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harbinger
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Big list of daydreams

Having used Sweet Home 3D now for well over a month, and proceeding very well, i've noticed a few things that are missing that would make working with it a lot easier. As i've been working with SH3D, i jotted down different things that would have made my tasks more efficient, at least for no one but me. No real order here, and our esteemed author/programmer of SH3D can view these as passing butterflies that may tickle his fancy, which he may choose to capture and incorporate into his collection of wonderful features...

1. Custom fonts
I use more stylized fonts for my floor plans & would love to be able to choose something other than Arial for each text purpose.
2. Side or wall view
I would love to be able to make 2D creations/adjustments from a wall POV rather than just from top down. This would make it easier to view elevations and line up dissimilar objects visually. Perhaps if you could utilize a new window to line-draw a wall view from another camera similar to the "Virtual Visit" camera.
3. Highlight selected units in 3D view
I understand it's hard to change the program to select an element from the 3D view, but it would be helpful if, when selecting it from the 2D view, the element is somehow highlighted in the 3D view. It's not enough to just center it in the window, because often elements overlap (like walls from 2 different levels). Perhaps tinting it a custom color would be the easiest to see what overlapping element is selected.
4. Lock individual elements
It would be great to be able to lock pieces in place once i set them. Maybe a keypress when the item is selected would toggle the item's lock into place, making them uneditable or unmovable until unlocked. This would also make it easier to select objects in a room without selecting the room element itself.
5. Reset origin to plan
I often use a global focal point (such as the corner of two intersecting walls) to determine the exact coordinates of every building element i'm placing. Would like to be able to reset the entire space so that the grid origin is at a point of a chosen mouseclick or marker.
6. Sort Furniture list by more than one category
I would like to be able to sort the List View of the Furniture Library by more than one index, say, first by category, then by name or a given keyword. Could definitely use this in the Furniture Editor JAR too.
7. Customize mouse actions
I'm used to using different mouse actions when i assemble 3D models or drawings depending on the application. With SH3D, i'm constantly taking a step back because my brain is hardwired to use my mouse in different ways (such as right-click-and-dragging for moving the view and mousewheeling to zoom in-out). It would be great to able to choose how we want different mouse actions to affect the view or selection (left-click, right-click, or click-and-drag, for example). This might be an appropriate dialog...
Possible Mouse Action dialog window
8. Texture control
In my other 3D programs, texture alignment and sizing is crucial. This to me should be a basic feature for any application that does 3D modeling or assembly. I understand this will mean a whole new set of classes and methods for our beseiged programmer cool
9. Show mouse coordinates on floor plan
Would love to be able to see how my edits are going based on my mouse location, either in header field or preferably a tooltip. For example, when moving a wall PERPENDICULAR to its plane, i'd like to see how far from the original location i'm moving it. There are other obvious applications as well.
10. Alternate bkgd color for icons
Importing 3D models that don't have the attached skin or texture means the imported model will be white, making it hard to see in the icon tooltip. Would love either to be able to choose the import color or to change the background of the icon tooltip so we can more easily preview the model.
11. Option to draw lower floors in higher levels
I'm now making use of multiple levels (which probably would better be called sections) even on the same elevation of others, so i can achieve different ceiling heights for different areas of the building. The problem is, the "background draw" only shows the next lowest level on the list (indicated by the tab order above the 2D view). What i need is to be able to background-draw other levels/sections no matter what level i'm looking at. Perhaps a toggle for each level to show on all levels above or below.
12. Room elevation/height/slope overrides
An elaboration on a previous feature request, this is probably the hardest to program. I think we'd ALL like to be able to set for each room the floor elevation, including sloped floors, as well as ceiling elevations (room heights), including sloped ceilings. This alone would take SH3D from 4.2 to 5.0.
13. On-the-fly wall defaults
Instead of having to go into preferences each time to change the thickness and height of the wall i'm about to draw, there should be an easier way to either modify the default or even apply these dimensions only to the next wall drawn. Perhaps by double-clicking on the "New Wall" icon, a user can input new or temporary defaults to the next wall(s) about to be drawn. Or maybe a ubiquitous utility window where the user can enter the defaults on a whim.
14. Convert Dimension lines to walls
Often i know the dimensions first and can construct a room (or false room) from point-to-point. After i get the dimensions right, i'd like to be able to just convert those measurement lines directly to walls, rather than going back and basically redoing the lines i just set up.
15. Hideable 3D View window
I like the fact that i can put the 3D view into another window, but it's kind of useless if i can't put it under my working window, or at least minimize it. We can definite use the ability to put the window out of the way without having to manually sliding it off the screen.
16. Custom icons for furniture in 2D view
I'm a traditionalist and i like my floorplans to look clean and sharp while working on or printing them. When furniture is placed in SH3D, top-view, colored graphics really mess up the sharpness of the floor plan. While it's great that there is an option to use either catalog icons or top-view images of the furniture, it would be great if we could also choose simple, B&W line graphics or a user-defined pic to insert onto the 2D view.
17. Remember dialog window placement
I often have to move the Modify Walls and Modify Furniture dialogs out of the way so i can remind myself which element i'm changing (by looking on the 2D floorplan). I hate having to move them out of the way each time i open a new one.
18. 3D Rotate in 2D view
It's good that we can rotate along the XY axis while modifying the placement of furniture in the 2D view, but we could do even better to rotate along the YZ axis as well. I have some wall-mounted spotlights that i need to face at different angles. If i could twist the mounting, i could get them to aim right.
19. "Unlit" textures
Along the lines of manipulating textures of furniture or walls, textures of light bulbs or light covers should always give 100% of their texture light, unaffected by the light sources that hit them. In 3D world creation, these textures are called "unlit." A simple checkbox when choosing a texture would force those textures on the element to always be drawn at their own brightness rather than the light imposed on them externally.
20. Group Lights
When grouping light sources, there is no way to assign their individual brightnesses (but as a group). It would help if the "Modify Furniture" dialog would show the light strength field, at least when one or all of the grouped elements are light sources. (The Light Strength field is there when multiple light sources are in the selection, but not when they are grouped.)
21. Customizable light types
It would be helpful if, besides omni-directional lights, we also had spotlights and "incidental" lights. I use a lot of spotlights and track-lighting to focus light at various spots in a room, which means the light fixture itself should not get lit up by its own light (except by reflected light). SH3D's omnis do not allow for spotlighting, and the workarounds are weak at best. It would only be helpful if we could choose the width of the light cone at its base.
"Incidental" lighting is applying a room-wide light for a closed space. It's like a universal room light, but the light from the source is not attenuated by the angle of the surface it hits, only by the distance. That is, a surface that runs parallel to a light ray, starting at distance D extending from the light source, gets the same amount of light as a surface sitting perpendicular to the light source at distance D. (Of course, the "gathered" light fades as you go down the breadth of the wall.)
22. Customizable light color & strength
I think we can minimize the number of light sources in the furniture catalogue if we could choose the color we want the light source to emanate. Plus you give a lot more control to the user.
As far as light strength, in the real world of course, we can't dictate the brightness-to-distance ratio, but in the digital world, it's possible. It would be great to use some mathematical curves to determine this ratio to help in our lighting of the 3d scene...
23. PCX file Import
Using UT99's 3D map editor for years, i have a HUGE collection of PCX image files, which i dont want to copy and convert and use up alot of HD space unnecessarily. I could definitely use the ability to import color-indexed PCX files.
24. Auto date photo creation
In the Date field of the Create Photo dialog, it would be nice if the program would insert todays date by default.
25. Virtual Visitor camera movement without selecting the VV icon
It's anti-intuitive to have to select the VV icon to move its view in the 3D window. Mouse movements should be able to be mapped to the XYZ movement of the VV camera (see #7 above).
26. Preview textures when importing
For some reason, the OpenFile dialog does not allow me to preview the texture i'm about to import, offering me only a list view or detailed view. Would love to able to preview the texture i'm about to import...
27. Light switches and animations made available for Video Creation
One day, maybe in SH3D 10.0, we could have animations that would be included in a rendered video, such as a fireplace fire or fish in an aquarium. Also, triggers could be set up to activate lights as the video camera moves thru rooms, to see how the architect's lighting choices affect the view of the space.

If my fellow users can see the usefulness of any of these wishes, a +1 would help our programmer to know what features would get more universal use (not that this is a voting booth! biggrin ).

Also, my apologies if putting this all together creates a problem with one-issue threads. I figured this was better rather than taking over 27 threads in a row in the Wishlist forum section rose ....
[Apr 13, 2014, 7:34:32 PM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
hansmex
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Re: Big list of daydreams

Nath,

Interesting wishlist you have there... Many Xmas-stockings before that will be accomplished. At least that's my guess.
I'm using SH3D for close to 5 years now, and I know the program was (and is) meant for interior decorating, not for architectural design. There has always been a strong emphasis on ease of use, and many interesting features have never made it because they didn't agree with the core principles that Puybaret has for this program. So, don't count your blessings yet.

1 - Fonts - yes, I'd love that.
2 - Side view (and cross sections) - Mmmmm...
3 - Highlights - interesting, useful.
4 - Lock - already implemented. Use Modify furniture --> Part of base plan, or use the check box with that name while importing a model.
5 - Unsure what you want. Use AdvancedEdit plug-in?
6 - Sort - yes, I'd love that.
7 - Customize mouse - No.
8 - Texture control - I would love to be able to determine where a texture starts horizontally/vertically. Being stupid, it would have to be VERY easy.
9 - Mouse coordinates - handy, not urgent.
10 - Colour for icons - While importing you can set a colour for your model. Same step as #4.
11 - Levels - Not sure what you want; seems beyond scope of program.
12 - Elevation override - I would rather have a complete rethink of the way levels/layers are implemented.
13 - Wall defaults - interesting.
14 - Dimensions to walls - too complicated.
15 - Hide 3D - Mwa...
16 - Custom icons - is already possible, although a bit complicated.
17 - Dialogue - Would be handy.
18 - Rotate Z-axis - Has been asked before; also for walls.
19 - Unlit textures - ??
20 - Group lights - ??
21 - Customize light - YES
22 - Customize light - YES
23 - PCX - never heard of PCX. Maybe a good reason for some DIY ?
24 - Auto date - for the lazy people...
25 - VV control - there's definitely room for improvement here.
26 - Preview textures - interesting
27 - Light / animation - this is beyond SH3D.

Please note that this reflects only my personal opinion.

Hans
----------------------------------------
Hans

new website - under constuction
hansdirkse.info
[Apr 13, 2014, 10:21:33 PM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
Puybaret
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Re: Big list of daydreams

Thanks for these suggestions that may appear or not one day. Meanwhile, I would like to comment the few ones for which there are already some workarounds that you may not have not noticed.
6. Sort Furniture list by more than one category
When Searchable list is activated in the preferences, the search field of the furniture catalog will let you search among furniture names but also categories, authors and keywords.
13. On-the-fly wall defaults
Press <enter> key when wall creation mode is active to be able to type directly the thickness of the wall that is currently drawn.
15. Hideable 3D View window
Reduce the attached 3D view to zero height with the separator between the plan and the 3D view. This won't prevent the 3D view to have a different size once you detach it.
25. Virtual Visitor camera movement without selecting the VV icon
You don't need to select the virtual visitor icon to change the point of view. Simply drag and drop in the 3D view, use the navigation arrows or transfer the focus to the 3D view and use the keyboard.

Hope this will help smile
----------------------------------------
Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D developer
[Apr 15, 2014, 2:01:02 PM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
harbinger
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Re: Big list of daydreams

I wanted to go over some of these ideas, because there seems to be some confusion, and admittedly, i didn't account for being completely understood -- just to get the ideas out there.

Let's go over the misconceptions:

4. Lock individual elements

Yes, each item can be made as part of the base plan, and then the whole base plan locked, but that's not what i'm talking about. I want to be able to lock a single item (furniture, dimension line, room, etc) to where it is in space, level, and dimension, no matter what's going on with other units or the "base plan". It would be selectable but not editable, until a hotkey was pressed or a contextual menu item was chosen.

5. Reset origin to plan

Perhaps this will help:

I would also like the reset point to auto-align to a wall intersection or corner, like the Room Creator cursor does...

6. Sort Furniture List by more than one category

Actually i meant the list of furniture already installed into the floor plan. The Furniture Library is fine, but what i need to to do is sort the furniture i've put in first by name or category, then by level, then by X coordinate, etc...

10. Alternate bkgd color for icons

See this?

This would be better....


13. On-the-fly wall defaults

I tried Puybaret's technique (go to Wall Creation mode and press Enter), and i'm happy there is at least some dimensional control -- albeit hidden, but the methodology was not intuitive. It would be easier if i knew what i was putting down before i clicked anywhere. Perhaps a toolbar that becomes available when creating or editing elements...

15. Hideable 3D view window

I tried the author's technique. Grab the separator pane and pull down to the bottom (or click on that TEENY TINY down-arrow on the left side of the pane!), then select "Display in separate window" from the "3D view" menu. Your 3D window will now appear in a moveable but resizable window -- though always on top. (There is a bug though; if you close the program with the 3D window detached, when you later re-open the file, the 3D window will appear -- and it will draw from the last camera angle -- but the 2D floorplan will not draw until the 3D window is closed.)

16. Custom icons for furniture in 2D view

This is what i got:

This is what i'd rather have:


16 - Custom icons - is already possible, although a bit complicated.

I'll do a lot more to get exactly what i want. Tell me how!

19. "Unlit" textures

Yes, it took me a long time to understand too.

An "unlit" texture means the texture is not affected by external light -- it is not accounted for when rendering light on that texture. It is instead rendered at its own brightness.

Imagine applying a white texture on your light fixture, say where the bulb is supposed to be. If it is not "unlit", the light bulb's texture will be rendered according to nearby light sources, and if you do not have a light source directly next to the surface with that texture, it may appear as if the light is not even on, like this:


In the above image, the spotlight is on (it's what's lighting up this bathroom), but there is no light source near the bulb, so it looks like it's off.
If the light cup's texture's "Unlit" flag were to be set, it will always be drawn at whatever its own brightness (in this case nearly white), unaffected by whether or not there is a light source lighting it, like this:

Maybe a better term would be "self-lit" or perhaps "untraced."

20. Group lights

To clarify:
Select multiple light sources. Open the Modify Furniture dialog, and you will see a field where you can assign a light power to all the lights in the selection.
Now group the selected light sources (Ctrl-Shift-G) and open the Modify Furniture dialog. That ability to attenuate the light power is now gone.

21. Customizable light types

Wanted to expound on "non-incidental" lights as it's become more important since i've been doing rendering at the Best level (i've been calling it "incidental" lighting but it's actual called "NON-incidental" lighting...

A "non-incidental" light was originally designed (at least in the Unreal Editor) to simplify reflected room light. Put a non-incidental light source in the mean location of where light is to be reflected from, like say off a colored ceiling or a shiny floor, and the reflected light would be diffused throughout every surface visible from that light point. The non-incidental light source is not a rendered object itself, but light emanates in all directions from that point, and its light emanations are rendered without regard to the angle of the surfaces within its bounds.
Here is an example of NORMAL lighting:

Notice how the angle of the surface within the rays of the light source determine how much the light will affect it. The wall on the left and the top of the box show the effect. This is realistic for physical single-point light sources.

Now here is the same exact scene with the light source (the torch symbol) flagged as "Non-incidental" and the room re-rendered:

The lighting seems more spread out without regard to surface angle. The effect is so strong that i had to halve the light's brightness for the non-incidental light.
(Generally when i create UT maps in the Unreal engine, these non-incidental lights are much more subtle, the light radius is confined to the dimensions of the interior space, and they are especially effective in darker or scantily lit rooms.)

Now it's become important because while using SH3D, i've noticed that when i put in a normal light source in a room to mimic reflected, non-incidental light (like off a shiny floor), the renderer will treat it as if it were a light source, like a bulb, like this Before and After (sorry about the terminology, i thought it was "incidental" lights when i notated these images, but you get my point):
3D window rendering

Photo rendering at BEST quality
(it's a bit blurry because I rendered small then enlarged the image)


These are horrible artifacts which could be eliminated by treating a given light source as Non-incidental, meaning the light source will emit light, but will not be rendered as a light source itself.

By the way, i understand why the light source is showing up; in raytracing, the vision ray is going to follow (trace back) until the light source is encountered. I think if a light source could be flagged as non-incidental, the raytracing engine will ignore the light source. That way shiny surfaces will still reflect other surfaces affected by the non-incidental light.

23. PCX file Import

Disregard. The Unreal engine is really the only editor i use which uses pcx files. I will just convert all that i have to 24-bit BMP, save all i have on a flashdrive or CD, and convert the PCXs i need if i do any map creation for UT99.

24. Auto date photo creation

Disregard. I thought this field was the date that would be tagged to the saved image. Rather, it is the virtual date of when the rendering is to occur (so as to take into account a winter sun vs. a summer sun, for example) -- a pretty nifty, if not often needed, feature...

25. Virtual Visitor camera movement...

NOT using the keyboard at all for viewing in 3D was the point. Mouse actions are not pinned to complete 3D navigation. (Which is why i wanted user control of this feature, so i can mimic the mouse control to that of my favorite 3D editor, which is quickly becoming Art of Illusion.)

Lastly, thanks to Puybaret, our dear programmer, for even giving us the chance to let him hear our wishes for this great program. At the risk of swelling his head, i feel like a serf being given audience by the king for ideas on making his countrymen even more loyal to him. Viva le roi! tongue
[Apr 27, 2014, 7:21:24 PM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
harbinger
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Re: Big list of daydreams

I wanted to add one more link since this is my big list of daydreams...

Concerning 27. Light switches and animations.... I found this video , the first part of which shows what I was daydreaming about -- a walk-thru with a fireplace animation...

I want SH3D to someday have this feature so I don't have to try to deal with Blender. biggrin
[Apr 27, 2014, 8:12:40 PM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
harbinger
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Re: Big list of daydreams

DIGGING UP THIS OLD THREAD TO ADD MORE WISHES
and check on the status of these....

I'm happy with the progress that SH3D has made after 4 years, but i'm still not seeing most of these features i requested. And now i'm in a position to buy professional home designer software.
So here's some further wishes that would entice me to keep SH3D on my computer biggrin :

28. SHIFT constrains to 15° instead of 45°
I've been working on a plan that uses hexagonal rooms, so naturally i would love the option of using the SHIFT to constrain move/copy by 15­­° rather 45.

29. Polyline tool locks to polyline points just like room creator tool
I use the polyline to line up the structures along certain axes and with each other. But lining up the polylines by click-and-drag can be horribly misaligned unless i'm zoomed in all the way. Polyline alignment would be better if it would work like the room creator, which gives you an indicator when the point is lined up with another room point or wall edge/vertex.

30. Polyline autoshapes
As i mentioned, my current idea uses regular hexagons for room shapes. Room and polyline drawing would be great if you had the ability to automatically select a shape from a saved list or menu.

31. Definable shortcuts even for plugins
Many open-source programs allow the user to define what keypresses bring up what actions. SH3D would work more efficiently if this were the case.

32. Feet-Decimals Measurement method
This way of measuring dimensions would be more conducive to the way i work. It allows you to get exact coordinates without having to convert mentally inches to feet-and-inches.

33. Option to draw walls within, outside of, or centering on room boundaries.
When creating a room, then choosing the Wall Creation tool, you can double-click inside a room to draw the walls automatically. The only problem is, you have no choice as to where along the room boundaries the walls will be drawn. (I think the default is outside of the room boundaries.) I will often create the rooms to get the layout i want, then auto-add walls later. The only problem is wall auto-creation will add walls without regard to what already exists. If i had the option to choose whether the drawn walls were just inside the room boundary, centered along them, or drawn outside of the room boundaries, it could make wall auto creation much more manageable.

34. Option to show polylines on all levels (or same level and above)
Since i use polylines for pre-alignment before i actualyy draw rooms or walls, it would help a lot if i had the OPTION to show polylines on all levels, only the level it was drawn on, or its level and higher.

35. Allow pivot points for rotating objects
When copying and pasting, then rotating, i have zero control as where the pivot point is located, and for grouped items, this forces me to not only rotate but then reposition the object. And with furniture, you never know where the center point is.
It would great if the user can move the rotation pivot point before rotating so he has more control over the alignment of the object.



I have yet to try the new photo and video creation, so as soon as i get this project completed, i can share what i've created with SH3D. I think you guys will be blown away. cool
[Jul 26, 2018, 2:58:07 PM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
Puybaret
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Re: Big list of daydreams

One of my goals is to keep Sweet Home 3D simple to use, something I start to doubt about when I see all the fields of the furniture modification dialog in last versions.



So even if I understand that all the features you requested would help you, I'm not sure they will appear to overcomplicate Sweet Home 3D and because of the time I'm available to program them. By the way, if you want to help me analyze your requests faster to spare time for programming, listing the still missing feature numbers would be more helpful than a simple "i'm still not seeing most of these features i requested".

By the way, it will be interesting to know if you found all these missing features in the professional tool you'll choose. Feel free to post comments about other software in this forum.
----------------------------------------
Emmanuel Puybaret, Sweet Home 3D developer
[Sep 6, 2018, 11:32:58 AM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
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Re: Big list of daydreams

..keep Sweet Home 3D simple to use, something I start to doubt...
Just to stop you from worryiing, I do not think the admittedly detailed dialogue is a problem, all fields are filled in by the time the user elects to modify furniture. But it might be a bit less intimidating with an advanced button/drop-down at some point in the future. And with such a button hiding a rough interface (maybe a table with all xml entries?), beginners would not be troubled, while advanced users would have lots of new features available.

That said, I used to miss direct adjustments to specialised properties (like lightsource-properties, cutouts and sashes) without editing libraries before, it took too long. But (Home.)XML changed that.

ok
[Sep 6, 2018, 1:32:13 PM] Show Printable Version of Post    View Member Profile    Send Private Message [Link] Report threatening or abusive post: please login first  Go to top 
harbinger
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Re: Big list of daydreams



Let's put down this old thread, and in the meantime let's show the progress of some of these requests. Fear not, dreamers, the devs are listening!... biggrin

1. Custom fonts DONE
I use more stylized fonts for my floor plans & would love to be able to choose something other than Arial for each text purpose.
2. Side or wall view
I would love to be able to make 2D creations/adjustments from a wall POV rather than just from top down. This would make it easier to view elevations and line up dissimilar objects visually. Perhaps if you could utilize a new window to line-draw a wall view from another camera similar to the "Virtual Visit" camera.
3. Highlight selected units in 3D view
I understand it's hard to change the program to select an element from the 3D view, but it would be helpful if, when selecting it from the 2D view, the element is somehow highlighted in the 3D view. It's not enough to just center it in the window, because often elements overlap (like walls from 2 different levels). Perhaps tinting it a custom color would be the easiest to see what overlapping element is selected.
4. Lock individual elements DONE
It would be great to be able to lock pieces in place once i set them. Maybe a keypress when the item is selected would toggle the item's lock into place, making them uneditable or unmovable until unlocked. This would also make it easier to select objects in a room without selecting the room element itself.
5. Reset origin to plan
I often use a global focal point (such as the corner of two intersecting walls) to determine the exact coordinates of every building element i'm placing. Would like to be able to reset the entire space so that the grid origin is at a point of a chosen mouseclick or marker.
6. Sort Furniture list by more than one category
I would like to be able to sort the List View of the Furniture Library by more than one index, say, first by category, then by name or a given keyword. Could definitely use this in the Furniture Editor JAR too.
7. Customize mouse actions
I'm used to using different mouse actions when i assemble 3D models or drawings depending on the application. With SH3D, i'm constantly taking a step back because my brain is hardwired to use my mouse in different ways (such as right-click-and-dragging for moving the view and mousewheeling to zoom in-out). It would be great to able to choose how we want different mouse actions to affect the view or selection (left-click, right-click, or click-and-drag, for example). This might be an appropriate dialog...
Possible Mouse Action dialog window
8. Texture control
In my other 3D programs, texture alignment and sizing is crucial. This to me should be a basic feature for any application that does 3D modeling or assembly. I understand this will mean a whole new set of classes and methods for our beseiged programmer
9. Show mouse coordinates on floor plan
Would love to be able to see how my edits are going based on my mouse location, either in header field or preferably a tooltip. For example, when moving a wall PERPENDICULAR to its plane, i'd like to see how far from the original location i'm moving it. There are other obvious applications as well.
10. Alternate bkgd color for icons
Importing 3D models that don't have the attached skin or texture means the imported model will be white, making it hard to see in the icon tooltip. Would love either to be able to choose the import color or to change the background of the icon tooltip so we can more easily preview the model.
11. Option to draw lower floors in higher levels
I'm now making use of multiple levels (which probably would better be called sections) even on the same elevation of others, so i can achieve different ceiling heights for different areas of the building. The problem is, the "background draw" only shows the next lowest level on the list (indicated by the tab order above the 2D view). What i need is to be able to background-draw other levels/sections no matter what level i'm looking at. Perhaps a toggle for each level to show on all levels above or below.
12. Room elevation/height/slope overrides DONE
An elaboration on a previous feature request, this is probably the hardest to program. I think we'd ALL like to be able to set for each room the floor elevation, including sloped floors, as well as ceiling elevations (room heights), including sloped ceilings. This alone would take SH3D from 4.2 to 5.0.
13. On-the-fly wall defaults DONE
Instead of having to go into preferences each time to change the thickness and height of the wall i'm about to draw, there should be an easier way to either modify the default or even apply these dimensions only to the next wall drawn. Perhaps by double-clicking on the "New Wall" icon, a user can input new or temporary defaults to the next wall(s) about to be drawn. Or maybe a ubiquitous utility window where the user can enter the defaults on a whim.
14. Convert Dimension lines to walls DONE USING ADVANCED EDITING PLUGIN
Often i know the dimensions first and can construct a room (or false room) from point-to-point. After i get the dimensions right, i'd like to be able to just convert those measurement lines directly to walls, rather than going back and basically redoing the lines i just set up.
15. Hideable 3D View window DONE
I like the fact that i can put the 3D view into another window, but it's kind of useless if i can't put it under my working window, or at least minimize it. We can definite use the ability to put the window out of the way without having to manually sliding it off the screen.
16. Custom icons for furniture in 2D view
I'm a traditionalist and i like my floorplans to look clean and sharp while working on or printing them. When furniture is placed in SH3D, top-view, colored graphics really mess up the sharpness of the floor plan. While it's great that there is an option to use either catalog icons or top-view images of the furniture, it would be great if we could also choose simple, B&W line graphics or a user-defined pic to insert onto the 2D view.
17. Remember dialog window placement
I often have to move the Modify Walls and Modify Furniture dialogs out of the way so i can remind myself which element i'm changing (by looking on the 2D floorplan). I hate having to move them out of the way each time i open a new one.
18. 3D Rotate in 2D view DONE
It's good that we can rotate along the XY axis while modifying the placement of furniture in the 2D view, but we could do even better to rotate along the YZ axis as well. I have some wall-mounted spotlights that i need to face at different angles. If i could twist the mounting, i could get them to aim right.
19. "Unlit" textures
Along the lines of manipulating textures of furniture or walls, textures of light bulbs or light covers should always give 100% of their texture light, unaffected by the light sources that hit them. In 3D world creation, these textures are called "unlit." A simple checkbox when choosing a texture would force those textures on the element to always be drawn at their own brightness rather than the light imposed on them externally.
20. Group Lights brightness
When grouping light sources, there is no way to assign their individual brightnesses (but as a group). It would help if the "Modify Furniture" dialog would show the light strength field, at least when one or all of the grouped elements are light sources. (The Light Strength field is there when multiple light sources are in the selection, but not when they are grouped.)
21. Customizable light types
It would be helpful if, besides omni-directional lights, we also had spotlights and "incidental" lights. I use a lot of spotlights and track-lighting to focus light at various spots in a room, which means the light fixture itself should not get lit up by its own light (except by reflected light). SH3D's omnis do not allow for spotlighting, and the workarounds are weak at best. It would only be helpful if we could choose the width of the light cone at its base.
"Incidental" lighting is applying a room-wide light for a closed space. It's like a universal room light, but the light from the source is not attenuated by the angle of the surface it hits, only by the distance. That is, a surface that runs parallel to a light ray, starting at distance D extending from the light source, gets the same amount of light as a surface sitting perpendicular to the light source at distance D. (Of course, the "gathered" light fades as you go down the breadth of the wall.)
22. Customizable light color & strength
I think we can minimize the number of light sources in the furniture catalogue if we could choose the color we want the light source to emanate. Plus you give a lot more control to the user.
As far as light strength, in the real world of course, we can't dictate the brightness-to-distance ratio, but in the digital world, it's possible. It would be great to use some mathematical curves to determine this ratio to help in our lighting of the 3d scene...
23. PCX file Import UNNECESSARY
Using UT99's 3D map editor for years, i have a HUGE collection of PCX image files, which i dont want to copy and convert and use up alot of HD space unnecessarily. I could definitely use the ability to import color-indexed PCX files.
24. Auto date photo creation
In the Date field of the Create Photo dialog, it would be nice if the program would insert todays date by default.
25. Virtual Visitor camera movement without selecting the VV icon DONE
It's anti-intuitive to have to select the VV icon to move its view in the 3D window. Mouse movements should be able to be mapped to the XYZ movement of the VV camera (see #7 above).
26. Preview textures when importing DONE/SYSTEM ISSUE
For some reason, the OpenFile dialog does not allow me to preview the texture i'm about to import, offering me only a list view or detailed view. Would love to able to preview the texture i'm about to import...
27. Light switches and animations made available for Video Creation
One day, maybe in SH3D 10.0, we could have animations that would be included in a rendered video, such as a fireplace fire or fish in an aquarium. Also, triggers could be set up to activate lights as the video camera moves thru rooms, to see how the architect's lighting choices affect the view of the space.
28. SHIFT constrains to 15° instead of 45°
I've been working on a plan that uses hexagonal rooms, so naturally i would love the option of using the SHIFT to constrain move/copy by 15­­° rather 45.
29. Polyline tool locks to polyline points just like room creator tool WORKAROUND WITH ADVANCED EDITING PLUGIN
I use the polyline to line up the structures along certain axes and with each other. But lining up the polylines by click-and-drag can be horribly misaligned unless i'm zoomed in all the way. Polyline alignment would be better if it would work like the room creator, which gives you an indicator when the point is lined up with another room point or wall edge/vertex.
30. Polyline autoshapes
As i mentioned, my current idea uses regular hexagons for room shapes. Room and polyline drawing would be great if you had the ability to automatically select a shape from a saved list or menu.
31. Definable shortcuts even for plugins
Many open-source programs allow the user to define what keypresses bring up what actions. SH3D would work more efficiently if this were the case.
32. Feet-Decimals Measurement method
This way of measuring dimensions would be more conducive to the way i work. It allows you to get exact coordinates without having to convert mentally inches to feet-and-inches.
33. Option to draw walls within, outside of, or centering on room boundaries.
When creating a room, then choosing the Wall Creation tool, you can double-click inside a room to draw the walls automatically. The only problem is, you have no choice as to where along the room boundaries the walls will be drawn. (I think the default is outside of the room boundaries.) I will often create the rooms to get the layout i want, then auto-add walls later. The only problem is wall auto-creation will add walls without regard to what already exists. If i had the option to choose whether the drawn walls were just inside the room boundary, centered along them, or drawn outside of the room boundaries, it could make wall auto creation much more manageable.
34. Option to show polylines on all levels (or same level and above)
Since i use polylines for pre-alignment before i actualyy draw rooms or walls, it would help a lot if i had the OPTION to show polylines on all levels, only the level it was drawn on, or its level and higher.
35. Allow pivot points for rotating objects
When copying and pasting, then rotating, i have zero control as where the pivot point is located, and for grouped items, this forces me to not only rotate but then reposition the object. And with furniture, you never know where the center point is.
It would great if the user can move the rotation pivot point before rotating so he has more control over the alignment of the object.



I will start a new thread with those unfulfilled as well as new requests. Look for my most recent thread on the subject...
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