Aligning objects to Cplane

Rhino Rhino for Windows
1

How can I rotate objects so that they are aligned with the CPlane? I tried to rotate with Gumball aligned to object and use the Ortho snap, but this Ortho is aligned to the Gumball axes and not to the Cplane.

2

Hi John- If you know two points you’d like to align to a Cplane axis, use Rotate, snap the center to point one, first reference point to point 2, and then use Ortho to align the rotation to the X or Y axis. Orient will also help, with similar inputs but I’d use Project on OSnaps with Orient since it is not constrained to the plane like Rotate.

-Pascal

3

A simple method involving only Rhino commands without scripting, etc:

  1. Pick three locations on the objects which you want to lie on the CPlane and create temporary points at those locations. I use a layer I call “Temp” to create such objects in.

  2. Use ProjectToCPlane to project the three points to the CPlane with Delete Input Objects set to No.

  3. Use Orient3Pt to orient the objects to the CPlane.
    a) Orient3Pt
    b) Select the objects to be oriented
    c) Select as the three reference points the temporary points which were created on the objects
    d) Select as the three target points the points which were projected onto the CPLane.

The objects will be oriented to the CPlane. The order which the reference and target points are selected determines the orientation on the CPlane.
1st reference point goes to 1st target point.
2nd point will be on a line from 1st target point extending through 2n target point
3rd point will be on the plane defined by the three target points, which will be the CPlane since the three target points lie on the Cplane.

If you want to align the objects so that they are parallel to the CPlane but not on the CPlane proceed as above to pick and create three temporary points for alignment. Duplicate those three points, and use SetPt so set the height of the duplicate points above the CPlane. Then use Orient3Pt to orient the objects to the 3 duplicated points.

4

Alright, thats what I was looking for…but why the hell is this absolute basic feature so complicated in rhino?
Other programs have an extra command for aligning objects to the coordinate plane (which I consider is elemental…)

1 Like
5

Hmmm … I think RemapToCPlane does that.

6

Only if the object is aligned to a different CPlane.

7

Absolutely. Setting the CPlane to the object and remapping can be done with a simple macro:

! _-Select _Pause _CPlane _Object _RemapCPlane _CPlane "Top" _CPlane _Previous

Works with single planar object selection only.

c.