How to draw a simple line of a specified length and angle?

I’m new to Rhino and I’ve been going through the tutorials and finding that the Help and tutorials are better than most other software I’ve worked with, really good for the most part. Now I’m trying to do some of my own drawings and have been able to figure everything out except the most basic thing: drawing a single line. In AutoCad or TurboCad you simple pick a starting point and enter a length and an angle and you’re done. The angle being based on the Cartesian system of 360 degrees. In Rhino all of the examples I can find involve picking a second point to end the line.

I find the Angled option under Line but I can’t get that to work. The instructions there say to Pick the end of the line, but I want to enter a length. And why does it need a base line, why can’t you just enter the angle?

Any help would be, well, helpful. Thanks.

Have you taken a good look at the help section under “Accurate Modeling”? It talks about the various ways of specifying the location of a point. One of the things it discusses is exactly what you are seeking. On the other hand it’s pretty easy to skim right over it.

1 Like

Hello

  1. Pick up “line” opt
  2. Select “Angled”
  3. Start drawing base line (from where angle will be set up) left click
  4. Set up pivot angle (fe. 45 for ccw, -45 fo cw)
  5. Type length of your line, left click to accept.

Hope it will help
Thanks

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Hi Northmark2002,

in addition to other answers you can enter the angle for the line with the

<

character

after initiatng the Line command, pick the first point than type

<30

note how now you can draw only in directions of 30deg intervals

also check out these pages:
https://docs.mcneel.com/rhino/mac/help/en-us/user_interface/accurate_modeling.htm

https://docs.mcneel.com/rhino/mac/help/en-us/options/modeling_aids_smarttrack.htm

Feel free to ask any questions you have, this forum is a very helpful community!

Aha! That will do it, thanks very much. I had gone through that whole exercise on constraints in the training pdf a couple weeks ago but then forgot about it. I won’t forget it now.

Rhino uses the same syntax as AutoCAD. Pick the polyline command, pick your start point and use the “@Length<in degrees” for example @12<45.

Dennis

Hi,
V5
I have been using this last year or so the line tool, pick start of line, type e.g <30 and get a 30 deg line constraint.

Today I do so, type <20 and get my line, but its not 20, I measure it, its 10deg, try 3 times, each time <20 gives 10 deg.

What is going wrong ?

see attached file, blue lines the <20 give 10.
red is a vert line rotated 20degs. that matches my existing 20deg line.

Steve

I think you forgot to attach the file.

oops, here it is.
chev 20 gives 10 deg.3dm (37.4 KB)

Steve