Align / Array issue

lets say I want to make 6 circles and array them which ever way, no problem.
but, there doesn’t seem to be an align command like in Illustrator, where I already have 6 existing circles scattered around, I can choose the ones on the outside and align them to, lets say a horizontal center and equal spacing between each circle. Now, if they’re all circles, its’ not that big of an issue, because I can work around it, but if they happen to be circles of different sizes or circles and squares, I can’t find a way to work around the lack of this command.
Please, please, please add an object align command.

The correct terminology would be “horizontal distribute” on center, or a point, or however.

Have you tried the “Align” command? Does this not work for you?

No, because there is a difference between distributing and aligning. Say I have a bunch of rectangles, I can align them all so that all the bottoms are on the same line, but I also want to distribute them evenly so that each space between them is the same. I don’t want to array new rectangles, but simply equally distribute existing ones. I made a drawing of what I am referring to… hope this helps: distribution vs align

oops, when I was moving things around, I left one of the red lines behind! :smile:
where it says vertical distribute top, the red line way above should be just above the top of the top rectangle.

I see. I’m afraid Rhino does not have anything that does that at the moment.

Hi Izabela,
In Rhino Windows @Pascal pointed me to a plugin for distributing objects a while ago which I use quite a bit. Not sure if it can be used on the Mac version but I think it is getting close to what you after.

http://wiki.mcneel.com/people/pascalgolay

The plugin is about a third of the way down the page.

Thank you so much for the info, however a .exe file does not work on a mac. I wish they would simply insert a simple button into the program; it seems nescessary enough for most people:)

Hi Izabela,
I too have spent a lot of time in Adobe products and really missed distribute.

I work on the Mac also but because of little things like distribute and some bigger plugins I really miss from Rhino Windows I use Rhino Mac less now and use Rhino Windows via Parallels.

The graphics suck and it is a little slower but I have access to all my plugins which outweighs the downside for me. If I really need better speed and rendering I reboot in Bootcamp.

Maybe McNeel could add distribute to the V6 wish list for both Windows and Mac?

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I’ll see if I can make a version of this in Python that will work on the mac.

-Pascal

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That would be fantastic! Thank you Pascal!
If I had any clue as to how in the world all these plugins worked, I’d make myself a bunch of good ones, but I have exactly 0 knowledge on that:)