Alignment Tool?

[changedsoul]

Couple of question about the alignment tool.

First, when trying to pick what you want to align, depending on what your hovering near, you get all sorts of points that display, that look  that are snap points? Assuming they are snap points, how do you use them? They never stay visible long enough to move near to snap on.

Mainly I have the problem trying to align the center of a hole with the center of another hole. Is there a key press that keeps them visible maybe?

And the next question, say you wanted to align something to something else....but the way it was drawn requires it to be rotated too. will the alignment tool alow for moving and rotating together? Or will you need to align it first....then rotate .....then re-align...and so on.

For example, align a hole to a hole, and this can be a pivot point, and then align an edge to another edge and have them rotate into place?

Is this possible?

[TrippyLighting]

Yes, they are snap points.

When you're trying to select a snap point for example on the edge of a cube the snal p point tends to jump around. You can constrin the snap points movemement by holding the CMD (Mac) or CTRL (Win) key.

You cannot rotate wit the align tool. Use the Move tool for this, whcih also allows you to (re)define the pivot point. 

[changedsoul]

Great, thats for the CTRL key info, works perfectly. As for the rotating, if your doing a move, you are basically eye balling it correct? The rotation part? Can you get an edge to snap to another edge so you get exact rotation degrees needed?

[changedsoul]

I created a sample to demonstrate what I mean, http://a360.co/2035886

Trying to rotate this so one of the rounded features rotates flush with the top surface of the back plate thingy

[TrippyLighting · Accepted solution]

I prepared a screencast that shows one way of achieving this, but it may not be what you prefer. In order to provide you with better help I need to know where you are headed with the design 

[changedsoul]

Well I thank you for taking the time to create that and show me. I really wasnt going anywhere with that design, it was more of a quick sketch to try and understand how I could go about getting that to rotate to the tangent point. What I drew has no real function, and after seeing your example of placing the stop, I start to see how something like what I wanted really is not practical as something rotating will most likley have some sort of stop.

Thank you very much though, cause you gave me a quick how to on joints and stops.

[Anonymous]

I'm having trouble getting snap points on some imported objects.

This file which I believe I have solved it's editing trouble (by converting back and forth though memento I have edited the file).

In the screen cast, you can see I am snapping two objects together.

However, when I switch to a imported more complex component it will not show snap points for alignment.

This is a demonstration. The ultimate goal is to combine real (scanned objects imported into fusion 360) and made up (designed additions to add to real parts) together to create final objects that can be manufactured.

I understand that once the parts are together I will need to try to stich them. However, I think the first step (please correct me if wrong) is to align both objects.

The screen cast shown in earlier responce seems to work if you have snap points allready availible? Atlest that's what I seemed to undertand watching it because in some operations both sides needed to be selected.

[Anonymous]

I seemingly have found out how to make the alignment tool work in this case.

I used convert mesh to BRep

I am highlighting the place I left clicked to do it on the screencast in case anyone else has the same problem using the Alignment Tool.