about scaling objects

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 From:  ello
2911.1 
Hi there,

i just had this idea: what about relative scaling of many objects? for example, you have a number of stair steps and you want to make them thicker.. you select them all, select scale1d, set the initial values as it is now (origin and direction) and now when you scale, every stair step is scaled separately, not as a group like it is now..

maybe it is already possible to do this and i just didnt notice??

cheers,
Ello
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 From:  Michael Gibson
2911.2 In reply to 2911.1 
Hi Ello,

> you select them all, select scale1d, set the initial values
> as it is now (origin and direction) and now when you scale,
> every stair step is scaled separately, not as a group like
> it is now..

The tricky part about that is that to "scale things separately" means to use a different scaling origin for each one.

It's basically the mechanism of picking a single overall origin point for the scale that makes things behave as a group.

It's difficult to have things all scale independently and also give good control over the scaling origin, because it would be awkward for example for the scale command to prompt you to click each different scale origin manually.

One possibility would be to cook up the scale origin automatically, like use the center of each object's bounding box or something like that. But for most purposes that would not really be that useful because after scaling the objects would probably not be lined up with one another anymore, they'd be either separated with some distance between each one, or possibly overlapping and punching through each other rather than maintaining the same relation to one another as they do when using a single origin.

- Michael
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 From:  ello
2911.3 In reply to 2911.2 
hi Michael,

what about using instances of singel objects, or groups?? that way the scaling thing would also be possible...


cheers,
Ello
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 From:  Michael Gibson
2911.4 In reply to 2911.3 
Hi Ello, yup I do want to have an instance mechanism in the future.

But it is going to be a pretty difficult area to implement, I'm not exactly sure when that will happen.

It involves hooking into a lot of different areas such as selection, editing, etc... it isn't something that only affects just one isolated part of the program.

- Michael
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