How do you guys contribute back changes?

[Wil C]

I've been watching Inmoov participants for a little bit, and it's pretty exciting to watch the progress. I had a question though:

Do you guys make changes to Hairygael's designs, and if so, do you share it back with the community? I did go back and read many posts, and it does seem like this happens, though sometimes, it's not necessarily the 3D printed part itself, but suggestions about where to source a part for cheaper/better.

I'm starting to build out pages on Cubehero where people can submit changes to a project, and people can have a discussion around it. And then, the admins can decide whether or not to accept the changes. Basically, a "these are my changes to these files. What do you think? Accept or Reject?" discussion.

Do you, as a community, think you need that? If you'd like to see a mockup, it's here: http://redpen.io/3exfjy I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Thanks!

Wil

[gael langevin]

Hi Will,

Sorry for not responding to your questions right away, I wanted to do it correctly and finally forgot about it...

To answer your question, I think the idea is good and could be very practical. InMoov would certainly benefit of such capability. Until now new derivatives are spread all over. This way we could gather them together in genealogical tree.

But to really make this work, it has to be very simple and useable in grafical environment, this will, to my point of view, get attention from the users.

I also think your idea of propositions/discussions,  Acceptance or reject is basically a good way to get this to work, but I would like it better if it could be embed within my site. Already this forum/group makes us, users go out of the blog. I think if it all can be centralized it would be good. I hate to have to jump there and there to trace back an old info to redistribute it on the forum, and then to have to jump into youtube and search on my blog to give another answer to somebody on Google+, and so on... So much time lost.

May I tell you the tool I wish to really have for InMoov? It  would be to be able to upload a complete CAO of the head (for exemple) so the user could travel in a 3D view, clik on a particular STL, let say the side of head, this would deliver him all informations about name of part, tutorials, different derivatives, bill of materials. He could also have an option for exploding the head to search for other components, within the head, like the eye mecanism, and explore each pieces and see how they assemble.

A crazy tool to create, I'm sure, but it would be fantastic. I guess I will have to wait a few more years.

Best regards,

Gaël

[Wil C]

To start, I don't just want to make a genealogical tree for Inmoov projects, but that if someone made changes that you, as the project maintainer likes, you can merge those changes back into your own project. In term of graphical, do you mean that you can see a picture of what people are contributing back? Or do you mean you can see a picture of the tree of which project came from what?

What is a CAO? 

So if I get you correctly, you'd like a 3D fly-through for your community to explore different parts. To explore, they'd fly through the head, looking at different parts, or they'd search for it and it would, like google maps, move them to the part in 3D space. They'd also have the option of exploding the assembly, so you can examine different parts.

What is everyone in the inmoov community doing now, instead of the tool you describe? I'm guessing the problem here is that it's hard to piece together how all the parts fit together in an assembly, if you're new to Inmoov. So your community members' only option is to ask questions on the google groups. Also, there's no currently free tool to easily describe and make an assembly you can explode of STL files, right? 

Wil

[gael langevin]

Hi Will,
In the graphical way, I meant like a graphical environment instead of having to upload scripts to make it work. Cubehero is getting more and more graphical in this sense. I still think the 3D views of the STL files is a bit poor graphicaly. After all, one that has done a lot of work on his 3D design, likes to see it nicely presented. Shades, colors, reflections. (More work for you for sure)

A CAO is an assembly of STL (or other format) to construct a shape, for exemple the complete InMoov head. (I'm sure, lots of readers here are going to jump and correct me on this definition, sorry guys I'm not an expert)

Right, You totally understood what tool would be great for to explore the different files in a 3D view environment.

What we have for new builders is to create sketchs with names and colors like this( Thanks to Anar for this one) But it is a bit restrictful when you consider the power of 3D viewing.

Gaël

[Wil C]

Ahh, you mean, make the 3d model previews more attractive, rather than looking all grey. I agree, though I'm not sure if that'll be the difference between someone finding Cubehero useful or not. But I agree.

How do you guys usually build the assemblies pictures like the one you linked to? Do you import all of them into sketchup and then arrange them by hand? I imagine it takes some time to align everything, but it doesn'nt seem like it's super hard. Is it because if the parts update, then you'll have to redo the entire thing again?

Wil

[byte...@gmail.com]

All:

   So while I love the idea of a 3D fly through and exploding views etc. something more basic could be very useful.

While Cubehero and Thingiverse are Ok I often find it very hard to find things.

Has anyone considered just creating a place on GITHUB.    You can store everything there,  revision control is built

in and there is a smooth well defined process for creating forks/branches and merging them back into the main line.

Biggest thing missing is pictures/renders of parts.   But because everything is web accessible, the videos, tutorials, blogs,

etc. can link directly to the specific parts.

Just being able to check and find the most recent revision of a part would be good.  I wasted filament and time recently

printing the old version of the simple servo bed.

[blackstag]

Do we think many here would understand the use of mercurial and or hg let alone setup pulls. Do we want to make that a barrier if entry into building one? 

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[Wil C]

Thanks for the feedback! It's odd. Cubehero is built upon git, like Github, so revision control is also built in. However, I hide git behind a web interface, but you can still pull projects down from Cubehero using git. I think I'll have to make this more apparent, and I'm currently working on "the smooth well defined process for merging". There's currently a small number of projects on Cubehero right now, so I haven't implemented search, since you can search on the page. How do you usually look for things?

So if I'm hearing you correctly, you want to be able to know which files to download when you're a newcomer to Inmoov. This is because not all files are updated, so you don't know which versions of which files go together. Cubehero does support this, but that would require hairygael to get rid of the "V1" "V2" in the file names, and rely on the revision control to take care of the versioning.

Wil

[blackstag]

Yes a user friendly interface for this same thing would make sense as I have had the same issue being brought up here on using the right version and what not. In fact i have to reprint a few things to get going forward again. 

[Wil C]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll keep you guys updated on what I come up with. For now, here's a screen shot of what I've come up with so far. The left is a conversation with one sub-level. And the sidebar is the patch that was submitted with the files that have changed.

Wil

[Anar]

Hi all !

by CAO Gael means CAD. This is the english acronym for "Computer Aided Design". CAO is the french acronym.

Regarding a CAD (or CAO) in which anyone could zoom, pan, tilt, hide parts, have name of parts with external links, etc.
What about a 3D PDF ?
I think they are really great !
I could make one I think...

Anar

[gael langevin]

Hi Anar,

Can you make easily a 3D PDF? I would like to see how it would render.

@Will, you sure have something very interesting for developing projects. You said in a previous message, if we want to do it with InMoov, I would need to remove all the V2 and V3 added to the file names. This is troubling me a bit, since it is referenced all over my pictures, site, blog, sketchs, Thingiverse, Cubehero.

[Anar]

Well...
I made some fast web searches this morning (probably not enough...) and found 2 SketcUp plugins but they are not free to use.
I'm sure I will find a free product if I search more.
The one I tried right away is only a 15 times tries and here is a fast result with the default settings.
I should have tuned the settings before using it because now I only have 14 more tries left !
What I should have done at least is rename my groups accordingly with the parts name because here in the data tree you will only see names like "Group10", etc.
Still I think 3D PDF are a nice 3D sharing of concepts.

Cheers !

[Wil C]

Since this feature has a pretty large surface area, I'm rolling it out in stages. I'm first rolling it out in a meta section, where people can post feedback, feature requests, and bug reports about Cubehero. I'll keep releasing features for it, and eventually roll it out for every physible project. I outlined where I'm going in a blog post. 

@anar, the pdf you attached, it didn't seem like there was a 3D model design in it. Was that intentional?

[Anar]

WillC,
I made this PDF very fast with the very first tool I found (a SketchUp plugin). I can't check right now but I think, if I remember well, that it's a matter of zoom factor. The 3D is there but you might have to scroll with your mouse wheel.
Anyway...
I've spent the last 3 days at trying to find a free way for making PDF with embeded 3D. I kind of succeeded in that I can make a 3D PDF without any paid software. And they can be very nice with 3D embeded (of course, that was the point...), images, animation, multiple views, external links, etc.
But all the solutions I've tried don't satisfy me. The most annoying thing is that I failed in making a 3D pdf where the "Model Tree" reflects the project parts name (InMoov project in our case). And without that it looses a lot of it's potential... I will still try to satisfy that need.
I'm amazed how many few free solutions there is for making 3D PDF. And they all are "not so easy"...
One of the most powerfull way is to create them with the LaTex programming language. Very powerful !!! Not just for pdf...
But now I just start to wonder if it's really a good media.
I love it for sure but I've read a lot during the last days and maybe there are more "modern" and efficient ways to share 3D concepts  and make documentation.

Sorry you couldn't see the imbeded 3D.
I'll post a better one now that I have a much better knowledge on how to make them.

Cheers !

[Wil C]

The reason I ask is because I see the attached picture, and not of a 3D model.

Wil

[gael langevin]

Hi Will,

If I download the PDF of Anar posted on the forum I get the same result as you.

But Anar has sent me some of these 3D PDF, he has been working on, and they work very nice. Apparently it is possible to embed them in a website. That is one of the next test we need to make.

[Anar]

Hi Will !
I understand... If you just click on it (open) you won't be able to see the 3D. You have to download it and open it with Acrobat Reader.
I will PM (private mail) you a link to a web page with an embeded 3D PDF I made.
But I'm still not satisfied with the result.

Cheers !

[bigfilsing]

Hi all.

Just in the process of printing the Inmoov head and despite quite a bit of experience in 3D models etc i struggled with understanding which bit was which at first.

Now the new pictures with the red and grey differentiation of parts has been added it makes a big difference.

You guys might want to look at Grab cad 

Aside from having a lot of very good quality free to download models they also have "work bench" where you can post models and assemblies and do exploded views.

the site can be viewed by all but only contributors can alter files 

Maybe worth a look 

Really enjoying the printing the skull. Am planning on completing it as a static at first then jumping in the science of Uno R3 . Got a starter kit on the way and already have some 

experience with RC models/ servos etc so looking forward to moving ahead ...or a head moving depending on how you look at it 

Regards from Singapore 

Phil 

[Anar]

I've worked quiet a bit on understanding how to make 3D PDF out of my SketchUp renders (I think that's what bigfilsing is talking about when he says "red and grey" renders). I mean making 3D PDF with only free apps.
You can now see the result on my blog at www.reppersdelight.spacymen.com.
I've made the Bicep, Forearm and Eyes mechanism so far (see the last links on the right).

I hope it will help people understand how the parts are supposed to fit together.

Le vendredi 30 août 2013 19:43:25 UTC+2, Wil C a écrit :

[bigfilsing .]

Hi Anar

Yes indeed the "red & grey" were very useful and certainly will be to new comers wanting to see whats what. Wish they had been there a few weeks back :-)

I ended up importing all STL's into sketch up and kind of trial assembling it there 

If anybody reading this wants the sketch up file i made they can download it here from my sky drive public folder 

http://sdrv.ms/1epNlA9

Probably not millimeter perfect but it certain aided me in visualizing the parts of the skull.  

Really enjoying all this and top marks to Gael for bringing all this together and sharing with us.

Cant wait to get some servos and motion working.

Regards

Phil 

[Anar]

Hi Bigfilsing,

I looked at your SketchUp file.
I think you've done a fantastic work here !
I can say so because I've done a lot of InMoov assembly with SketchUp and the skull, especially the top parts of it, are very difficult to align.
Rotating these parts in the 3D space to have them correctly oriented is a difficult task and took me quiet some time !
And I think yours are better aligned than mine. Bravo !

A few remarks :
- right part of the top parts of skull are better aligned than left ones
- some groups are within groups that are within groups, etc. Better to have all your groups at the top level or group them with more logic like "Eyes mechanism" could be a group, parts belonging to "Neck" couls be in a "Neck" group, etc.
- name all the groups by their InMoov names
- some groups are locked, others are not. Unlock them all
- groups aren't smoothed

Please don't take these remarks bad, once again you did a fantastic work. I know how time consuming it is !

I didn't correct all the points I have mentioned, especially I didn't :
- group meshes by logic ("Eyes mechanism", "Neck", etc.)
- name groups by their InMoov names

All the other points have been corrected and I upload here the new SKP.
OK it is too big to be uploaded here so I'm gonna send it back to you by PM.

Anar

[bigfilsing]

Heh nice job on updating the SU model

Heres a link if anybody wants to download it 

http://sdrv.ms/14RV7P1

Phil .

[Wil C]

In another update, I've made the discussion agoras available to all physible projects. All physible projects with the same name will share the same community agora. 

I detailed it in a blog post

http://blog.cubehero.com/2013/09/18/agoras-for-everybody-now-you-can-connect-over-what-youve-shared/

If there's other features you'd like to see, let me know. So far, the biggest clamor has been for categories and a search bar (working on it!)

Wil

[Anar]

@Bigfilsing
I've made a new 3D PDF out of your SketchUp scene of the head : http://www.reppersdelight.spacymen.com/index.php/post/2013/09/19/Head-3D-PDF-%28WIP%29

To do so I had to name each group and do some arangement in the hierarchy of groups (Parent/ children).
I send you the new SKP that result from that rework by PM.

Anar