Using Gumball with the “to object” setting: when a a linear edge of a surface is selected via SO selection, and the edge is lying in a plane that is parallel to at least one world plane, that the gumball aligns along the edge instead of to World XYZ as it does now… Gumball already aligns itself along a line segment this way, but not a linear surface edge.
What I’m looking for is an easy way to drag/move an edge (often a joined edge) normal to itself in that plane. Right now this is difficult to do without some helper geometry - what I do is offset the edge (duplicating it into a curve), reselect the edge, drag/snap it to the offset line, then delete the line.
–Mitch
Also, we can relocate the Gumball origin, but we cannot rotate the axes relative to the part, it always “does what it wants” depending on the settings. A rotate control in addition to the the relocation control would be helpful
RelocateGumball lets you set x and y axes as well as the origin if you keep going, setting points past the setting of the origin- is that what you mean? Also, Ctrl-down and using the rotation controls (or any control) only changes the gumball and not the objects it is controlling. Does that help at all or did I miss the point?
This I never get to work correctly… Most of the time when it involves extensive changes to the gumball with modifier keys I give up, as it almost always doesn’t work the first time (or several times) so I get it done faster using conventional methods.
Hi Mitch - alignment request added to the pile, If I understand you, in addition to aligning to the linear edge, you’d need further alignment to the plane of the surface if it’s planar, right? i.e. Gumball Z to surface normal?
No, actually not… I would like that the Z remain parallel to one of the principal planes. Often this is to move an edge like a roof peak… See image for example.
Can I vote not to keep the Z parallel please. It makes perfect sense for Mitch’s example but when this becomes a feature it will come across as a ridiculous oversight/shortcut. If we are to let the Gumball align to an edge’s orientation, it should also align to the plane of the surface the edge is on.
Actually this will be less obvious to decide for non-planar surfaces and edges that are oriented or curves not in relation to the surface isocurves. Or edges that share surfaces with different orientation (almost always).
Maybe the planes/frames of the 2 surfaces should be averaged or something.
Yes, exactly. In this case it will be completely arbitrary depending on the surface config, whereas what I am proposing has some logic and consistency about it.
Imagine also a single surface composed of 4 straight edges - it can also can be non-planar, so the surface normal will actually vary along the surface edge - so where do you sample it?
Even with a simple rectangular planar surface (let’s say flat on the XY plane), if you move one edge “normal to the surface”, as soon as you start moving it, the surface normal at that point changes. So if you do any successive moves (to adjust) the direction will be different for every move.
I’m not sure this would be very useful either as it’s not really a predictable direction…
