Does rhino have a "command" to force snap to a selected object?

Rhino
1

I’m AutoCAD user and one of many things I can’t find in Rhino is how to force snap.

I’m aware of osnap settings, but they require caress the object until you move cursor close enough to the specific spot, which doesn’t work if the desired snap position is outside of the object or view area.

In AutoCAD you can do this by simply start the line and type per (short for perpendicular) and then select which object you want it to be perpendicular to.

Does Rhino have anything like this?

Thank you!

2

Rhino works pretty much like that. Any of the Rhino object snaps can be used as a one-shot by either typing the name or using the toolbar buttons provided.

3

So how do I make a line perpendicular to another like in the example above? (note they don’t intersect)
When I start a line and type perp or perpendicular and moving cursor over the line I want it to be perpendicular to it does nothing, clicking on that line simply draws line to the point I clicked at.

After some tests, it seems manually typed osnap commands such as perp overwrites any other enabled osnap options, but yet again, the point where it would be snapped to must be on the object and in the view because you have to manually caress the object to find close enough area before it snaps to it. So, not quite the same…

4

ok your target point is outside the finite line / on the infinite extension of it.

use smarttrack to get this infinite extension
_line click the startpoint
touch the endpoint of the line to get a smarttrack
use a one-shot _PerpendicularSnap (click with shift on the Perp in the Osnap panel)

it works in 3d !
and yes it s a bit different to your 2d sample.

if it s hard to see / find the perpendicular point - a workaround would be to scale a copy of the line by 10 or even 100, draw the startpoint, _align → toCurve will give you the searched target point.

hope this helps - kind regards - tom

5

Thank you very much, this is very helpful!

Just one thing that kind of throw me off, is the “touch the endpoint” - this means it has to be in the view…

I guess it would be possible achieve 1one-click solution with a script of some sort.