Ldcad part alignment

[Victor Di Rienzo]

guys im making a little off road car with suspension.




What i noticed is that when i want to align some parts that are in angle i cant due the grid. its there any trick how to align the part.if i momve the connector "red" the 1x1x1 grid its not thin enough to snap as its expected. and if i move the part the it will not get aligned with the one that its behind.



also is there any trick to align object when they are not aligned?

[Philippe Hurbain]

Three tricks that come in handy in this kind of situation:
- If you select a part before adding the new part, the new part will use previously selected part orientation. This will work here, select the blue angled beam before adding the white one. The white beam will have the right orientation and you'll just have to use snapping to place it exactly on pins.
- Use relative grid: in the previous case, default orientation of parts could result in the need of rotating the added part by 90° in the local orientation of the part. pressing "o" with the part selected will allow to do that (see http://www.melkert.net/LDCad/docs/basicEdit, "building at angles" section).
- If none of these tricks are enough, then rely on LDCad angle measurements and triangle closure tool. (see http://www.melkert.net/LDCad/docs/advEdit, "shock absorber section" and LDCad Youtube videos).

As a general rule, I never use fine moves and visual placement when doing a model, except when the model relies on flexiblility of parts, forcing me to distribute the error to compensate.

[Victor Di Rienzo]

Three tricks that come in handy in this kind of situation:
- If you select a part before adding the new part, the new part will use previously selected part orientation. This will work here, select the blue angled beam before adding the white one. The white beam will have the right orientation and you'll just have to use snapping to place it exactly on pins.
This trick i use it allways but it looks that i did not implement this when i was building this part of the car.



- Use relative grid: in the previous case, default orientation of parts could result in the need of rotating the added part by 90° in the local orientation of the part. pressing "o" with the part selected will allow to do that (see http://www.melkert.net/LDCad/docs/basicEdit, "building at angles" section).

After i wrote the question i found this also in the software. but i feel that its better the other solution you mention upper.


- If none of these tricks are enough, then rely on LDCad angle measurements and triangle closure tool. (see http://www.melkert.net/LDCad/docs/advEdit, "shock absorber section" and LDCad Youtube videos).
This one i was not aware.

As a general rule, I never use fine moves and visual placement when doing a model, except when the model relies on flexiblility of parts, forcing me to distribute the error to compensate.
Good to know.

thank you very much. i was thinking also an option that can be added to ldcad, its to copy properties from other bricks to current selection. like color, angle, position etc.

[Roland Melkert]

Also to get the white beam 5 aligned you could use a temporary axle (pin) in the blue 4x4 lift-arm to use as a guide.

It will snap auto rotated after which you can use the relative grid on it. Then place the pins and the white beam while using the HOME key when dragging them into the scene.

I was thinking also an option that can be added to ldcad, its to copy properties from other bricks to current selection. like color, angle, position etc.

LDCad 2.0 will have a property editor integrated into the workarea it will allow for setting properties of multiple objects at once.

[Orion Pobursky]

- If none of these tricks are enough, then rely on LDCad angle measurements and triangle closure tool.

Really?!? I've been doing all my calculations with scratch paper and a spreadsheet and this functionality has been in LDCad all along? This is awesome and I feel like an idiot.

[Philippe Hurbain]

Really?!? I've been doing all my calculations with scratch paper and a spreadsheet and this functionality has been in LDCad all along? This is awesome and I feel like an idiot.

I guess I should have realized when you published your spreadsheet, sorry!

[Orion Pobursky]

I guess I should have realized when you published your spreadsheet, sorry!

To be fair, I’ll still need the spreadsheet for unknown intersections.

[Victor Di Rienzo]

here we have other good example, that cross my self yesterday, and i spent lot of time trying to align the axes, as you can see they are not snapped as it should be they are aligned by eye. and they are not well done.

may be a way to select a face and copy the properties (angle,etc) due in this kind of pieces you have an angle and its very complicated to align the angled axe with the black birck.

[Max Martin Richter]

Seems that something with your snapping doesn't work correctly.
I tried this just now and finished with all axles aligned after a couple of minutes.

Maybe you should check the settings of your shadow library or your snapping setting in LDCad itself.


  Testbuild.PNG (Size: 39.95 KB / Downloads: 201)



Max

[Victor Di Rienzo]

Seems that something with your snapping doesn't work correctly.
I tried this just now and finished with all axles aligned after a couple of minutes.

Maybe you should check the settings of your shadow library or your snapping setting in LDCad itself.





Max

i was able to remake the part, using relative grid and was much faster it took me a pair of minutes. but as you can notice, this brick has an angle of 157.5 degrees, the default grid cant make smalers steps that 1°

so we can only make an aproximation, by the moment if good for me

thank you very much.

[Orion Pobursky]

i was able to remake the part, using relative grid and was much faster it took me a pair of minutes. but as you can notice, this brick has an angle of 157.5 degrees, the default grid cant make smalers steps that 1°

so we can only make an aproximation, by the moment if good for me

thank you very much.

Do you have part snapping on? Mouse over the grid and see if it says ps or gs

  88E48E19-43D5-42F8-B390-4B2A09E8CB09.jpeg (Size: 30.97 KB / Downloads: 184)

[Victor Di Rienzo]

Do you have part snapping on? Mouse over the grid and see if it says ps or gs

yes i do have selected part snaping

[Victor Di Rienzo]

yes i do have selected part snaping

i have just realize, in the version of mypc PART SNAPING its not workin.

i have being building models since last year placing by hands the bricks like a jedi. lololol

now i have installed a portable version (archive) version ld cad and part snaping works like chamm....


does some one know were to enable part snaping from the configuration file. it looks like in the PS shipt+p its not working on the version i have installed.

probably when i did start with ldraw i made a big mess..


I will remove all aio ldraw installer and install ldcad only and lpub tnx. i will let you know how it went.

[Victor Di Rienzo]

ok, i did my back up. and while i was re installing i did deleted all the backup of special arrows i did (its late), and some pbg files i did make.

now i have reinstalled ldraw ldview and lpub3d.


snap works.

but now i need to work the pbg files and see which bricks are missing or with errors.


i cant believe i spent so much time with the part snaping working i thought the way i was using it was as it was designed.


UPDATE: all its up and running. i made lots of mistakes deleting things that i should not have to delete, but now its working great.

[Max Martin Richter]

Good to hear, that it works now.

As mentioned above, I think, there was a problem with the shadow library. The shadow library includes snapping information for most of our parts.
Please read here for more information.

Here is how it is configured on my machine:
   

/Max

[Magnus Forsberg]

And what's wrong if I can't pick that file after clicking on "Browse folder"?
I can see that csl-file if I click on "Browse archive" or if I use Explorer.

I too have never really understood how to activate part snapping. I use LDCad like I used to use MLCad.

[Philippe Hurbain]

CSL is an archive so you have to use " browse archive" instead of "browse folder". But default configuration after install should be ok ?

[Magnus Forsberg]

It turned out I had to doubleclick on that file, not only stay on the folder level, even though it only contained a single csl-file.


This is my main issue using LDCad.

EVERYTHING seems to be reconfigurable, and once you get lost it is virtually impossible to get back to a "default" state.

How do I get rid of that part snapping information? The red and blue crosses.

[Victor Di Rienzo]

Good to hear, that it works now.

As mentioned above, I think, there was a problem with the shadow library. The shadow library includes snapping information for most of our parts.
Please read here for more information.

Here is how it is configured on my machine:


/Max

max for me this was the problem i think. probably when i did trying to make it all work, i deleted the shadow library. from the path. im near 100% sure i did that.

thank you very much.

now when im board i open ldcan and play with snapping lol

[Max Martin Richter]

How do I get rid of that part snapping information? The red and blue crosses.

Just press the 'F11' key. ;-)

[Roland Melkert]

This is my main issue using LDCad.

EVERYTHING seems to be reconfigurable, and once you get lost it is virtually impossible to get back to a "default" state.

I do like options

You can reset the config by deleting the config folder in
%appdata%/LDCad
while the program is closed.

[Victor Di Rienzo]

Bro you can align that white part with new one with orientation, Thats will be work make sure the white beam have complete measurement and then you can snap the Pins in it or strips liteblue

The problem was that i did not have shadow library working.
.

[Philippe Hurbain]

The problem was that i did not have shadow library working.

Victor, the post you answered was a spam. I thus delete it...