Several Tool Behavior Questions

[Hutch]

There are a few things about using tools in SU that have me a bit perplexed. I’m sure the issues are with something that I don’t know or understand. I can’t illustrate the issue I have with the Line tool; but I’m enclosing a file that I think will illustrate the other 2 issues.

1. When using the Line tool, I can sometimes move the cursor after having drawn a line between points and the cursor continues to draw as I move the cursor away from the last clicked point. At other times, no line follows the cursor movement. I cannot discover any difference in the way I’m using the tool. Sometimes line drawing stops after the second click and sometimes it doesn’t.

Is there any way I can control when it does and when it doesn’t?

2. The Offset tools doesn’t always behave as I expect it to. As I understand it - from reading tutorials - I should be able to repeat an offset by placing the cursor in a new area and clicking (or double clicking) the offset tool. This works sometimes and sometimes does not. I have been careful not to introduce unnecessary movements or clicks. I’ve even selected the next area intended for offset lines before invoking the offset tool. Sometimes it repeats and other times it chooses a random offset distance. You can see an example in the rectangle to the left of the house walls in the attached file. I created the 6 major areas then used the Offset tool to set a 10" offset within the rectangle at upper left. I repeated the offset by moving the cursor and double clicking. It worked as I moved left to right then back to the lower left; however the offset distance changed as you can see in the 2 areas at lower right.

Is there anything I can do to make this behavior consistent?

3. In the attached file, you should see that the stone wall appearance painted on the side of a model of a house is oriented in a vertical alignment on a horizontal wall. This happens for reasons unknown to me and not invoked intentionally by me. The walls were painted with appropriate horizontal appearance but something causes the orientation to change.
   central entry foyer.skp (9.6 MB)

I don’t know, and have not been able to discover, what is causing this. Can anyone suggest what is causing it? . . . what I might be doing wrong?

[Royce]

@Hutch

When using the Line tool, I can sometimes move the cursor after having drawn a line between points and the cursor continues to draw as I move the cursor away from the last clicked point. At other times, no line follows the cursor movement. I cannot discover any difference in the way I’m using the tool. Sometimes line drawing stops after the second click and sometimes it doesn’t.

I make it a habit to press the escape key after making each line. That way it doesn’t draw another line until I click again.

[ateliernab]

@Hutch

When using the Line tool, I can sometimes move the cursor after having drawn a line between points and the cursor continues to draw as I move the cursor away from the last clicked point. At other times, no line follows the cursor movement. I cannot discover any difference in the way I’m using the tool. Sometimes line drawing stops after the second click and sometimes it doesn’t.

line drawing stops if the last point you click already existed and is not part of a group or component.

in this video, on the left, it’s just raw geometry. and as soon as I close a face, line tool stops.
on the right, it’s a group. and you see the face doesn’t appear and the line tool is still active, because despite looking the same, the group won’t interact with the lines.

if the line tool is still active and you want it to stop, just press esc like Royce says.

@Hutch

The Offset tools doesn’t always behave as I expect it to

yeah. from time to time (on the pro at least), when I click on the face and move, it automatically offsets to a random distance.
I’m pretty sure I’ve had this issue on PC only, and at least for the past 4-5 versions.
I don’t see it as a major issue, since you can type the offset value during or after.

@Hutch

This happens for reasons unknown to me and not invoked intentionally by me. The walls were painted with appropriate horizontal appearance but something causes the orientation to change.

well if you right click on the wall faces, and go texture / reset, you’ll see that for some reason the materials have been rotated / scaled.
I couldn’t tell you when / how / why.

you could also use the eyedrop to pick the material on one face and apply it to the next face, seamlessly.

[slbaumgartner]

The offset glitch might possibly be due to a tiny mouse movement as you click. That’s easy to happen if you are moving quickly among faces to create offsets on them.