Snap to grid

edited March 2015 in General

I can imagine two ways of interpreting "snap to grid".

A. Snap to an absolute grid.

B. Snap relative to the original position of the point, line, or shape that you are trying to move.

"Move" tool does (A). "Partial" tool does (A) if you drag a vertex and (B) if you drag an edge.

Let's say grid is set to 100 um. Let's say we have a box at left,bott,right,top = 10,10,110,110. If I move with move tool it moves on an absolute grid. If I use Partial tool to drag the bottom left vertex it snaps to an absolute grid. But if I use partial tool to drag the left side, it snaps to increments of 100um relative to the original edge location.

Actually both (A) and (B) are useful. Actually my point of asking this question is that I have come across several times I'd like to use "Move" tool for (B), or "Partial" tool to move vertices like (B), or edges like (A).

So my point is, it would be quite nice to have a toggle box in File > Setup > Application > Grid, saying "Snap relative" or something.

Just a thought. I know you already have a long to-do list... But this functionality is something that users cannot do in Ruby I think.

David

Comments

  • edited November -1

    Hi David,

    Thanks for mentioning this (and taking care of so much other things by the way :-) ).

    There is a specific reason for the relative snapping of an edge: snapping of an edge makes sense if the edge is horizontal or vertical, but for the general case I was not able to find a good definition for snapping to a grid rather than measuring the distance from the original location. That's why the edges snap relative always.

    For movement in a Cartesian space however these options make sense. I'll add them to the wish list ...

    Thanks and best regards,

    Matthias

  • edited March 2015

    No prob, thank YOU for such an awesome tool!

    I see the problem with dragging an edge and (A) now.

    One possibility: If an edge is vert or horiz, and this hypothetical "Snap absolute" is checked, it would snap absolute. If an edge is any other angle then it would always snap relative, even if "Snap absolute" is checked. (Perhaps this requires a footnote in the Setup window next to the toggle box since it may be not intuitive.) Vertices, however, can always snap either absolute or relative.

    Thanks,

    David

  • edited November -1

    Hi David,

    thanks :-)

    For the snapping - maybe it's also possible to snap an edge such that at least one vertex ends on a grid in absolute snap mode. Maybe that is a good definition for "absolute match" too.

    Matthias

  • edited November -1

    Good thought, I agree, that is the best definition.

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