette, or get there by tapping the view cube, and it still happens. It’s not big problem, maybe not even a problem. I just don’t understand it.

When I started using Shapr3D I thought you couldn’t get out of that mode at all, except by switching to a different view. It took a while to discover it would let go if you just move the view far enough. (See rambling at end for why I mention that.)

@Istvan

@drifkind

• Having no straightforward way to duplicate an entity seems strange.

What’s the biggest problem with the current one? (select object, check ‘copy’, move)

It’s a problem when a new user spends twenty minutes trying to figure it out. It also took me a while to figure out how to do it without moving the copy.

@Istvan

@drifkind

• Names of duplicated things are a little too simple-minded. Body 01 Copy → Body 01 Copy Copy → Body 01 Copy Copy Copy.

What would be a better way to do it? What would you expect?

Body 01 Copy, Body 01 Copy 2, Body 01 Copy 3.

@Istvan

@drifkind

• Too easy to change the layer you are drawing on. Just touch something on a different layer. Also you bounce in and out of sketch mode very easily.

What’s causing that? What makes you switch in/out of sketch mode?

Sketching on one plane while a sketch on a parallel plane is visible (for reference). Touch part of the other sketch and you activate it. For the other, try to tap a sketch item and miss; the sketch palette goes away.

@Istvan

@drifkind

• Some gestures are too subtle for my mind to handle. Touch and drag vs. touch, release and drag, e.g.

This is super helpful feedback, if you could elaborate on it (which gestures exactly) that would be really helpful.

Well, that’s one. I’ve been taught for years, by other drawing programs, that I can click and drag a handle to move it. Here it starts a new line. I understand the limited range of gestures you have to work with. It even makes sense. I still get it wrong all the time.

@Istvan

@drifkind

• Spent a lot of time wishing for a “collinear” constraint before realizing tangent does that for two lines. And I just found out a point connected to a line can stay connected moved past the endpoint. But there’s no explicit way to connect two points, or a line and point.

Why would you prefer a button for this over just dragging the point onto a line or another point?

It can be hard when you want a point on one side of the screen to lie on the imaginary extension of a line all the way on the other side.

About the tangent thing: is that how it’s supposed to work? If so, how was I supposed to learn that?

@Istvan

@drifkind

• Occasionally would be willing to kill for construction lines.

We do have construction lines: https://support.shapr3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001857065-Construction-geometry

I guess you would want to convert a sketch line to a construction line?

Those aren’t construction lines. I mean a sketch line that doesn’t divide regions for extruding etc. For a workaround to the previous problem, for example, or a way to dimension to a tangent point of an arc.

@Istvan

@drifkind

• The parts of a sketch are lines, not sketches (as it says in layer view).

Not sure I get this one.

In the item list I see, for instance, “Sketch plane 01” contains “8 sketches”. It’s just 8 lines.

@Istvan

@drifkind

• Number one tool I miss: fillet/chamfer. (Number two, patterns or arrays.)

I assume you ask for sketch fillets/chamfers, right? The reason we don’t have them, because in Shapr3D there is no difference between a fillet created on a body and a fillet created on a sketch. I mean if you extrude/revolve etc. a profile, and then add a chamfer/fillet on it, the result will be the same as you would have added that fillet in the sketch. See direct modeling: https://www.shapr3d.com/videotutorials/parametric-v-direct-modeling

No, I mean for bodies. Say you want a cube with rounded edges. You sketch a square with rounded corners then extrude it. Now there are eight more edges to round, on two axes. And if you do, you still haven’t filleted the corners, and you can’t do that by extrusion.

@Istvan

@drifkind

• Using height and angle with rotate for threads or helices makes you do too much arithmetic. Maybe a computer could figure it out for you.

By this you mean that you wold prefer a thread tool, right?

Don’t need a special tool, just something to help with the arithmetic. I want to thread a 20mm piece with 1.5mm pitch–that’s 4800 degrees. Or is it?

I used to write programs when they came with 200 page manuals, and we expected people to read them. (They didn’t.) Now I pick up an app and expect to know how to use it just by intuition. The fact that I almost can with Shapr is pretty amazing.

I’ll figure out all the tricks and dodges eventually, but it would be good for you to think about why I need them, and how I’m supposed to learn them. For every user who has to ask how to do something there are a dozen more who didn’t ask and just gave up.

[drifkind]

@drifkind

I’ll figure out all the tricks and dodges eventually, but it would be good for you to think about why I need them, and how I’m supposed to learn them. For every user who has to ask how to do something there are a dozen more who didn’t ask and just gave up.

Okay, you obviously know that. Ignore the lecturing, I just got over-excited.

[DanielR]

Hello - just a quick note to this conversation - we have created a new logic to the naming of copies. It went live recently (3.31). if you make copies now, they will be named Body X (1), Body X (2)

[Sid]

This dialog is very far-ranging and “rambly”, but, also extremely interesting and helpful. It is in-depth and clearly stated issues such as those so succinctly stated by drifkin and Istvan that make S3d such a stimulating environment to work and grow in (as opposed to a score of its staid competitors).

[drifkind]

@Istvan

@drifkind

• Number one tool I miss: fillet/chamfer. (Number two, patterns or arrays.)

I assume you ask for sketch fillets/chamfers, right? The reason we don’t have them, because in Shapr3D there is no difference between a fillet created on a body and a fillet created on a sketch. I mean if you extrude/revolve etc. a profile, and then add a chamfer/fillet on it, the result will be the same as you would have added that fillet in the sketch. See direct modeling: https://www.shapr3d.com/videotutorials/parametric-v-direct-modeling

Hard to believe I had no idea how fillet and chamfer worked…no, actually, that’s kind of typical for me. I’m going to sit over here and pretend I never brought it up. They’re great, I just couldn’t figure out how to use them.