It would be useful to be able to save reference points and also be able to use them to align to and center on.
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Votes
11 comments
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Guillermo Melantoni Would love to hear from others. +1? Not interested?
As usual, the balance between staying simple for entry level and getting more sophisticated for people that need more is the key.
Would it make sense to "unlock" features as you work on Tinkercad?
Or simply have an "Advanced" workspace with more options that keeps the simple Tinkercad away from complexity? -
Bob Krause For me, it would really depend on how it was implemented and how it was accessed. Simplicity and consistency are s important as power.
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Glenn Reimche This would definitely be a useful feature.
There are already features in TC that are more advanced than others. That's just normal app evolution, there's no need to lock them or treat them differently.
For example, as Guillermo recently pointed out in a related post, the alignment tool has a couple of "levels" of complexity that determine which objects move and to where. Most people would use the default, easy alignment methods, but the option is there to go deeper.
For this feature, it would seem problematic to try to position a single alignment point on an object, especially if that point needed to be in the middle of a hole or other empty space. Plus precision would seem both important and difficult.
What I'm imagining is a new ruler helper shape, single axis, that could be applied to one of the 3 axes that TC already uses on every object. You could apply separate rulers to each of the 3 axes as required.
Once in place, you could then precisely locate one or more Alignment Points that the alignment tool would see and add to its selection of available points.
Like the existing Helper Shapes, you could choose to use it or not, would not add any complexity until you use it, and would not get in anyone's way.
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Guillermo Melantoni Glenn, a new helper (along with a better ruler, which has too much complexity), has been in our minds. Let's keep hearing from users.
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ıʍıʞ p ʍǝɹpuɐ Interesting idea. The point would have to be fixed during alignment so other align to it and not the other way around. TC would need a way to choose if more than one reference point was selected
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Guillermo Melantoni That's true Andrew. Maybe we could expose, only for advanced use, some sort of object manager, where you can see objects, groups, and helpers. As usual, balance is key.
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Pbrinton Pbrinton Reference point would have to be relative to a particular surface, and stay fixed relative to that surface upon alignment. (but not necessarily on it; a desired center of rotation for instance might not be on the surface)
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Bob Krause Warning: a big advantage that I believe Tinkercad should maintain is that the can only select one thing -- a shape. I think that an app that allows the user to select either an edge, a surface or a object is a different app targeted toward a different audience. Let that app be 123D Design of you like. But don't make it Tinkercad.
- Bob
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Glenn Reimche I think, based on Guillermo's response to "Requesting Bevel/Chamfer on edges", there is no likelihood of that happening.
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Bill Alford I am new to TinkerCad.
I don't recall working through any tutorial on how the alignment tool works presently.
It is possible I went through it so fast, I was not exactly sure what it was used for.
I keep wanting to align the straight edges of objects at the corners.
It would be useful to have a more thorough tutorial on the subject of alignment.
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Michael Spano I think TinkerCad in its current build is a good balance of simplicity for beginners while having the ability to create complex designs for the advanced users.
In my humble opinion, I would like to see the advanced features that everyone else wants but I feel it should be hidden until an "Advanced Options" buttons is pressed. I also feel this button should be name/labeled as "Go Turbo". Just saying...
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