Move/Copy - Cylindrical Coordinate System Problem

apadzak

Hi Victor. I just wanted to reduce diameter of a cylinder and changing radius by delta choosing internal axis of symmetry. Instead bringing nodes inside it offsets them and changes shape from cylindrical to ellipsoidal. I used this option in previous versions and it worked fine, even not aligned with the global CSYS.

Victor

What menu items did you use to change the radius? There are several ways that should all work for a cylinder aligned with the global coordinate system.

1) Mesh tools -> Move/copy, coordinate system: Cylindrical. If you choose the wrong axis here, it can end up looking like an ellipse, so perhaps that happened?

2) Mesh tools -> Scale. Use the same scale factor for the two radial directions.

3) Mesh tools -> Fit to curved surface, cylinder.

For an arbitrarily oriented cylinder, you would have to rotate it so it's axis is parallel to one of the global axes before resizing it.

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't see your title so you can ignore options 2 and 3. If it still doesn't work, can you describe which options and values you used so I can reproduce it?

apadzak

Hi Victor. Options 2 and 3 work but they are a bit longer in comparison to option 1 which worked for me in previous installations. Maybe I am doing something wrong this time or it is a bug. Please have a look at the attached YT links.




P.S. I know how to create an iglo tent in Mecway now

Victor

Move/Copy isn't working here because the cylinder's axis is offset from the global axis. The coordinate system used by that tool uses the same origin as the global coordinate system. I forgot to mention this limitation in my first reply. Versions 3 and 4 behaved the same way.

So two remaining options are either use Fit to curved surface like you did in one video, or move the cylinder to the origin before resizing, then move it back again.

You do raise a good point about how convenient it would be to automatically find the location of the axis. This might be an idea for another option.

apadzak

I must have had it then in global coordinate system before so it went smooth. It would be great to be able to create a vector by two nodes, or one node and selecting direction by one of 3 axies (XYZ). I have seen quite usefull tools in Hyper Mesh and Mirror/Copy tool in MY has simmilar option, which allows using a node as symetry reference point - maybe that would be an "easy" implementation?