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!...
1. Custom fonts DONE
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
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
13. On-the-fly wall defaults DONE
14. Convert Dimension lines to walls DONE USING ADVANCED EDITING PLUGIN
15. Hideable 3D View window DONE
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
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
24. Auto date photo creation
25. Virtual Visitor camera movement without selecting the VV icon DONE
26. Preview textures when importing DONE/SYSTEM ISSUE
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
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...
