Geo STUDIO Now With Radial Menu Interface

A minor release (Version 3.5.1) has just been released. Although intended as a bug patch release we did introduce one major new feature - Radial Menus!

The Radial menu system puts the entire UI at the artist's fingertips. This significantly increases GUI usability by eradicating mouse movement up to the toolbars and time searching for the needed feature or tool. The radial menu is context-aware so a different root radial menu is shown when nothing is selected but different menus are opened if there is a Group, Poly-type, Vertex or Text node selected. Finally, there is specific menu available if a tool is in operation. The radial options are either operations/tools that can be directly invoke or a submenu that will replace the current radial menu with its children options if activated.

The radial menu can be opened by pressing and holding the right mouse button. Since the Right Mouse Button in Geo is bound to the trackball manipulator of the scene - Geo waits for 250ms and checks if no mouse movement has occurred. If not, the radial menu is opened. This allows the operation to co-exist with the traditional trackball without the need for any hot-key use (i.e. SHIFT + Right Mouse Button).

The radial menu will continue to be displayed while the right mouse button is being dragged. If the right mouse button is released over a menu action (indicated with white text), that action will be invoked, Otherwise the radial menu will close. If the mouse moves over a submenu action (indicated with yellow text) then the radial menu will be replaced by the submenu's child menu.

To return to the previous menu - drag the mouse to the center "hub" circle. If your cursor is already in the center "hub" circle and you wish to pop back another level - drag the mouse in a small circular movement out of the hub and back in.

With nothing selected the following radial menu will open...

Drag the mouse down to the Create SubMenu and the radial menu will immediately switch to the following image. Note that the white hub circle is now displayed to indicate that you are navigating a radial submenu...

If you release the right mouse button now the StripFace tool will start, but if you drag the mouse to the Shapes SubMenu then the radial menu will immediately switch to...

If you release the right mouse button now the Cube tool will start but if you change your mind and wish to go back - drag the mouse to the center hub. As soon as the cursor reaches the hub - the menu will immediately switch to the previous menu...

Lastly if you wish to go back another level (but the cursor is already in the center hub - as in this situation) flick the cursor out and back into the hub, as shown below...

Then the top-level menu for this context will be displayed and since we're not navigating a radial submenu - the white hub indicator is no longer shown

Using the Radial Menu system dramatically speeds up the artist's workflow and productivity and is a power feature found in many modern 3D tools - well, now Geo STUDIO users can also get to experience and benefit from this great new capability.