Draw a square from center

darkhelmet · 13 Jun 2009, 15:33

Maybe I used the wrong search string ("draw square from center") because the closest I could come was a YouTube tutorial on drawing a rectangle - no mention of centering. Or maybe it's not possible the way I think it should be.

I drew one square and I need another on top, but smaller, and centered. Just as the circle and polygon tools allow, I thought the rectangle tool would also allow drawing from center - not. Is there maybe a plugin to allow drawing a square from center? I tried 4 sided with the polygon tool but cannot get the sides to constrain straight.

Gaieus · 13 Jun 2009, 15:38

Why don't you use the Offset tool on the original square to draw an exactly parallel but smaller sqare (or in fact any shape)?

My other suggestion would've also been a 4-sided polygon but if you don't like it...

Jean Lemire · 15 Jun 2009, 18:58

Hi Darkhelmet, hi folks.

Five ways that come to my mind beside the two that were already described.

NUMBER 1

You can use a double midpoint inference to grab one square by its center and position it to be coincident with the center of another square.

The procedure is like that:

1 - Select the square to be moved.

2 - Select the Move Tool.

3 - Hover the cursor on one side of the selected square untill you get a pop-up message stating "Midpoint".

4 - Immediately hover the cursor on any of the two side that is adjacent to the one you just used untill you get the same pop-up message.

5 - Move the cursor near where you think the center should be. You shall see two dotted lines linked to two black dots on the two edges that you used with a pop-up message stating "From Point".

6 - Click to grab the square. It will be grabbed from its center.

7 - While still carrying the square with the cursor, bring it to the other one and repeat steps 3 to 5. When you get the double inference with the pop-up message "From Point" and the two black dots, you know you have found the center of this square. Click to place the first one there.

NUMBER 2

1 - Draw a diagonal into each square.

2 - Grab one square and its diagonal by using the center point of the diagonal.

3 - Move it untill you get a snap from the diagonal of the other square.

4 - Delete the diagonals.

NUMBER 3

1 - Draw the first square.

2 - Group it.

3 - Copy the group.

4 - Paste in place. The pasted copy is selected.

5 - Select the Scale Tool.

6 - Scale the square by using one corner handle together with the CTRL key (on PC) to obtain a symmetrical scaling action.

7 - Explode the group to merge the smaller square on the surface of the larger one.

NUMBER 4

See attached SU file from Scene 1 to Scene 5.

NUMBER 5

See attached SU file from Scene 6 to Scene 10.

Just ideas.

Concentric squares.skp

EscapeArtist · 16 Jun 2009, 00:03

How about the Tools on Surface plugin and the Centerpoint plugin? That would allow a square from the center of the face.

darkhelmet · 16 Jun 2009, 14:50

Gaieus, your suggestion seemed to work the easiest.Gonna try Jean's suggestion also, but would be interested in the plugins EscapeArtist mentioned. Where do I get these two plugins?

pilou · 16 Jun 2009, 15:01

Tools On Surface (free) by Fredo6
Center Point At Smustard (free) by Todd Burch

Ps If you use the polygon Tool and press Shift, that block on the axes the rectangle drawing

Gaieus · 16 Jun 2009, 19:16

@darkhelmet said:

Gaieus, your suggestion seemed to work the easiest...

Well, maybe in this case it does seem to be however listen to all the suggestions above as you may need different tools in different cases and it's always good to have various solutions at hand. (You could even use the scale tool and so on)

Charlie__V · 16 Jun 2009, 20:17

How about one more.
Context click the axis......move...rotate blue axis +45°
Draw..... circle...enter 4 for the number of sides.
Draw your "square circle" from center allowing the radius to reference the red/green axis.
When done, context click the axis again....reset.

Best
C

Jean Lemire · 22 Jun 2009, 20:00

Hi Darkhelmet, hi folks.

Dont use a circle with 4 segments to draw a square. Use the Polygon Tool instead. With a circle, the smoothed properties of the endpoints will be set to true and if you extrude you will have to unsmooth the resulting edges.

To get the square to have its sides parallel to axes, rotate it by 45° after drawing it, providing that you also drew the radius parallel to an axis.

Just ideas.