Simple Alignment Tools

[rms_adsk]

The current aligment tools in Fusion 360 are very impressive. They handle all sorts of hard cases, and clearly a lot of thought went into them.

However, for the easy cases, they are actually kind of a hassle. To do something simple like align the center of one object to the center of another, 
I had to jump through a lot of hoops (I had to create components, learn about making components active, create joints, etc). 
While it is true that I now know how to do some powerful things, it is still cumbersome, and the initial UX was really not very good.
(I literally spent about 3 hours figuring out how to align one object to another).

My Idea then, is to incorporate some quick-and-simple alignment tools as well. 
I found myself really wanting the kind of alignment tools we see in 2D vector graphics editors.

For example, here is the alignment panel from Inkscape, an open-source tool:

The tools are basically variants of "align-side-to-side" and "align-center-to-center". These are not sophisticated tools, and they operate on bounding boxes rather than snap points/planes/etc.They don't make a lot of sense in a generic 3D view, but when I am in (for example) a top view or side view, these simple bounding-box level tools would let me get a lot of my alignment tasks done very, very quickly. 

Similarly, it would be awesome to have these tools when working on a Sketch, Using these simple alignment tools I can use a sort of constructive approach that will let me very quickly "compute" things that would otherwise be a lot of work. 

Also, many users who are less familiar with CAD, and ideas like point-to-plane snapping, are going to know these kinds of tools (for example Powerpoint has literally the exact same tools as Inkscape). 

[lure23]

Since you mentioned Powerpoint...

I love the way Keynote and some other OS X programs (please carry on.. this is not Mac specific) doesn't have such tools, but still does it. You drag an element, and it automatically snaps to all kinds of relationships, figured for us, during the drag.

Omnigraffle Pro screenshot

Different line types and colors highlight different relations. This is very addictive - once I had grown to like this, there is no going back to "I choose this relationship between these.." at least not for 2D graphics and presentations.

So. Would it make sense to bring this to the CAD world? Has some product already done it?

To fully appreciate this, one would need to try or at least see a video. I can grab one if requested.

[rms_adsk]

Recent versions of PowerPoint do this too. And I agree, snap-dragging is usually really nice. However for really complex vector drawings I find that it breaks down - there are too many irrelevant snap points, and things end up either misaligned or you have to zoom in like crazy and be very careful. At that point, I think an explicit tool is preferable.

Anyway, what you are describing would be nice too, but it is more complicated to implement. I'd be happy with the explicit-button versions.

[lure23]

I agree.

[Oceanconcepts]

Something very much like this has been on Ashlar Cobalt all along, whenever you move an object or position a feature.  It's workable for complex drawings because you have a readily available palette to choose what sorts of relationships you want to snap to or align with at any moment- so I can just chose to activate center, edge, surface, or midpoint snaps, or 45°, 90°, working plane, align X,Y,or Z, whatever. This was what I missed most coming to Fusion. 

Ron