2D profile alignment (left/center/right, top/middle/bottom)

adamohern

When extruding profiles, is there a way of creating a graphical alignment input for aligning the profile?

For example, when extruding a rectangle, I may want to align it to top/middle/bottom on the vertical axis, or left/center/right on the horizontal. I currently do this with two enum dropdown menus, but it's cumbersome and unintuitive.

Suggestions?

ilya_baran

Ah, ok, I totally misunderstood what you were looking for.  We currently don't have such a control, so I can't think of a better solution than two enums.

ilya_baran

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking for...  Have you used manipulators and would a manipulator do the trick?  One could imagine an angularManipulator controlling an ALWAYS_HIDDEN parameter whose value is rounded to 90 degrees for actual use...

adamohern

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Here's an example from Frame Generator in Inventor. They're just giving you radio buttons to choose a corner.

A 3D manipulator could work, I suppose, but I haven't seen one in Onshape that would do what I need. I really want to choose one of six positions as destinct alignment locations, not a free-drag. I suppose I could add a 3D manipulator gnomon and then snap to various positions based on where the manipulator is dragged, but that sounds pretty complicated.

ilya_baran

Ah, ok, I totally misunderstood what you were looking for.  We currently don't have such a control, so I can't think of a better solution than two enums.

emagdalenaC2i

Maybe it works better if you can pick a point in the profile instead of one of that six positions. Like weldment profiles do in SolidWorks.

Also you can add the option to rotate and mirror the profile.

We will be love to help in this development if you want.

adamohern

Good idea, but not robust enough. What if the corners are rounded? What if there is no center point on the profile? What if the profile is generated by the feature?

I think the only clean way to do this is with some kind of manipulator. I'll have to think about it.

emagdalenaC2i

If the corners are rounded you can add a point in the sketch of the profile. As you can see here

adamohern

Right, but my feature doesn't use a sketch as an input. The profile is generated by the feature itself, so there is nothing to select.