I use sketchup for set design. I often need to move objects, around on a horizontal plane. So it would be great to be able to lock the object to the plane it is on so I could move it anywhere on that plane. As it is, the only way to be sure the object has stayed attached to the plane (for eg. a chair attached to the floor) is to zigzag it using the axis lock feature. Otherwise, for eg., when trying to move an object diagonally across the floor I can’t be sure I didn’t sink it in to the floor or raise it off the floor a bit.
FEATURE REQUEST: Make it possible to lock an entity to the vertical or horizontal plane while moving.
Oh, good ideas! I did not realize that was possible. Thanks. However, I still think it would be a good feature to be able to, say, simply press Alt (or another assignable key) to “glue” the object temporarily to the surface plane.
Two things in slbaumgartner’s animation could use some explaining. He only shows dragging in a straight-line, the drag could have been any direction. Also, the animation suggests that you need to drag next to the corner of the bounding box. You don’t, you could do the drag from anywhere on the face the mouse is over.
Well, that is slick as anything. Works like a charm. Even better, once I reference the surface I can actually move the object off the surface and it still stays glued to the plane. Cool. Thanks John.
Note that this feature ( tool cursor on face > hold down [Shift] when ‘On Face’ > ‘Constrained to Plane’) also applies to drawing tools to keep drawing in the same plane.
