Drawing & rotating on isometric angles - orientate tools to OTHER than red/green/blue axes - workaround or feature request

SketchUp
,
1

I think this is a new feature request, unless there is already a well hidden way to do this.
Feature is:
An optional toggle button (that always defers to the current behaviour) to allow drawing tools (e.g. circle/polygon/rectangle… and maybe the rotate tool?) to move between:

1 - orientate to red/green/blue plane, depending on camera angle
2 - orientate perpendicular to the most recently referenced line
3 - orientate parallel to the most recently referenced face (or referenced line and the blue plane?)
4 - orientate to the exact angle that the camera is looking from (as if current view is plan view)

This would solve 2 problems I have:

I have a long a tedious workaround to this problem, but does anyone have a faster way to draw a circle perpendicular to a line that is NOT on either the red/green/blue axes.

For example, I have a wire frame and i want to draw a circle with this line at its centre, but sketchup automatically draws all geometry to snap to either the red green or blue plane, depending on camera angle. Therefore if I draw a circle on one of these axes and use the push/pull or followme tool, their will be an elipse rather than a circle that follows my line. (I currently use the line tool to make a perpendicular box to orientate the draw tool with, or change the axes temporarily - both of which are a faff)

The second thing this would solve is the ability to rotate the model better. Though the current behaviour is intuitive and logical for drawing (with only rare issues like the above), for rotating the current behaviour can be counter-intuitive. If the rotate tool could be (optionally) set to rotate on the plane you are LOOKING from, with would allow much more easy and powerful manipulation of complex objects.

For example, I’m currently bending the fingers of a hand, and I’m looking from the right angle that I want to rotate from, but finding it difficult to find a face to reference to get the rotate tool to do what a 2D drawing package would. (I understand sometimes this might make things appear to have worked until you re-orient the camera and see what you’ve really done… but it’d be another avenue to pursue to achieve sometimes complex tasks, and therefore sometimes the best way, and sometimes not…)

PLEASE PLEASE pretty please

Thanks for your time!
thegurumonkey

2

Have you found the cursor keys for adjusting the orientation of tools? Right for red, left for green, up for blue and down for other angles. You can set a tool such as Rotate on an off-axis face and lock it’s orientation with the down arrow key. You can also use Shift to lock in any direction after establishing it. For tools like Rotate, you can also click and drag along an edge or guideline to set the orientation of the tool.

rot
rot662×558 421 KB

Lots of options already available.

2 Likes
3

Thanks for a swift response Dave.

Yes I know about cursor keys, but I’m trying to AVOID red/green/blue in this instance…

Behaviour of shift has changed a little with the rotate tool, going pink-purple and locking more than just the orientation of the tool, but seemingly the centre of rotation…?

THANK YOU for letting me know about
-click and drag on rotate tool
-down arrow lock on rotate tool
That will make my life better! Legend!

The one feature this doesn’t help me with is drawing a circle perpendicular to an off-axis line.
How would you do this?

Thanks again!

q[quote=“DaveR, post:2, topic:69577, full:true”]
Have you found the cursor keys for adjusting the orientation of tools? Right for red, left for green, up for blue and down for other angles. You can set a tool such as Rotate on an off-axis face and lock it’s orientation with the down arrow key. You can also use Shift to lock in any direction after establishing it. For tools like Rotate, you can also click and drag along an edge or guideline to set the orientation of the tool.

rot
rot662×558 421 KB

Lots of options already available.
[/quote]

4

Best option for that is Chris Fulmer’s Perpendicular Face tools.

3 Likes
5

thank you. that is indeed EXACTLY what i was looking for.
Shame the behaviour it isn’t native to sketchup!

SOLVED!

6

Use the Axes tool to align one Drawing Axis to the line.
Then use the appropriate Arrow Key to orient the Circle tool perpendicular to the axis/line.

The user can place and orient the Drawing Axes at will.
The Drawing Axes steer the Inference Engine.
The Inference Engine steers the tools.
Inference Locking (■■■■ and Arrow Keys) puts the tools on rails.

It is.

1 Like
7

@Geo, you seem to leave no room for confusion. :upside_down_face:

8

Thanks Geo.
That is what I was doing already… But I’d call that method a work-around.
Practically everything is POSSIBLE in native SketchUp - but sometimes in a more round about way that is necessary.
There’s always room for improvement… Even with something as awesome as SketchUp!

9

How is this possible?? Push//pull only works perpendicular to the face, so if you push/pull a circle it cannot become an elipse!

Followme is a complete other story, then you have to make sure that your “profile” is perpendicular to the beginning of the path…

10

Try the pie tool:

3 Likes
11

Another excellent solution Mike. Thanks!

1 Like
12

This topic was automatically closed 91 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.