FormIt 2022.1.1 Is Now Available
by Josh Goldstein, 11 January 2022
Hi FormIt fans,
We're ushering in 2022 with an important update to FormIt 2022.1!
This update, known as FormIt 2022.1.1 (v22.0.1 under the hood), applies to all platforms, but customers using Dynamo or the Plugin Playground in FormIt for Windows may be especially interested in the fixes we've included.
We'll highlight the main improvements below, but you can also head over to the full release notes for Windows, Web, and iPadOS.
You can get the update now for Windows (also available from the Autodesk Desktop App) or launch the updated version of FormIt Web. The iPad app should update automatically from the Apple App Store.
At the end of this post, we'll also outline some nice out-of-cycle improvements that have gone live since we shipped our last major release.
Here we go!
FormIt + Dynamo Scaling Fixes
This release was primarily driven by a critical issue where Dynamo results would be scaled incorrectly when FormIt was set to metric units and the SelectFromFormIt node was used.
That's fixed with this release, but it did result in some changes to how FormIt and Dynamo interact with respect to units, particularly when editing graphs in Dynamo.
We'll run through these changes here, and we've updated our Dynamo documentation with this information as well.
Here's what's new:
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After placing the first FormItLengthString node in a graph, all numbers in the graph intended as dimensions (including raw number inputs) will now refer to meters (Dynamo's native unit under the hood).
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The SendToFormIt node will account for the change and ensure generated geometry in FormIt remains the correct size.
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Conversely, removing all FormItLengthString nodes from the graph will switch raw numbers to refer to whatever FormIt's unit settings are (the old behavior).
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The numeric output of FormItLengthString nodes will also be in meters as a result of this update, but this won't impact the size of the geometric results in FormIt:
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When editing a graph that uses one or more SelectFromFormIt nodes, switching between raw numbers and the FormItLengthString node as above will require re-selecting the geometry for each SelectFromFormIt node, so the results continue to be scaled correctly in FormIt.
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This change primarily affects graph authors who are upgrading old graphs to use FormItLengthString nodes, so this inconvenience will be rare, and only applies one time during the graph authoring process.
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Subsequent edits, once FormItLengthString nodes are established in the graph, will not encounter this behavior.
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When working with small numbers or geometry, you may need to set Dynamo's geometric scaling to small to ensure graphs continue to generate results after this update:
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In Dynamo, go to the Dynamo menu > Preferences > General > Geometry Scaling > Small.
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The small geometry scaling setting above will need to be applied to certain old instances of the 3D Text sample graph that are embedded in existing FormIt sketches.
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If the 3D text is specified at a height of around 2" or less, it may fail to generate results.
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Simply edit the old graph and set it to small geometry scaling in Dynamo, or use the new 3D Text sample, which has been updated with the correct geometry scaling setting going forward.
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The FormItLengthString node is the best way to specify a linear dimension in any unit, and with all the changes above, it'll now work properly with the SelectFromFormIt node when FormIt is set to non-imperial units. Rejoice!
Other FormIt + Dynamo Fixes
We fixed several other bugs and issues around the FormIt + Dynamo connection, including:
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We fixed an issue where the SendToFormIt node would fail when the input geometry contained null items in the middle of the list.
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We fixed an issue where selection-based Dynamo graphs would generate results in the wrong location when changing the group edit context while Dynamo was running from the Properties palette.
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We fixed a crash when a Dynamo group was selected and the .dyn JSON values were manually overridden with incompatible types (for example, a number slider input with a string value).
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We fixed an issue where Dynamo graphs would not respect the local coordinate system in some cases.
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We fixed an issue where the "Extrusion Depth" input in the Solid Utilities > Extrude sample was not marked "Is Input."
Plugin Playground and Plugin API Fixes
We fixed a few bugs with the Plugin Playground, the integrated FormIt plugin development environment which can be installed from the Plugin Manager:
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We fixed an issue where the Auto-complete API documentation links would fail to open when clicked.
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We fixed an issue where the "Start Recording" button in Plugin Playground on Windows would do nothing when clicked.
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We fixed a few broken APIs including WSM.GroupInstancePath methods.
FormIt 2022.1.1 and 2022.1.2 for iPad
We've also made two critical fixes in FormIt for iPad. These shipped a while ago, and were in two separate releases, putting iPad a version ahead of Windows and Web.
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FormIt 2022.1.1 for iPad
- We fixed a crash in certain cases due to an incompatibility with OpenGL.
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FormIt 2022.1.2 for iPad
- We fixed an issue where sample materials would download to the FormIt sketch without any materials.
- We fixed an issue where sample materials would download to the FormIt sketch without any materials.
Out-of-Cycle Improvements
Some FormIt offerings are decoupled from the main application, which allows us to ship improvements continuously without requiring an app update.
Usually these changes don't get any airtime on a blog post, but since we've got you here (and if you've read this far):
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We now include scene camera data when saving FormIt sketches to Autodesk Docs:
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We drastically overhauled our FormIt JavaScript Plugin documentation, in collaboration with Matterlab:
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We've also since fixed several documentation regressions, including missing pages, outdated information, and other missing content that happened during this overhaul. Thanks for bearing with us!
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We made several improvements to the Plugin Manager, including:
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We added the ability to search for plugins:
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We added the ability to choose between loading and installing plugins at the bottom of the Plugin Manager:
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We added a message when uninstalling plugins clarifying that behaviors and UI may remain until the application is restarted.
- For example, the Lumion plugin will not disappear when uninstalled until FormIt is restarted.
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Speaking of Lumion, we fixed an issue where the Lumion plugin was automatically installing on FormIt Web when it was installed in FormIt for Windows.
- Lumion is not supported on FormIt Web, so if you see it listed as "Installed" in the Plugin Manager in FormIt Web, you can uninstall it.
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We added a couple of new plugins, which can be found in the Plugin Manager in FormIt for Windows and Web:
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We added a Group Swapper plugin, which allows swapping all group instances in the current editing context with another group instance.
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We added a Sort Materials plugin, which allows sorting in-sketch materials alphabetically in ascending and descending order.
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We made several improvements to existing plugins we provide, including:
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We improved the experience when changing an existing location to a new address in the Set Location plugin.
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We added Auto-complete for FormIt JavaScript API calls to the Plugin Playground plugin.
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We added a message to Plugin Playground that using it in an incognito browser window is not supported.
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We overhauled the Validate + Clean Model plugin with an improved interface and the ability to work on both Windows and Web equally (previously limited to Windows).
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We fixed an issue where Generate String Lights was failing to create a thickened catenary cable.
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We fixed an issue that could cause Properties Plus to hang the application when selecting surfaces with thousands of smooth faces, or other selection sets with a high object count.
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As always, drop us a line on the forums if you have other issues to report or ideas for the future.
In the meantime, we're working hard on the next major release alongside other Autodesk products this spring. Stay tuned, and stay warm!
The FormIt Team