So basically I’m trying to do something like the distribute option in rhino 6 or the old addable script that lets you arrange objects with 0 gap between them.
I’m trying to find if there’s a better way to do this and controlling the direction, since distribute script works on positive axis; if arranging on X or Z you can just select the inverse viewport (front/back, left/right) so distribute works on the object you want to go first, but on Y axis this is not possible, and when you have lot’s of positioned pieces rearranging them is a nag.
My current workaround that works most of the time is creating a curve so I can just use the distribute with 0 gap but it’s not the most practical solution.
Ideally you could select the first object, then the second (or as many as one may want) and automatically have them “stick” to that first object leaving 0 gap within each other (and the rest of the selected objects).
I don’t know if this makes much sense or not, but is there a tool like that?
So this example is super basic, but the point is that in this case, if I use distribute with Gap=0 it’ll base the movement on the positive Y axis, so the pipe will stick to the wheel and not the other way around. I have no control on to what is the main object on which I want others to distribute-to.
And my problem is that since they are different sized objects moving from one vertex of the wheel and then moving it to another of my pipe will break my alignment (if looked from a top view they are aligned in a specific position)
I think there just may be a simple work around that I’m not seeing. Currently I have to draw a curve, align it to the bottom of the pipe, copy said curve in the same view-plane and align it to the top of the wheel, select the wheel and then move it from a reference point in the curve aligned to it and move it to another reference point perpendicular to the first one positioned in the second curve like so:
Otherwise maybe an improvement for future versions of the distribute tool would be to be able to use it with 2 objects like the original script did (only in gap 0 mode of course as automatic would make no sense, hence the requirement for at least 3 objects) and be able to select the reference object from which you want to space others from, like in Adobe Illustrator.
I think I’m not getting it
How would you move it and keeping the alignment previously had while looking at it from a top view?
if I do it with snaps moving it in the Z axis it “breaks” my alignment in the X-Y axis since the objects don’t have the same size
(aligned with snaps using snaps in mid/int/end or other)
In the latest example, to center it I’d have to go to a workaround again, since vertically aligning them would move the pipe and not the wheel, since the wheel is bigger than the pipe (and the pipe is the object that I want to keep still since it’s referenced against other hidden objects)
Hello - see also the Tab direction lock - using that you can set a move axis in an elevation view, lock the direction and then snap to anything that is at the desired Z.
Dear Pascal, thank you for your replies, I just found the Tab direction lock after you suggested looking for it and it saves me so much trouble, thank you very much for that!!
Also, I see in your video that you have a “between” checkbox in your snaps that I don’t seem to have, yet I found that typing between enables it, but in the video it looks like you do something that changes your snap bar. Any idea what I am missing?
Yeah… if, when Rhino is looking for a point, you hold Ctrl or Shift (two sets of snaps) and mouse over the osnap toolbox, you’ll see the ‘one-shot’ osnaps. These are also in the Tools> Object snap menu.
