I know how to work around this issue, but wondered what I am doing wrong to cause the problem.

In this example the blue curve segment will not join the orange segment.

Thanks!

Hi NiteOwl - in order to join the curve ends need to be at least 0.005 units apart, and your curves here have ends that are much further apart than that, something like 0.18 units.

But the trick for your case here is that you won't be able to visually see the difference by only looking in the top view, because the curves are great in that orientation - they are on different z levels, you can see that if you switch to the Front view.

So if you drag one curve in the front view you can get it on to the same level as the other one with an "int" snap and then it will join ok after that. You can also squish them both down by grabbing the corner of the edit frame and squishing that down, that can be a good way to fully guarantee that everything is all on the same plane.

- Michael

Hmmm, I was using "Show points' and 'Object snap' so it did not occur to me to look from the front.

Thanks Michael!

Hi NiteOwl,

> Hmmm, I was using "Show points' and 'Object snap' so it did
> not occur to me to look from the front.

When you're working in a 2D view, object snaps are projected to go through the plane of their base point, so for example if you're drawing a line in a 2D view it will end up as a line that's flat in a parallel plane to the Top view.

That basically helps keep things that you draw in a 2D view to actually be 2D planar objects rather than possibly having some separate portions of the same shape on different levels.

But if you pick your object snapped points in the 3D view it does not do that kind of projection, it goes directly to the 3D point when you're working in the 3D view. The basic assumption there is that if you're working in the 3D view then you want more 3D results and if you're working in the 2D views you want more 2D type results.


You can turn off the 2D type nature of drawing in the 2D view if you want by going to Options > Snaps > Object snap options > "Project to plane in ortho views" . But if you turn it off then keep in mind that if you draw something in the top view and snap just some points of a curve that you're drawing, some of the points of that curve will be on different z levels.

- Michael

Michael... a question I have is related to this one in a way...

Is there any way that I can make MoI force points, curves, etc. to be (not sure how to say this) "aligned" to a specific grid spacings?

eg. if I wanted every point in a project to be forced to be in increments of 0.1 units - that is to say, nothing could be located at 0.09 or 0.11.

Hope that's understandable!

Hi NightCabbage,

> Is there any way that I can make MoI force points, curves,
> etc. to be (not sure how to say this) "aligned" to a specific
> grid spacings?
>
> eg. if I wanted every point in a project to be forced to be in
> increments of 0.1 units - that is to say, nothing could be
> located at 0.09 or 0.11.

Usually you would do this by setting the grid snap size to your 0.1 increment and then turn on grid snap - then every point that you click with the mouse will be at that increment.

If you need to place already existing things onto a grid like that you can turn on grid snap and then either drag or use the Transform > Move command to relocate a specific point on an object onto a grid point.

There is also a plug-in "MoveSliceToPoint" (http://moi3d.com/forum/messages.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2749.36) which can help for moving a set of objects starting all in the same plane to equally spaced increments. I'm not sure if that helps with what you are looking to do or not.

- Michael

>Usually you would do this by setting the grid snap size to your 0.1 increment and then turn on grid snap - then every point that you click with the mouse will be at that increment.

Yeah, I guess there's no real way to do what I mean.

I'm just thinking that sometimes things get a little out of alignment, even when using snaps - not entirely sure how. but often I'll make up a model and then find that some of the points/curves don't line up exactly.

I think another way of saying what I'm after is a lower resolution for positions, so that it's easy to make sure everything lines up.

No biggy! Just hopeful :P

Hi NightCabbage,

> I think another way of saying what I'm after is a lower
> resolution for positions, so that it's easy to make sure
> everything lines up.

Well, that is what grid snap is supposed to do.

If you can find some way that grid snap is not working properly, then please let me know, it would certainly help if you had some steps that I could do to repeat the problem.

Objects are actually made up of a lot of different points, not just a single "position" point, and you probably would not want every single control point in an object to actually be at a lower resolution since it would mean things like spheres for example would be weird and lumpy instead of being an actual sphere.

- MIchael

> Objects are actually made up of a lot of different points, not just a single "position" point,
> and you probably would not want every single control point in an object to actually be at
> a lower resolution since it would mean things like spheres for example would be weird and
> lumpy instead of being an actual sphere.

Yes I was thinking this too :)

I guess I mainly mean end point / curve joint (but not control points).

If I figure anything out I'll let you know! :)

Hi NightCabbage,

> I guess I mainly mean end point / curve joint
> (but not control points).

Grid snap should work for placing those type of points on to a grid.

But if you are dragging objects around after you have drawn them, it is certainly possible to get an end point off the grid if you end up placing some other point of the object on to the grid instead.

For example if you grab a line by its midpoint and drag it around, you will then be actually placing the midpoint of the line onto the grid and that may mean that the endpoints aren't on the grid. So if you're dragging objects around and want them to end up on the grid you probably want to drag them by their endpoints, or possibly use the Transform > Move command to reposition pieces instead of dragging, since you can then put a base point for the Move to be somewhere on the grid and not necessarily actually on the object like will happen with dragging.

- Michael