Newbie Alignment and subdivision question

[weirdgyn]

Hallo,

I'm a newbie into Wings3D use and into 3D modelling but I found Wings3D very nice and I'm willing to learn more.
I'm mainly using Wings3D for electronic components 3D design. I'm using the 1.5.0 release (manifoldlab patch) since I need the CSG.

I have a couple of problems:
1) how can I align one shape 'face' to those of another shape without deforming both shapes? Up to now I simply get the X, Y or Z coordinate of the face I wish to align to then I do an absolute move (checking 'moving object') of the matching face in the shape I wish to move. The result is good but I hope there's a some more easy and speedy way.

2) As I stated before I use CSG to create passing holes in shapes. After using this particular tool the resulting shape inerith some new 'hard' edge due to the subdivision of the 'drilled' faces. This subdivision (that's perfectly logical for me) seems to be a little confusing for some VRML viewer (unfortunately the final target of my whole job). Such viewer seems to fail understanding where the surface has its new 'hole' maybe because the surrounding polygon it's neither a triangle nor any other convex surface. I found that exporting to STL then re-import the STL mesh before converting to the final VRML object forces Wings3d to increase subdivisions (turning also hard edges into soft ones and strange shaped polygons in simpler convex ones) and this seems to fix the VRML viewer issues.
How can 'manually' force Wings3d to operate the subdivision that is intrinsically done in STL mesh export?

Thanks everyone for any Help!

Best Regards

[Fonte Boa]

how can I align one shape 'face' to those of another shape without deforming both shapes? Up to now I simply get the X, Y or Z coordinate of the face I wish to align to then I do an absolute move (checking 'moving object') of the matching face in the shape I wish to move. The result is good but I hope there's a some more easy and speedy way.

If i understand right:

( a ) Select the face to be aligned
( b ) Left click in Face|Put On command
( c ) Click on the target face and right click to Execute

[weirdgyn]

how can I align one shape 'face' to those of another shape without deforming both shapes? Up to now I simply get the X, Y or Z coordinate of the face I wish to align to then I do an absolute move (checking 'moving object') of the matching face in the shape I wish to move. The result is good but I hope there's a some more easy and speedy way.

If i understand right:

( a ) Select the face to be aligned
( b ) Left click in Face|Put On command
( c ) Click on the target face and right click to Execute

Only in some cases not in general. I try to be more clear using an example. Let's say I have two cubes of different sizes. I need to align one of the face of the smaller cube with a specific face of the larger cube. Put-on will just put the smaller one on the center of the target face of the larger one... I'm attaching an example with both. Green cubes what I need red cubes result of put-on procedure.

[Fonte Boa]

With your attached files, i understood the question.

I would use another approach to reach those results, instead Face|Absolute Commands|Move.

Align edge to edge.

( a ) Select an edge in the face you want align.
( b ) Right click on Edge|Absolute Commands|Snap
( c ) Re-select the initial edge, right click to continue
( d ) Select the target edge, right click to continue.
( e ) In Snap window, check "Move object" and click "ok".

Just remember: at (b) step, you have to right click on Snap command.

I've recorded a video to show you the process.

[weirdgyn]

With your attached files, i understood the question.

I would use another approach to reach those results, instead Face|Absolute Commands|Move.

Align edge to edge.

( a ) Select an edge in the face you want align.
( b ) Right click on Edge|Absolute Commands|Snap
( c ) Re-select the initial edge, right click to continue
( d ) Select the target edge, right click to continue.
( e ) In Snap window, check "Move object" and click "ok".

Just remember: at (b) step, you have to right click on Snap command.

I've recorded a video to show you the process.

Well that's better but still it's not what I mean. When I use this procedure the 'moving' edge is aligned to the middle point of the
target edge. In some case this should fit my needs but still it's not the optimum . I just need them to be put on the same 'plane'. Lets say I have two faces A and B with (center) coordinate Xa, Ya, Za and Zb, Yb, Zb I need to make Xa = Xb without affecting other coordinate.

---

Selecting the two faces and using Tools->Align->Axis perform just what I need but moving both objects (and this of course it's not what I need).

[Fonte Boa]

Do the same i did in video but using Vertice instead of Edge:
( a ) select the first object
( b ) call Vert|Absolute Commands|Snap (right click on it)
( c ) select the vertice to be aligned (in the first object)
( d ) right click to continue
( e ) select the target vertice (in the second object)
( f ) right click to open numeric input
( g ) click "ok" to execute

---

Here is a video showing the workflow.
Remember you can use Snap to align vert to vert or to edge or to face,
an the same for faces and edges.

[Fonte Boa]

Another approach. If i understood correctly your example and your attempt using Tools|Align|Axis, this is the way to align an object face to another object face in JUST an axis, and keeping the target object static.

( a ) Select the target face
( b ) Tools|Bounding Box|Save Bounding Box (*)
( c ) Deselect all
( d ) Select the object face you want align to saved Bounding Box
( e ) Tools|Bounding Box|Move to Saved BB|(choose an Axis)

Here is the video: