Set Rotate Axis to line

Rhino
,
1

I’ve wondered since shortly after starting using Rhino, why there is not an option for Rotate3D to set the axis to a line. It seems like it would be pretty straight forward to have the tool set the rotate axis to the two points of the line. Quite often I find myself rotating a part on its edge and this would reduce the number of clicks as well as the possibilities of error due to the wrong point being picked. I realize there are several ways of approaching it, but I keep coming back to the idea that this would be a smoother workflow. I’m interested to hear any other thoughts about this.

2

Hi Ryan -

I’ve written that up as RH-90365 Rotate3D: Allow Picking Curve
-wim

3

rhinopython/spb_Rotate3D.py at master · CADacombs/rhinopython · GitHub
is a script that wraps _Rotate3D with an added option to derive the rotation axis from a line, arc (through its center and normal to its plane), cylinder, cone, or torus.

(The UseLastAxis option is not included.)

4

Thank you, I appreciate it.

Excellent, I thought about giving this a go, but I just haven’t felt like I had the time. I will try it out in a little bit. Thanks for sharing.

5

RH-90365 is fixed in Rhino WIP

6

@KelvinC
Using a line as Axis is great.

I do not understand the concept of using a startpoint-Endpoint Axis from a Curve.
Is there a typical use case i miss ?

For a curve i would expect that same behavior as for _cplane _curve
select the curve, select a point on the curve, the tangent will become the the Axis of the rotation.
This will add functionality to the command - at least for lazy people that do not use _cplane…

defining start and endpoint - can be reached with the standard approach of clicking 2 points - the start and end point…

kind regards - tom

7

@Tom_P

This was requested by @wim in the initial report of RH-90365. He would be the best person to answer your question.

8

Sorry for the late response I just found this as a draft response I never submitted.

My main objective was to gain access to straight lines and segments. Off the top of my head, I can’t really think of how I would use the semi-arbitrary lines assumed from an arc or end points of an arc, but my intuition says that the end points are geometrically more reliable points to reference.