I find myself over and over again performing an operation that you could call a "rectangular hull", that is I want to draw a rectangle around some objects while keeping a minimum distance from the objects.

The way I'm currently doing it is shown in the attached video. I basically draw lines of a certain length (the minimum distance) from the outermost objects, then I draw perpendicular guides from the tips of those lines and eventually I draw the rectangle from the corners formed by those guides.

I wonder if there is a faster way, because it involves quite a few steps and I'm doing this rather often.

Any ideas?

Hi Andre, try setting up a shortcut key with BoundingBox as the command name.

Then select your object and trigger the shortcut key to make a bounding rectangle.

Select the bounding rectangle and then run Construct > Offset and type in your minimum distance value and click a point on the outside of the box to control which direction it will use.

- Michael

If you have the Custom UI installed
there is BoundingBox & BoundingBoxCenter (just a point) inside the list ;)
and Offset ! ;)
...on top page

What is "the Custom UI".

I was actually about to say I think MoI needs a menu with all the commands that are currently not discoverable via the UI.

CustomUI is a UI mod that adds some buttons on the bottom toolbar, one of them is for a "Scripts" menu:

https://moi3d.com/wiki/MaxScriptArchive

Look for CustomUI.2.0.beta2.zip near the top


Or also here's one with just the menu:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=10353.1

- Michael

Please remind me how to install this menu. I copied Extras.htm and Extras.js from the zip file to %AppData%\Moi\commands and restarted MoI but no button appears at the bottom.

Hi Andre, this one needs to go into %AppData%\Moi\startup

- Michael

Extras.htm and Extras.Should be placed inside C:\Users\Administrator（you user name）\AppData\Roaming\Moi\startup

如果需要定制你的脚本菜单，请参考http://moi3d.com/forum/messages.php?webtag=MOI&msg=10353.1 Larry、Michael、Pilou还有我的发言。
（If you need to customize your script menu, please refer to Larry, Michael, Pilou, and my comments）

@ Andre

If you have a Windows OS ... the Moi StartUp Folder is here !
C:\Users\your user name\AppData\Roaming\Moi\startup

Maybe this AppData \ Roaming can be hidden !
so first enable Show Hidden Files
Windows is a mess!
Bon courage! :)