The Grid & Snapping Points

Snapping control points to the grid can greatly assist making man made objects such as buildings and machines.

To open the grid control panel click: grid button

To set snap mode click the snap check box:

snap field

In snap mode when we release the mouse after dragging a control point:

drag-point

the point will snap to exact points on the grid:

snapped-point

With the subSquares field set to 1, points will snap to any corner point in a square.

With the subSquares field set to 2, points can also snap to exact mid points in a square:

snapped-mid-point

The subSquares field specifies the number to divide each square by to set the number of invisible squares within each square.

The size of each square is specified by the scale field.

The number of squares we see in our grid is specified by the squares field.

The xzPlane, xyPlane and yzPlane fields specify the plane the grid will lie in.

The xDim, yDim and zDim check boxes specify which dimensions snapping will be performed for.

The orientation and position fields lets us change the position and orientation of the grid.

Polar Grid

Ticking the polar check box sets the grid to a polar type:

polar-grid

A band is the space between two adjacent circles. The squares field specifies the number of bands we see in the grid.

The subSquares field specifies the number to divide each band by to set the number of invisible bands within each band so that in-between snap points can be set for the bands

A polar grid has sections much like an orange. The sections field specifies the number of sections.

The subSections field is much like the subSquares field except it applies to the sections instead of the bands.

With the snapLever check box ticked, if our pivot point is set to the centre, our lever will snap to any of the lines radiating from the pivot point however we need not have the pivot point set to the centre to have the same snapping orientations relative to the lever because the snapping for the lever is relative to the pivot point not the centre of the grid. However the sections and subSections fields do specify what angle the lever will snap to around the pivot point.

If the snapLever is ticked, the lever will snap in a polar type fashion around the pivot point regardless of if the grid is a polar or square type grid.



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