Hi ed,
> well i did wanted the cplane to align with some curve drawn but
> just to rotate the actual plane like you said.
So to keep the views the same and only rotate the plane instead make sure to uncheck "Orient ortho views" and then it will make that happen - when "Orient ortho views" is unchecked the Top/Front/Right views will not have their point of view modified at all, they will remain looking at the exact same spot that they currently are, and so they will see an angled or moved plane inside of them.
> A problem with placing the tool in the origin is that a
> lot of times you are far from it.
In that case then don't do that right-click to make it placed at the cplane origin and instead uncheck the other "Align to objects" option before you pick the point to place the origin.
When "Align to objects" is off the origin point can be placed anywhere you want and the initial axis directions will be the same as the current cplane.
Having both "Orient ortho views" and "Align to objects" turned off should give you basic 2D behavior - you'll probably also want to have Object Snap and Straight Snap turned on in the bottom toolbar. With straight snap enabled you can drag an axis line and it will snap perpendicular or tangent from the origin point you picked like so:
That kind of snapping allows you to align to an object in a more 2D-manner as compared to the default method of aligning the CPlane's z axis to the curve tangent whch makes the entire plane perpendicular to the line (that behavior is enabled or disabled by "Align to objects")
So the key thing to get 2D behavior is to set:
Orient ortho views = Unchecked
Align to objects = Unchecked
By default both of those options are checked (and will be on the first use of every new modeling session), so you need to go uncheck them to get the behavior that I think you're asking about.
> Other problem i see is if you accidentally clic on some axis
> of the tool you change the rotation axis to something useless
> in the current view, you need to go to the 3d view and from
> there change the rotation axis to the original one.
I'm not really following this part - if you accidentally click on some axis you will set the "primary axis" to that one. Once the primary axis is set that means the other 2 axis lines will rotate around that one rather than orient to any free direction.
However, the primary axis is not restricted from being freely oriented, you can grab the primary axis (the one with the dot on it) and still just point it whichever direction you need.
Maybe I do not understand what you are referring to here, I may need to see a more step by step explanation.
> Whith this new "2D" mode i don't see any problem with the
> example you gave me of making a cross section.
If I understood you correctly the auto "2D" mode would not automatically align the z axis of the construction plane to the curve tangent setting it on a plane perpendicular to that curve, right?
In order to draw a cross section at a station along the curve, the cplane needs to be flipped up to be perpendicular to the curve which would not happen if it was only doing a 2D manipulation.
Right now the way it should work is that you can get the 2D type operation if you want by manipulating those 2 checkbox options.
- Michael
