I added an object snap to the inside of a face I want to snap to the outside of a face when placed or moved. It always tries to reverse so the inside faces out. I have “reversed” the snap but it does the same swap when moving onto any face.
DC_FlangePVC.skp (731.2 KB)
I don’t understand what you mean, maybe a couple screen shots or very short video, or a model showing what you are trying to achieve?
I have a flange, and a pipe. I would like the flange to snap to the pipe so that its inside circumference is flush and centered around the pipe. I added a snap to the inside of the flange orientated to face the outer face of the pipe but when the flange gets close it rotates 180 so the snap faces away from the pipes outer face. the middle image is what happens, the right image is my goal. I have reversed the snap direction in the component, but it still flips away from the face as in the middle image.
There are a couple of things going on here for you, one is a misunderstanding of how snaps work. Snaps are intended to snap to other snaps, they are attracted to each-other like magnets within your model. In order for your setup to function the way I believe you intend it to you would need to have a corresponding snap built into your pipe as well. These two snaps would be best placed on the radial center of the flange and of the pipe, with their front sides facing outward and with their clocking set to a cardinal point of circle they are centered onto. When snaps come together they also rotate the object they are attached to by aligning the clocking of the two snaps. Also, a side note that snaps must be in the first level of a multi part component, not nested within a sub component.
To activate a snap you need to grab the item in question using the move tool BY THE SNAP. Then the snap will start looking for other snaps, if you press ALT on Windows or Command on Mac after picking up somthing by it’s snap you can activate a visual tractor beam that will show you adjacent available snaps.
Here I have set up a set up your flange and the pipe with snaps on their center axis. I pick up the flange by the snaps and hit the modifier key to activate the tractor beam, this is not necessary as snaps will snap together without it just the same but it helps illustrate what is happening, and can help find a snap in your model. If you work regularly with these components you might set them all up with such snaps.
So, because it takes two snaps to tango, in your example model the snap you have is doing nothing, it’s acting similar to the way any other inferencing point would. What you are seeing is the action of inferencing engine in SketchUp at work, and any point you grab from will behave similarly, looking for other inferencing points in the model as you move around, they could be faces or nodes or midpoints or guides or edges, all of these trigger inferencing points all the time even without any snaps. Whats more, after invoking the move tool you can press the modifier key to cycle through various sets of handles that are available to grab an object, one of which is component center. As a quick example, here I grab the flange by its center and move it to the center point of a pipe using the move tool alone and the inferencing engine without any snaps. First I toggle the handles on the flange to find the center handle and grab it by that, then I hover over the edge of the pipe OD circle telling the inferencing engine I would like to find it’s center, then I move to center and click again.
So, your purpose can be achieved without snaps if it is occasional, this could also be achieved using guidepoints or facilitated by turning on hidden geometry temporarily to see the outside edges of your pipe for inferencing. But if you do this very frequently it might benefit you to build a personal library of components that have snaps to make things quicker. Here is some further reading:
Thank you endless fix.
I was not aware of using Alt key after choosing Move tool to cycle through anchor points. The pipes I attach the flange to sometimes have a centerline but mostly don’t. Being able to toggle find center will be what I needed.
Also did not realize snaps worked in pairs. Thank you for that.
I suppose I could add the second necessary snap to the pipe where I want the flange to go, but being able to inference center of pipe and center of flange to mate up will be less added steps.
Thank you.
mark
did you happen to play with some of the dynamic component options? I tried to make this flange work for most every scenario. Option for either flange to be slip end, blank, or none, option for overall size, gap between flanges (also bolt length) and hide or show bolt nuts (if flange mate with a threaded connection like an expansion joint. I posted it on 3d warehouse so anyone can try it out.
Thank again for your help, getting the inserted component was the last hurdle to copying this over a hundred times in my chemical plant model.
-cheers
Just learned a ton about snaps, thanks!
