topic Re: Align corners of a rectangle in AutoCAD Forum

Align corners of a rectangle

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 20:57:34 GMT

If I have 2 parallel lines that are 12 inches apart, is there a way to align an 18 inch long rectangle such that one corner is on one of the lines and the opposite corner is on the other line.

Re: Align corners of a rectangle

marko_ribar — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 21:30:19 GMT

Use trigonometry to determine angle of orientation, then draw line that crosses those parallel xlines and finally use ALIGN command to align rectangle at desired position...

Re: Align corners of a rectangle

Kent1Cooper — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 22:27:36 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:

If I have 2 parallel lines that are 12 inches apart, is there a way to align an 18 inch long rectangle such that one corner is on one of the lines and the opposite corner is on the other line.

MOVE the rectangle so that one of those desired corners [I'll call it CornerA] lies anywhere on one of the Lines [via PERpendicular or MIDpoint or ENDpoint Object Snap]. Draw a temporary CIRCLE with CornerA as its center, through the opposite corner [I'll call it CornerB]. ROTATE the rectangle, using Corner A as the rotation base point, and with the Reference-direction option, using for the Reference direction the direction from CornerA to CornerB, and for the new direction the INTersection of the temporary Circle with the other Line. Erase the temporary Circle.

Re: Align corners of a rectangle

LyleHardin — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 23:05:01 GMT

Yes. In geometry and CAD, Circles are your best friends!

Re: Align corners of a rectangle

Kent1Cooper — Sat, 19 Mar 2016 12:41:55 GMT

.... [via PERpendicular or MIDpoint or ENDpoint Object Snap]. ....

... or NEArest Osnap, or using positional Snap. or ....

Re: Align corners of a rectangle

wai1954 — Sat, 19 Mar 2016 20:35:44 GMT

Draw a circle that has the diagonal of the rectangle equal to its diameter (Circle, 2P, then pick the diagonally opposite corners of the rectangle as the two points). Move the circle so that it intersects both lines.

Now move one corner of the rectangle to one intersection of the circle and one line, then rotate the rectangle about this point so that the diagonally opposite corner is at the appropriate intersection of the circle and the other line.

If you want the two alignment points to be the endpoints of a long side, use that as the circle to assist you.

Erase the temporary circle.

Re: Align corners of a rectangle

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 13:38:43 GMT

Thanks Kent. I knew there had to be some relatively simple way to do this.