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Move or align an object to an absolute position on a single axis only


Kenji

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This was originally going to be a question, but in typing the question I worked out a solution. It took me a while to find, so I thought I should share, I hope this isn't too presumptuousfor a noob.. :wink:

 

I was trying to work out how to align or move an object to an absolute position on a single axis without affecting it's position in the other two axes. This is actually two problems, but this kind of works for both

 

An example of alignment is a bolt sticking out of the top of a box. Say I was too lazy to draw a hole in the box but I wanted the head of the bolt to sit on the surface of the box. ie I want to align the centre of the top of the bolt shaft with one of the top corners of the box, in Z only.

 

An example of moving to an absolute position is the problem of moving an object to z=0 (if it's not a primitive or block, where you can change the Z in it's properties)

 

I think this is new in 2010 as I couldn't find the same feature in 2009.

 

So the process is. (This is with Dynamic input on, I'm not sure of the other process)

Click on the object you want to align. You'll see the move gizmo appear somewhere on the screen. It looks like a set of axis markers in blue green and red, but has no arrows.

 

Right click on the gizmo (sometimes it helps to activate a constraint direction by hovering over an axis marker until it goes yellow).

 

Go to: Set Constraint -> Z (..say if you want to constrain movement to Z)

It will now prompt you to move, but we haven't set a base point yet.

 

Press the down arrow and select 'Basepoint' (or type 'B' then Enter)

 

Using Object Snap select the point you want to align

 

Now select the point you want to align with. It should align in Z only.

 

For some reason the last step doesn't work if you type in absolute coords, as in #0,0,0 .. so I'm currently aligning with something I know is at 0.

 

Hope someone else finds this as useful as I will.

 

Note: if the gizmo axes are facing the wrong directions, set a ucs in the orientation you want, then right click on the gizmo and go to; Align Gizmo with -> UCS

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