Dimensions

I was really intrigued by the dimensions shown in the Helicopter demo. Being fairly new to Blender, (I have played with it many times for years; and have used other similar software in the past); I have been struggling to understand how to use dimensions properly in Blender.

I would love to see a demo of how to use dimensions in Blender; with a complete workflow to exporting and customizing them for Blend4web. I say "customize" because the appearance of the dimension in the Helicopter demo; look far different than anything I would normally see in blender.

Also; I am interested in the various aspect for dimension or "call-outs" such as using predefined dimenion input, vs. typing in a custom notation, as well as how to use options to perhaps make the dimension always face the camera.

Dimensioning has always seemed like an after thought in Blender; and I understand that people who do "Character modelling" are not terribly concerned with dimensions. But with the new users who will be looking to use Blend4web for professional product related uses; I think this area in Blender needs some renewed focus.

One thing I have been trying to figure out; which seems to not yet be possible: I wish there were a way to display objects in "Bounding Box" mode; and enable dimensions to display on a selected object. (The 3 Dimensions for the entire bounding Box.

I also think that there should be Specific "Notation Layers" in Blender; that are not necessarily the same as a normal layer; (Perhaps like a grease pencil layer); though still permanent layers that can be shown or hidden on demand. Even perhaps during an animation sequence.

I realize the last two points are more Blender problems than Blend4web issues; but I bring them up here simply because I bet that many people will find themselves in the same situation. And perhaps your feedback regarding these matters to the Blender Community will have a little more weight than someone like me who is reeking of "newbie" . . .

-Another thought about why I think there should be a specific type of "Notation Layers"; is that I think it could be more useful in creating automatic linking and workflows for other add-on's such as Blend4web. For example: If there were Notation Layers; Blend4web could be programmed to know that these objects contain specific properties that are unlike normal geometry; and as such would be able to easily work with them in appropriate ways.

I thought I would share a sample of my work so far with Blender / Blend4web:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cyaban33u9g0my9/Sample.html?dl=0

This Blender-related post is too advanced to me and I will ask somebody more competent to reply

The model is really good start. Looking forward for a sequel

I can understand this question not being your specialty of expertise. I guess my point is that your add-on for Blender is going to attract a whole new user-base to Blender that would have not been all that interested before. These users will likely have expectations that will be different than what has been the common expectations of Blender users up to this point.

I used your Helicopter example as a starting point for discussion about Dimensions; and a query to figure out how that was achieved in your example file.

If there is someone more qualified to talk about these concerns/features; I would be more than happy to share with them some thoughts on how dimensions could overall be improved in Blender; and how that would in-turn be passed on to better possibilities and functionality in Blend4web.

I come from an Industrial Design background; as you likely noticed in the example I showed.
That was a project I worked on a couple years ago for a client. My workflow needs would likely differ wildly from someone who was creating a game or a Sci-fi character model/animation . . .

As I remember our artists used transparent planes textured with lines and arrows in order to depict dimensions. We were not happy with that though. It was proposed to implement glow materials which we will use instead. This work is still in progress.

Well, sadly, we don't have proper schemes of Mi-34 (they are secret, of course), so dimensions in that demo aren't absolutely actual

Till now there weren't lots of things that we needed to do ideally right by the scheme. But I think there will be situations where we'll need to do everything accurate, and in that case we'll definitely make a tutorial

As for now - I can recommend some youtube tutorials - nothing revolutionary, but can provide some interesting info.
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Every project like this needs its own tricks and solutions. For example if I need a tire I'll use circle curve, one section of the mesh and with array modifier will fill this curve with those sections. And if I'll need to make a house.. I think I'll firstly import SVG schemes as a mesh and then will scale it. But yeah, Blender as it is right now isn't very friendly when you need accurate measurenents. Though, there always is a way to make things like this

Thanks for your reply Pavel. You have accurately described my frustration with Blender currently. In my workflow, I would likely be importing large 3D data sets of existing geometry; and being able to scale the geometry properly on import is quite difficult; and unintuitive. I realize that this is a fault of Blender; not Blend4web; but it should be a priority for the Blender foundation to address it.

And Yes; I would like to see dimensions become more functional; such as I described above with the "Bounding box Dimensions" in Bounding box view mode, as well as more snap options to get dimensions to accurately calculate from geometry.

I would like to offer my help in "feature logistics"; if you happen to find anyone who undertakes development of dimensioning in Blender. Please feel free to have them contact me.

Thanks again.

You might email Blender developers to this public mailing list, suggesting this feature. They are quite active there and may even reply to those who they like .