How to move to absolute coordinates with the move tool

Rhino
1

Hello!
Something I thought I knew… cannot seem to find this in the help files.
How would I enter absolute coordinates when in the move tool, but leave out axes that should remain unchanged?
I’d expect something like
,5,
to move to absolute 5 in y, or
10,
to move to absolute 10 in x, leaving y,z unchanged, but move throws the error “unknown command”.

Thanks!

1 Like
3

There’s always boxedit in the meantime.

4

In combination with the Gumball, yes. But ist there a old CAD trick for the Move command?

5

Hi Eugen - relative coordinates, which is what I think you mean, can be entered with

rx,y,z or @x,y,z

e.g. r0,5,0 r0,0,10

-Pascal

6

Hi Eugen -

image

If I want to move this circle so that its center point keeps the current x-value but needs to be on Y=10, I start Move and pick the center as the From point.

image

I then type .x and select the center of the circle again.
That constraints the movement along the y-axis.
image

I then type 0,10 to place the circle where it needs to be.

– Reading what Pascal wrote and rereading your original post, it looks like I was thrown off by absolute vs relative…
With this workflow, for the last step, you’ll type 10 and pick the point above or below the current location.
-wim

7

Thanks, guys!
Actually, I did mean absolute coordinates (Relative I know). Pick an object somewhere (not necessarily at it’s bounding box borders), and define one of it’s coordiantes to be at some absolute position.
I feel stupid, but after fiddling around I still don’t understand a few things (must be using the Gumball for too long, and rarely the old cad coordinate syntax)

  • What does .x mean (or .y or .z)?
  • Why do I have to enter 0,10 (or whatever) when the axis is already constrained?
  • How can I do this in a 3d view?

Intuitively, I’d expect entering the coords in the form , , 23 would leave x and y unchanged, but sets z to 23. Obviously this does not work like so.
No worries here, it’s mere interest.

Thanks!

8

Ah, OK - .x, .y, .z then.

Move > pick move from point.
.y > type 10 and enter.
snap to the move from point to finish. (point osnap will find it)

-Pascal

9

Look for “point filters” in this Help article. Actually, since you are curious now, that whole section is really helpful.

https://docs.mcneel.com/rhino/8/help/en-us/index.htm#user_interface/accurate_modeling.htm?Highlight=coordinates

11

Ok, this is what I was looking for!
.x
.y
.z
.xy
… are point filters. After entering one of these, either a value can be entered, or a point be picked, to define this coordinate. Then, a second point has to be picked to “fill in” the other coordinate values (that was the part I stumbled over).

Thanks everyone!