Print at Mar 31, 2026, 10:53:26 PM

Posted by Keet at Mar 27, 2026, 8:37:44 AM
Re: Modeller 3D plugin
The dialog resize is now perfect! This allows to enlarge the preview which is important when you have more complex models.

Testing
I recently needed a model(-part) that looks like a trapezium on top of a thin box.
With the 3DShapeGenerator I created the trapezium and the box as two separate objects because of the 8-point limit.
Then I made the bottom of the trapezium and the top of the box invisible, stacked the trapezium on the box, and exported/imported to get the model I needed. If done very precisely Sweet Home 3D will merge the points where the box and trapezium touch.
I set textures to each side and scaled/rotated where necessary and exported again. I manually edited the obj and mtl files to merge all materials into a single material.
The export with the set textures created the correct faces with the correct texture placement (the f lines in the obj file). For this model that worked more or less: the front texturing looked as a single front although you can still notice the split between the box and trapezium front. This is not something that you can fix with Sweet Home 3D and I still needed Blender to fix the front and back texture placement.

Now to create that same model with the 3DModeller.
Select all four vertical edges and split them.
Select the four new points at the center of the split edges and lower them (Z value) to the correct height for the bottom box.
Select the four points of the bottom box on the left side and move them to the left.
Select the four points of the bottom box on the right side and move them to the right.
This should form the required model of a trapezium on a box.

What I found


Image 01 shows that when you select the four middle points that all values X, Y, and Z still have a value. Only the Z value should show because the other values are different for each point. In other words: only the same values should display, the others should be empty (empty, not 0). This is the same as in Sweet Home 3D when you select multiple objects and only the same values show in the width, depth, and height spinners. It tells the user not to touch those values because they are not the same.


Image 02 shows how it looks when the box sides are moved to the left and the right. Compare this to the image from Blender that shows the same.

Notice that blender has quads for faces, not triangles. In Blender a box starts with 6 quad faces and only after export and import/export in Sweet Home 3D the faces are split into triangles.


Because the 3DModeller only uses triangles there is no edge between the two top points of the square. This is a very difficult problem to solve. You can't automatically add the missing edge because you don't know where such edges should go in more complex models.
I would say use quads and let the save/export split it into triangles when the model is finished. That starts with the box using quads. The first edge split will add the correct edge as in the Blender image. However, I'm not sure if the used Sweet Home 3D functions are capable of quad faces.

The easiest way to solve this is to allow the user to create an edge between two selected points. With the added edge before the extrusion of the box side the result will be correct. And if you allow creating and edge you should try out if you can add creating faces. That could be limited to only triangle faces by selecting two edges or three points to create the face.

Area select
I noticed that when you drag an area to select points/edges/faces it also selects those hidden behind the selected area. See if you can limit this to only the visible items in the selection area. In most cases you don't want the hidden items to be included in the selection.

This is a fantastic but very complex plugin. It will take a lot of time but every step will make it better. Consider that this might be too much work for a single developer. A collaboration with other developers might be wise. For example, I think Xlance has experience/code for texture alignment. That's one less problem to worry about when you collaborate.

Keep it up, you are doing great!
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