Align to a
face or a hole

How to use it§ 01

1. Select what should move. One object or several.
2. Click Align to face on the Align tab.
3. Click a face on any object. It does not have to be part of the selection. The face lights up as you point at it.
4. For X, Y and Z, choose a place on the face: Don’t move, Min, Center or Max.
5. Then choose the point of the selection that goes there: its least, middle or greatest.
6. Apply. The whole selection moves as one, so the arrangement between the parts is kept.

Two places on each axis§ 02

On every axis you choose where on the face (the red marker) and which point of the selection goes there (the blue one). That is what lets you do all of these:

Click the wall of a hole§ 03

A hole’s wall is taken whole, not one facet at a time. A single facet of a round hole has its middle off to one side of the hole’s own middle by about the radius. A single wall of a window opening is only one of four. So the tool gathers the whole wall of the hole and uses its middle.

Round holes and pins: the middle is the axis. Holes with flat sides: a window or door opening, a square socket, a hexagonal pocket. The tool finds the walls that close round one line, each as deep as the first, and faces them in. Their middle is the middle of the opening.

The selection is centered on the hole across its axis, and left at its own depth along it, so a window frame goes into its opening without sliding through the wall. All the walls light up, so you can see what was picked, and the panel names it: “a 12 × 8 mm opening in Wall”.

Center face to face§ 04

Its neighbor on the Align tab. Center face to face picks two faces, one on the selection and one on another object, and puts the middle of the first on the middle of the second. It takes round faces and flat-sided holes whole too, and it reads both sizes and the gap, so you know before you apply whether a pin will fit.

Good to know§ 05

• Nothing is turned or resized. Align to face only moves the selection. Center face to face can turn a tilted pin parallel to the hole first, if you ask.
• It is one Undo step.
• The side of an ordinary block is just a flat face. Only the walls of a hole get the whole-hole treatment.
• A slot open at one end is not a hole, and a wall with a rough, textured reveal may not close up: both fall back to the single flat face you clicked.
• To set parts level with each other rather than with a face, use Align to, Distribute and Fit on the same tab.
• To put a part on the plate, use Drop to plate. With an assembly selected and Each off, it goes down as one block.

Windows  ·  Doors