Is it possible to align components with other components or bodies using hidden

[Anonymous]

I have a component part of which is a sphere. Those are notoriously hard to align (no snap points).

I was wondering can I create a hidden box in this component and use this box to align the component in final assembly? I don't want to break link and show / hide this hidden component.

[James.Youmatz]

Hi @Anonymous,

Very interesting question! I'm playing around with this now to see the most effective way, but I guess it really depends on where on the sphere you are trying to align bodies/components. For example, tangent may be much harder than an internal point on the sphere. My suggestion would be to use some of the tools within the construct menu to create points and planes within the sphere that you can snap to. Regarding creating a box, you would need to toggle the visibility on to snap to it anyways I believe.

Thanks,

[Anonymous]

I couldn't show / hide object in linked component. 😞 it would be nice to either be able to do so without breaking the link or to use hidden objects for alignment. Or ability to create alignment planes in complex shaped objects (when alignment must be done on curved surfaces).

I need to align object by tangent to bottom most of the sphere. Sphere seems to have only center point selectable.

[James.Youmatz]

Hi @Anonymous,

What you could do (granted it would have to be in the spheres original file), is create a tangent plane based off of the origin plane as a reference plane for the sphere. Then it will be aligned on bottom and once saved and updated in the assembly it should allow you to align via this plane. Granted, once aligned you will need to go back to the original file in order to turn off the visibility of the plane. I do know that this functionality is coming - but hopefully it is sooner rather than later...

Thanks,