snap to grid

[Anthony Reilly]

Hi All,

Switching from CAD to VW ... have set grid snap to 1' (ref grid same) and the snap grid is highlighted in the Constraints menu, but I can't get the cursor to snap to the grid.

Suggestions please.

Thanks

Guy

[Jonathan Pickup]

is this in 2D or 3D?

are you drawing something, or just moving the mouse around the screen?

[Anthony Reilly]

I'm in Top/Plan view and it doesn't matter weather I am drawing or just moving the cursor around the screen. It won't snap to the grid.

Thanks,

Guy

[michaelk]

The curser itself doesn't "jump" to the next grid snap, but if you watch the curser position cues in the lower right corner, you will see that it is jumping to the grid snaps.

Try drawing a rectangle with the grid snap on and the view zoomed in enough and you will see that the rectangle corner jumps to the next grid snap ahead of the curser.

You wouldn't want the curser to jump between snaps, because you often want to snap to or acquire a smart point that isn't on a grid snap.

hth

michaelk

[Anthony Reilly]

Hmm. The saga continues. While drawing rectangles or moving a rectangle (2D or 3D) it did not snap to the designated 1' increment. This is a simple thing, but I would use it a lot. I know there's something I must have missed in the settings.

Thanks for the suggestions,

Guy

[michaelk]

What version of VW are you using?

I just did a test w/ VW 2009. When dragging rectangle around, it snapped to the grid as expected - unless, of course, the curser was following one of the faces of the rectangle. In that case it was snapping to an object.

Turning off the Snap to Object constraint (but leaving the Snap to Grid on) made the rectangle only drag in grid snap units.

michaelk

[Anthony Reilly]

Michaelk,

Thanks for the inspiration! I went into SmartCursor Settings and turned off "Acquire Smart Point if the mouse stops for: .5 seconds." I can now snap to the grid and still align with other objects.

Thanks again,

Guy

[michaelk]

Glad you got it working.

You can also use ESC to "clear" the smart points if you accidently hovered over the wrong point for 1/2 a second. I use smart points all the time and I find it easier to clear unwanted points than to use the T key to manually acquire them.

michaelk

[Bruce Kieffer]

Sorry to jump in here late, but I can't move a complex object and keep it on the grid without turning off snap to object. Disabling smart points does not help. My solutions have been to turn off snap to object while moving those objects, or make the move by entering data in the floating data field, or use the move command, which I dislike because I can never remember which way the object will move based on + or - entries. Any other options you can think of?

[michaelk]

Bruce

Does Shift-Command-Arrow do what you are looking for?

michaelk

[Bruce Kieffer]

Bruce

Does Shift-Command-Arrow do what you are looking for?

michaelk

Yes and no. It's cool that Shift-Command-Arrow moves an object one grid increment, something I never used before, but will in the future. I grab and drag objects, that's what I'm use to doing.

[Ray Libby]

Instead of trying to drag objects a set distance use the Move command. Ctrl+M.