How to slide an edge loop to a specific point?

[RobMeade]

Hello,

I'm fairly new to Maya, so please forgive any inaccuracies in my explanation/query.
I'm creating a curved piece of wood railway track (Brio), it has in it two grooves for the wheels of the wooden trains.

I have created the main shape of the track and now want to add the grooves.  I've cut an edge loop in and it has the correct arc, but it isn't where I want it to be.  I know I can use the edge slide tool to drag it, and I have the component editor turned on so I can see the X, Y, X positions of each vertex, however unlike the straight track, the vertices are obviously on the arc so I can't just shuffle each one along a specific axis and have it work.

Is there a way I can use the edge loop slide tool, but either have it snap to a vertex I add at the point I want the edge loop at (4mm from the edge of the model) or, is there a way I can just enter a value manually?  I had been doing this in the component editor for a few things and it was fairly straight forward, but obviously with the curved track, this isn't the case.

In the image above, the vertex at the top on the far right is at 2.0 and I want the next vertex in (selected/orange) to be at 1.6 and have all of the other vertices on that edge loop the same distance from the outer edge.

Hoping this makes some sense... 

Note, I've tried the edge slide and whilst I can get close I can't get "precise".  I also tried adding a temporary vertex on the right hand edge at the correct position and then tried the "snap to point" but that didn't seem to work either and gave quite bizarre results.

As an example of what I'm trying to achieve, albeit on the existing straight track;

The two selected, orange, lines are the edges I would like to insert into the curved track, but as I say, at specific points.

Thanks in advance for any help..

[damaggio]

Use the multicut tool to place as close as possible, you can then add another loop inbetween if it didn’t quite get in the right position and delete the first multicut edge, you can also move the multicut loop with numbers in the channel box inputs.if u want those edges to follow the curve select all those vertices and apply a bend deformed or start fresh with a pipe primitive.

[RobMeade]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

It was the multicut tool which I used initially, I centered it and then slide it to the close-ish position, but its the precision I'm after.  The numbers in the component editor are for each vertex and whilst the ones which are perpendicular to the axis are easily updated numerically, anything on the curve would be incredibly challenging to get right, as I've have to change the values of two axis.

Is there no way to select the entire edge loop and then snap it, but based on say its pivot to another vertex?  If there was, I could set the pivot to be on one of the vertices that was perpendicual, I could then add another "temporary" vert, or perhaps just a locator, at the right position, and then snap to it - I would expect the whole edge loop to maintain its curved etc.

I'm not entirely sure I'm explaining this too well... challenging via words! 🙂

[damaggio]

best way is to bend those edges or start with a pipe, it would be very fast

Deform> bend deformer 

[RobMeade]

Hey,

So, the bend deformer was where I started.  I created a straight piece of track, slightly longer than the original piece and then applied the bend - what I didn't think of at the time was adding the grooves, so now I'm trying to apply those after.

I guess I could start over but that's quite a bit of work, I just assumed there would be a way to snap an edge loop to a specific point...

[damaggio]

making things twice is a good practice , now that you know a better method the second piece will come out perfect.