Back to Origin

Jim57

When I'm trying out tools, or experimenting with different methods to render something complicated, I keep trying things in the same window until I get it. Things spill all over until I'm done.

Sometimes I need to move a line from where it was last drawn to the origin or (more likely) to one of the axes. Is there any way to snap to them? They don't seem sticky.

Thanks,

Jim

Chris Fullmer

EDIT: I think I misunderstood, and I wrote a long respsonse. Its still below my name, but it might not actually be relevant to your actual question.

Yes, the center 0,0,0 is sticky. Axis lines are not though. But you can moce a component and get it to snap to a red or green axis of movement, then hold shift, then use inference to bring it back to the axis line by snapping to the 0,0,0 axis.

Chris

(Long post, not exactly relevant, but maybe useful)
There is no way to move something back to its component axis if that is what you are looking for. Component axes are not sticky like that. The main model axis is sticky though. So you can move stuff back to the 0,0,0 of the main model rather easily. but moving geometry to its own component exis is not really easy. Its easier to change the component axis to where you want it on the geometry.

There is a formal request submitted to make component axes sticky though, like you suggest. That would be remarkably helpful with Dynamic Components, which often need to be moved back to their local axis.

I hope that makes sense,

Chris

Gaieus

Well, to be honest, I am also not perfectly sure what you asked Jim but following Chris' policy, here are some additional "tips" that might be useful:

To move something to the origin,

select the entity
"grab" it with the move tool at a certain point of it you want to snap to the origin
start the movement then type [0,0,0] (or [0;0;0] on some non English keyboards) where the co-ordinates are represented in the following order: X, Y, Z
finally hit Enter
If you only want to move something to the 0 value of the co-ordinate system - say on the Z axis only - while leaving the two other co-ordinates as they were, for step 2 you can type [,,0] (or [;;0] respectively) instead; meaning that you dont want to change the X and Y values.

You can also lock the movement of an entity on an axis (beside holding down the Shift key) by hitting one of the arrow keys: right for the X, left for the Y and up/down for the Z axis.

watkins

If you would like the axes (red, green and blue) to be 'sticky' then using the tape measure tool. Click twice on each axis to create construction lines. The axes will now be 'sticky'.

Regards,
Bob

Chris Fullmer

Thats a great tip Bob, thanks!

Chris