Some years ago, I requested a script to set a midpoint to in the center of a drawn line without actually making the line. @pascal* was nice enough to write them. I thought that they deserved their own thread, so that others might use them.
Even with Rhino’s plentiful assortment of snaps, I find that I still use them almost every time I use Rhino. They are very basic and simple but useful tools. Who are they for: people who make things with a lot of parts.
The first tool sets a point in the middle of a stretched guide line, without making a line. (really it does, but it deletes it afterwards.)
Just for illustration, here, centerpoints are marked in these boxes.
The Midpoint is useful for:
- Adding points to blocks
- Adding center points to a dense collection of objects, where it’s touch to pick out the edge you want.
- Helping add midpoints to some objects which snaps may not snap to, but other points are available, such as snapping from quad to quad.
- Lazy, but handy: setting a point at half of your grid snap distance.
- Laying out SubD faces.
The second tool-ett is a variation, which sets a point at the end of a measuring line.
To use it, I set a start point, and then type a length and/or angle, and then pick or ortho-coinstrain the endpoint direction, like drawing a line. It leaves an end point at the length.
Here, I am measuring out 2 similar lengths. In this case the grid would work, but you get it.
Dragline.rui (7.4 KB)
Basically, you can load the 2 tools like any toolbar, and if you like them, you can copy them to the tool bar of your choosing. Like anything else in this world, back up often, use at your own risk : )
Note: a script error will occur if an object is already selected on their invocation
(but this has not yet caused a rip in the time-space. : )
Thank you, Pascal
Brenda
