Newbie quesitons

[eyeclick]

I'm trying to change my thinking from Modo to FormZ way of doing things, but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

I did a series of Offset Segments to make a section I could reshape from the inside out 1/4" all around the inside of this drawer.  I tried scaling outwards, but that's not correct in FormZ.  I then Reshaped outward all four sections, and then did the same with three of the corners, but the fourth will not let me.

I can pull it in one direction, but cannot push in either.  I ran the Object Doctor and don't see anything strange. 

cabinett0219.CopyReshape.fmz.zip

 

Another issue is that when trying to select Verts, most of the time it will select all but one.  It is selecting through and most of the time if I rotate the item and reselect it, all of them will be highlighted. 

 

I also did something that is causing the axis of the items to be green up and blue sideways (see temporary guide).  It makes it confusing when I go to move something.  I have no idea what I did to cause this or how to fix it.

 

TIA.

[Des]

Hi TIA,

Regarding the reshape, I haven't looked at your file (not viewing this on my FormZ machine). But it sounds like the object has issues, rare but it happens when doing many reshapes. The object doctor usually does a good job of fixing it (or even the unmesh tool).

 

As for selecting vertices, in shaded display only visible vertices are selected. Switch to wireframe display to select vertices out of view. If your model is very complex when switching to wireframe, use isolate object temporarily. Depending on the object it might suit to select faces or edges instead by command clicking (mac) with also shift command clicking when selecting multiple parts. If an object part is still difficult to select, you can toggle between faces etc. by hovering over the part you want and hitting the tab key until the part you want is highlighted.

 

Regarding the axis. This is FormZ switching planes to match the face that your mouse is over. It's very useful when modelling and manipulating objects for example drawing directly on a face no matter it's angle. If you don't want this you can "Lock the Reference Plane" so it stays on whichever plane you select (XY, YZ, ZX or custom).

 

Des

[Tech]

Hi Eyeclick,

Thanks for posting your file.  Yes, that Resape is not easily removing that little corner in this case.  Thanks for bringing this to our attention, we will get this corrected.  If you snap to the existing geometry and draw a small cube:

 

 

You can then Difference this cube from your snape to get the geometry you want:

 

cabinett0220.zip

 

In general, you should only be able ot select what you can see.  As Des notes, just switch to Wire Frame before Frame Picking the points and you should get what you want.
Does that help?

[eyeclick]

Thanks for looking into the reshape issue and especially for suggesting a work-around.

 

That item was isolated from the rest of the drawing.  I will switch to wire frame in the future.  I was confused because it was selecting non-visible verts as in the pictures.  I thought it was like Modo where a middle mouse drag selects through the object as opposed to a left click drag which was visible only.

 

Is there something like Fredo-scale for Sketchup where you can scale only part of and object?  https://youtu.be/bPbb8PPGtVg?t=99

 

Regarding the axis, is there a setting that would allow the axis to be the same color as the global axis regardless of which workplane I'm on?  If I'm zoomed into a part I would like to always know which end is up, because the move tool doesn't seem to have the local workplane icon that shows up with the drawing tools.  One item item I miss from Modo is the move tool had a three axis arrow so you could move in one direction then click a different arrow to move in that direction or click on one of the three planar directions.

 

Thank you.

 

Thank you.

[Tech]

Hi Eyeclick,

 

We don't have a Fredo Scale, but if you look at the end of the Transform tool row (same as Move) and select the Transform tool, this will allow you control over moving, rotating, or scaling in any direction relative to the origin of the object.

 

Does that help you get what you want?

[eyeclick]

Hi Tech,

I'm not sure how Fredo-scale works, but I think it automatically scales between the base point and the first encountered point and moves everything else attached.  Very useful for resizing things.

 

The Transform tool is handy, thank you.

FYI, I tried watching the video for the Transform set of tools, but it doesn't cover that one. 

 

I also seemed to have broken the Reshape tool.  When I start a reshape, then type in the exact distance and press enter, it just leaves it at the cursor location.

extrudedistance-webm.zip

 

Thank you.

 

[eyeclick]

Can someone please point me to the video that shows how to add a reference photo that can be scaled.  I've seen it in the past, but cannot locate it. 

When I add a photo to a reference plane I don't know how to scale it and when I draw on it with the vector line tool, the line disappears when I end the tool.  I tried to draw a rectangle on a regular workplane and then scale that, but don't know how to add the photo first.

 

[Tech]

You will want to use the Reference Plane Parameters palette.

 

The reference planes video is here:

 

Hope this helps!

[eyeclick]

Hi Tech.

  I appreciate the link. There was a different one where Matt put a floorplan underneath a plane and then measured and scaled something in the floorplan. 

 

Any thoughts on the reshape question?

[eyeclick]

I think I figured out the background thing.  It used the billboard.  I had to make the billboard much smaller and then the tape measure scale trick worked.