topic Re: How to align two cylinder objects coaxially? in Maya Modeling Forum

How to align two cylinder objects coaxially?

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 19:57:16 GMT

Hi,

I'm making a model to be 3D printed to help guide a syringe to a specific spot in a live specimen. The model of the specimen's bone structure was obtained and segmented from CT scan data in another program, exported as a .obj and imported into Maya as such. The model is created from primitive polygons to help the medical expert guide a syringe to apply sedative in a critically specific location identifiable from the CT scan segmentation. I have a model of the syringe, which is generated from a cylinder primitive polygon and the slot of the model into which it will fit I believe is also generated from a cylinder primitive polygon.

My question is, how can I align two cylindrical objects to be constrained to a common axis? I figure it must be doable since it's a common constraint to set in pretty much every CAD software (e.g. Solidworks, Siemens NX, even autocad, Fusion 360, and Inventor). I get that Maya isn't a CAD program, but if it's not possible to do, I'd honestly be very surprised. Is the axis of a cylindrical primitive polygon in Maya not defined?

In the screenshot, the objects in question are the two highlighted. I'm trying to coaxially align the red one to the green one.

Thanks in advance!

Re: How to align two cylinder objects coaxially?

mihirsbcc — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 22:48:51 GMT

There are 2 constraints, Point constraint and Orient Constraint, Point constraint will snap to the position and orient constraint will adopt the rotation. Hope it helps.

Re: How to align two cylinder objects coaxially?

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 19:36:49 GMT

Thanks, I didn't know about the Point and Orient Constraints. However, I must still not be getting it because I'm trying to Point Constrain a vertex of one object to snap to a vertex of the other and Maya gives me this error message:

// Error: line 0: Target syringe not valid. Targets must be of type transform.

Please refer to additional screenshots attached.

Re: How to align two cylinder objects coaxially?

mihirsbcc — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 19:44:10 GMT

2 steps... first you move your pivot of the cylinder to the vertex and hold
V key snapping to the vertex. then again hold the V key , middle mouse
click and hold on the vertex of the othe cylinder, shake your mouse, it
will snap that cylinder.

Re: How to align two cylinder objects coaxially?

mihirsbcc — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 20:08:21 GMT

From the picture you are in the components mode, thus the error. My solution was for object to object withpoint and orient constrain.

Re: How to align two cylinder objects coaxially?

mihirsbcc — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 20:19:06 GMT

May be this clip will help.

snapping

Re: How to align two cylinder objects coaxially?

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 18:19:55 GMT

Got it! Thanks for your help!