ManifoldLab Plug-Ins

Sampling Of Key Features

Constructive Solid Geometry via Carve CSG integration.
Object resurfacing via Greebleing techniques
Many New Geometry Selection Schemes.
Adds RenderMan Export
Adds OFF File import and Export
Directly Import TETGEN output files.
Many Voronoi Object and face partitioning Schemes (QHULL, TETGEN).
Select Face, Edge, Object Extrema w.r.t. Area, Length, Volume
Procedural Coloring and Randomized Coloring Schemes.

Change Log

April 1, 2007: Added BODY Operation, arc bend.
April 3, 2007: Better pinning of start , end on open path.
April 4, 2007: Make changes to Arc Bend text and input box and accuracy as per Puzzled Pauls suggestions.
April 12, 2007: Minor changes to Arc Bend wording. Also a mock-up of a new feature on tools menu to be used with Ribbit. Color buffers and weights.
April 29, 2007: More aspected of Displacement, Surface, and other weighting already beta tested as tenatively working.
June 19, 2007: Added a Shear command for Satoribomb
Novermber 2007: Various minor ribbit changes. A small change that makes work better with PIXIE. Simplification of shaders ml_dented, ml_IDbubbly, and ml_greenmarble.
November 30, 2007: Created Pattern Walker Plugin for Edges.
Dec 16, 2007: Updated Patter walker to use directed edges. This means a BEAM file patch to wings_draw.beam is needed.
Dec 25, 2007 Updated Vertex Color Interpretation as used by RIBBIT. Although only can change mode/interpretation one object at a time. Is now HOT-KEYABLE and there is some visual feedback (object gets de-selected when mode change occurs).
Dec 31, 2007 Update Shear, ArcBend, and Flip X,Y,Z to much simplified state so that user can apply to multiple objects at same time. May be compiled so only works in 0.99.XX wings (OTP RB12)
Jan 5, 2008 Stated Put Array alternatives to normal Put on.
Jan 7, 2008 Added another Scaling during Arraying option. Fit to dest elements added.
Jan 18, 2008 Bridge And Prepare Next (Bridge with D Key).
Jan 23, 2008 Bug Fixes for Shape Extruder so will not crash wings so easy when formulas don't parse.
Feb 2008 : Voronoi Conglomerate Plugin for Encrusting shapes.
Feb 29, 2008 : Hull Plugin !
March 2, 2008: Intersect to Vertices plugin.
March 8, 2008: Upgrade encrust process so can easily be seeded with a regular point distro.
March 22, 2008. Upgrade Ribbit so that manifolds with all hard edges will export as PointsPolygons.
March 28, 2008. Added Move Normal Random (face menu).
March 29, 2008. Added Select Objects by partial Name (body-object menu).
April 6, 2008. All manner of minor adjustments to Voronoi/Hull/Encrust operations.
Locked objects excluded. Wire/cage option now driven by display mode rather than check box.
Cleanup short edges added to Encrust.
April 21, 2008. Added select by Pointy cusps. Also added more move random controls.
Oct 25, 2008. Update Move Normal Random to be more of a recipe, Update Shape Extruder to have a Revert.
Add a face operation ... "Smoothless Divide", Fix a bug with Path Connector Accurate for two verts.
Nov 01, 2008. Adapt Select Left and Right Faces to object pre-directed edges instead of guessing. Add named groups to Pattern Walker. Lots of enhancements to Pattern Walker.
Nov 04, 2008. ReNamed, Repurposed Toggle edge type to "Reinterpret Edge Loop" Making it a much more generic and interesting loop modifier for directed loops.
Enhance Similar Hard Bounded Region so can expand more than one seed face at a time.
Nov 09, 2008. Multiple Releases last few days. Enhance loop smooth and equidistant on loops. This induced a bug in Shape Extruder along stored paths.
That bug is fixed in minor release.
Nov 13, 2008. Update Docs. Added Straightest Path operator last night.
Nov 18, 2008. Fix Bug with body to vertex operaton ... Intersect as Vertices.
This operation only intersected and converted 1 destination manifold with the source manifold.
That was a bug. Now intersects with all unselected as designed.
Nov 28 - Dec 6, 2008. Speed Up Point-In-Manifold API Call. Build Scatter Plugin. Update Encrust Plugin. Write Colorize Random Objects plugin.
Dec 8, 2008. Color Randomize at Face Level.
Dec 15, 2008. Updates to random point scattering codes. Minor GUI changes.
Manifolds used for scattering should be smooth and have faces of uniform area where possible for
best random results.
Dec 23, 2008. All recent work related to Scatter and Encrust plugins. Mostly internal changes trying to speed things up. No huge speed gains yet. Some shapes might even be slower. But the GUI is better and the poential for speed is better for next release.
Dec 23, 2008 1:00 PM . Add Constraints to Rotate Random Local.
Dec 28, 2008. Add Color Blur. Fix Shape Extruder bug with With shape and step parameter as float.
Jan 03, 2009. Select Concave Regions. Update Enclosing Hull.
May 03, 2009. Recompile for Wing3D 1.x codebase (different) with newer OTP 13b. No new features.
May 04, 2009. Update ArcBend to have much more power.
May, June --> July 3, 2009. Update to use Padded arrays for es and vp Tables as per Bjorn.
July 3, 2009. Test Encrust on OS X. Seems to work with qhull.
July 5, 2009. Added Scale Random and Nudge Random of objects.
July 5 - August 1, 2009. Updating for 1.1.4, 1.1.5, 1.1.6, 1.1.7, and then 1.1.8.
These versions of wings changed a lot as did the core code.
August 1, 2009. Shift Quads and Shift Quads More.
Sept 27, 2009. Explode Object Postions.
Oct 1, 2009. Bug fix release. Similar Ad Hoc bugs fixed I hope. Also added Random Hull.
Oct 2, 2009. Select by Smaller (Objects, Faces, Edges) see Select menu
Oct 4, 2009. Voronoi / Encrust Logic re-worked a fair amount. Selected Object is target. Locked Objects Subtract.
Oct 12, 2009. Select By Co-Planar (vertex mode)
Oct 16, 2009. Select By Less Convoluted (Skinnier) faces (select menu face mode).
Oct 20, 2009. Shape Extruder ... fix so name is available in Geometry window. Fix Bridge and Prepare Next so work again with new API.
Encrusted Name is also shown in Geometry Window.
Oct 23, 2009. Snap to closest. : Snaps vertices on one object to closest verts on nearby Object.
Oct 27, 2009. Select By Name (Whole Word vs Pattern)
Voronoi Operations now create better NAMES for generated Objects.
Nov 1, 2009. Select Nth Edges (edge mode).
Nov 6. 2009. Turn-Towards family of operations.
Nov 10, 2009. Re-implement Select by Color (faces). Also Similar Mathematical (for faces).
Also fixed a long standing Ad Hoc Similar Bug for faces.
Nov 17, 2009. Packed Array Plugin.
Nov 28, 2009. Dial Chord (edges) plugins.
Dec 2, 2009. Added ability to dial edge to user point.
Also added scaling factor to Packed Array Along Path.
Dec 5, 2009. Updated Bridge Array to run by itself to completion.
Dec 20, 2009. Regression test through this list of features to find old bugs.
Dec 23, 2009. Color Splash for Vertex Mode.
Dec 28, 2009. Fix Path Array with Scale By Frustom to V2.0
Dec 30, 2009. Concentric bodies / Russian Doll plugin.
Jan 10, 2010. Dial Extrusions (Untwist). various fixes for Vornoi Encust delete/clean-up rename problems.
Jan 11, 2010. Contouring Extrusions.
Jan 23, 2010. Color Regions Randomly (body mode).
Feb 22, 2010. Packed Array Circle added (body mode).
Feb 26, 2010. Select Indented or Out-Dented, hard edges or all. Cross Product (Dimitri 's plugin).
Feb 26, 2010. Test and deliver some qhull tools for ubuntu (JHouck).
March 3-4, 2010. Make Similar and Fit On Plugins.
March 5, 2010. Improve Select Similar Mathematically so has small Angle Tolerance by default. Also
make sure it selected mirror faces.
March 7, 2010. Improve Post-Selection for FIT-ON operation fo can me repeated with "D" key.
March 7, 2010. Select Colocated Faces. Great for then doing SNAP-VERTS
(Sometimes is hard selecting colocated faces !!!!). But maybe not so much with this tool.
March 8, 2010. Select Absolute Smallest Edge. (Might help guide weld tolerance picks).
March 10, 2010. Add OFF file import for compatibility with QHULL and CGAL Polyhedral ops.
March 11, 2010. Add Select Diagonal Vertices.
March 14, 2010. Greeble Plugin (directed edges edge mode). Plus move normal randomly (for greeble while in body mode).
March 26, 2010. Continuing work on Greeble Workflows. ProgressBars, More Color Region Options. Etc.
March 31, 2010. Undercovers major API work. Fix Plugin Menus scheme.
Add Color regions to Charts. Duplicate (object) by Colored Region (Helps 3DCoat with Greebles).
April 7, 2010. Upgrade Duplicate by Colored Regions to do extrude and leave a useful face-selection.
April 22, 2010. Add Help Menu ManifoldLab CommandLookup ... intended to supplement this Doc !
May 2, 2010. Ladder Connect (Edge Mode) Added, refined.
May 4, 2010. Strengthen/Enhance Select/Absolute Shortest and Select/Absolute Longest for Edge mode.
now returns N quantity of longest or shortest.
May 20, 2010. Some minor Voronoi Spikiness control changes. Value of ZERO means don't try to control.
May 27, 2010. Added Voronoi Sphere (short cuts for such) to Shapes menu.
June 03, 2010. Added Tilt Random for Faces.
August 18, 2010. Added Export C2, C1, or C3 to Tools menu
Since subdivision level in core OBJ export don't work efficiently.
Sept 25, 2010. Added Scatter on wire frame (edges) and also added Scatter on Surface.
This scatter on surface is not exactly new ... but is a more accurate and usable form of Scatter Near.
It uses a better scatter algorithm and produces a nice distribution of points on surface.
Sept 26. 2010. Fx Scatter to honor stored edge and stored face selections when started from body mode.
Oct 4, 2010. Move Random Hull to Shapes Menu. Added Random Paver shape (think paver stone).
Oct 5,. 2010. Fixed Export C1, C2, C3 on tools menu which somehow was broken w.r.t. grouping and being
compatible with other apps like 3DCoat.. Also added select absolute largest to face mode and made sure would pick one face
per object.
Oct 5, 2010. Reminder that RIBBIT aspects of this plugin suite have been depricated (REMOVED) for the time being due
to changes in Wings3D API. Also added TIME-OUT (NAGWARE) functionality which will be integrated full in some upcoming release.
This is considered to eb an essential feature to help keep you uptodate with the plugins.
Oct 7, 2010. Updated Voronoi Fracture which is like a softer version of encrust. Ultimately it should preserve surface. But not yet.
Oct 12, 2010. Added select OBJECT NEAR CAGE ... (object mode on select menu). You pick some edges on one object ...
and any other objects withing a tolerance distance of the edges can be selected.
Oct 18, 2010. Wrapper for CARVE CSG (Booleans) command line tool, intersect added to ManifoldLab.
So ManifoldLab now supports CSG Boolean operations on Polygon Meshes with same accuracy as Carve CSG project (Body mode operation).
Oct 19, 2010. Performance and accuracy fixes for CSG via better flags. Work on linux compatibility.
Oct 20, 2010. Fix Greeble config file bug.
Oct 21, 2010. Add Visibility concerns to Booleans and also better renaming of CarveCSG Object.
Oct 22, 2010. Compile against new Optigon release of roughly same date. Not so sure this will be backwards compatible. I guess we shall see.
Oct 25, 2010. Shift Quads Workflow imporovement. Please see youtube video. Added a command to orient faces.
Oct 27, 2010. More underlying support for Shift Quads. Better heuristics for creating directed faces. And also for knowing when to stop SHIFT QUADS MORE.
Oct 28, 2010. Fixed bug with Intersect as vertices. This bug is new because of Geometry folders work done recently in core. Added HOURGLASS.
Fix a bug with Similar Traits Ad_Hoc selector where wings_face:vertex_info (depricated ) was being called and messing things up. Crash Dump fixed.
Oct 30, 2010. Shape Extruder not using TEMP folder under Window Vista and 7 so privs not sufficient for writing. FIXED.
Nov 2, 2010. Fixed Topological Rotate (Edge loop). Was broken by API changes in CORE and not quickly fixed. Sorry. Also fixed picking of smaller faces and edges
to work right with multiple objects !
Nov 9, 2010. Fix Shape Extruder so that end caps for open loops are properly oriented and don't appear collapsed.
Nov 10, 2010. Slightly better pre-parsing of shape extruder formulas and reporting of Bad Formulas.
Nov 15, 2010. Much work done to create a registration process. Register against Network adaptor (ONE TIME plus ONE TIME Authenticate).
You don't need to be online all day to use it. Just once to authenticate. Some details still need to be worked out. BUt I would love for folks to start
beta testing registration.
Nov 28. Add much registtration code for future. See Help Menu. Added check for Boolean CAVER tool installed.
Added removal of tidbit items in Voronoi Light Encrust. Added selection of decagons and icosagons. Added better instance exporting. And much more.
Nov 29, 2010. Added Another Boolean operation shortcut Small Spit Big ... which applies the small Volume as a cookie-cutter against the large. Leaves the
dough in place. ( small intersect big ) union ( big subtract small ). Use this with explode some time.
Dec 7, 2010. Added LMB, RMB support to face mode FIT functions and face mode Make similar and other BOOLEAN functions.
Dec 10, 2010. Added Menger Sponge Creation support to Body context menu. Manager to export a Level 5 menger cube by way of Instancing.
Dec 15, 2010. Added a folder of Fractal shape kernels for use with FIT face menu function and recursive placement workflow.
The Work flow involves proper setup of a fractal shape with big "sockets" and little "sockets" which would just be faces tailored to be UNIQUE.
Then you might pre-color them or pre select them and save as a fractal into manifoldlab/3DFract . Please use this for retest of all things related to FIT.
Coincident face selection, FITTING, making faces similar, etc. The magic of the tolerances used needs more consideration.
Dec 25-27. Added Renderman support back to ManifoldLab.
Dec 29-30, 2010. Added some lighting rig to position new point lights at each selected vertex. For RENDERMAN !
Jan 05, 2011. Ported QVORONOI reader from C++ to ERLANG for better interfacing with WINGS3D and for faster upgrades / future upgrades,
including fracturing via tidbit import. Also adding a plugin dummy file for QHULL tool for OSX and LINUX.
Jan 6, QHULL / QVORONOI operations now support option to leave tidbits at separate. Very cool.
Jan 21, 2011. More work to support Instancing, RenderMan RIB export, Compiling Shaders, and much
more. Re-organizing TURN-TOWARDS plugins using LMB, MMB, RMB scheme to reduce menu clutter. Bug Fixes.
Fixed Select Similar Mathematical. Added Scale Local Randomly.
Clean up Similar Traits and re-brand as Reach/Rules.
Jan 26, 2011. Add Select Faces on Same PLANE. Fix RIB Creasing finally. Fix RIB Shader compiling.
Feb 15, 2011. Added Hull Cutting (Plane cut per object face). Inside, Outside, and Keep All.
Feb 17, 2011. Added Scatter at bodies to pur marbles into Voronoi regions. Testec all wings psuedo
voronoi ... freddy kruger style with random plane cuts from a deformed body. Worked well.
Feb 17, 2011. Changed main menus to real "Plug-ins Incubator". Rather than manifoldlab.
March 7, 2011. Substantial additional VORONOI support. Off Export. Point Cloud Import. Etc.
March 10, 2011. Added more TetGen support by way of importing {.ele tetrahedrons with .off vertices }
April 13, 2011. Select By Centroid Distance. Select Vertices near origin.
April 2011. Much work on dialog centering and adding matrix code to Wings3d.
April 2011. Also added combine randomly for groups (rock walls).
April 2011. Added Invert Region on plane.
May 2011. Fix Smoothless so won't split faces outside original region.
Fix Polyhedra as cutter so won't delete lights.
May 31, 2011. Added more Active hint-based instancing rather thanb AUTO-MAGIC instancing.
This fits better with existing Wings3D and is easy enough to use.
June 22, 2011. Lot of work ... a few hours at a time ... trying to smooth out instancing process a bit. More Testing.
Summer and Sept 2011. A bit of a hiatus and then retesting instance code. Refining instance code. Adding Serpinski
Pyramid and Recursive dodecahedron arrangements. General clean-up.
Oct 8, 2011. Added better dashed line support.
Oct 14, 2011. Added Hard Edge Tracer.
Oct 14 through Nov 6, 2011. Working very hard to re-factor and make Polyhedron as Cutter function work
Well with invisible objects and lights and make the code more TERSE. Fixed a bug with Lights at points..
Nov 11, 2011. Finished enhancing Plane-Cutter and Boolean pre-selection and second selection logic.
Also fixed boolean hard edges so that they accumulate rather than getting over written (reported by DIMITRI).
Nov 11-17, 2011. Overhaul Scatter functions for body scattering to edges, faces, vertices and objects to use
a unified wings-like interface.
Nov 17 - 27, 2011. Consolidated selection of larger and smaller elements to a single unified codebase for
better behavior and easier upgrades. Also working with physical sculptors to investigate FOAM lattices
created with MLAB. Created a new MAC OS X release.
Dec 10, 2011. Added RODS and Balls edges substitutions. Foam Report for Julian. Sorted Menus potential.
Jan 17, 2012. Added a fix for ridge-lines that are just digit ZERO all alone on a single line in file ... among other normal ridge-lines. Julians file made this happen.
Jan 24, 2012. Added Loop Extract MRI Slices for Julian.
Feb 2012. Add Group-By for Rods Throwing to ensure less per-object memory overhead.