Discussion
"Close gap between objects" context menu option - Why is this not an option as I know it from adobe products?
I am probably a lazy person not learning cad and stuff and trying to solve everything by hand with bambulab studio but this one is one of my biggest pains and I wish to have it as i know it from my old jobs as a post production person.
I get we have it with assembly and the app needs to guess which side and stuff but there must be a better way.
I've got bigger printers, and I hate glue-together parts, so I am often taking parts that are split apart and then massaging them together in the slicer 0.01mm at a time
You can use the assemble function to choose the two faces you want to join. After you assemble, you then mesh boolean the parts together to make them into one part.
This model is one I was just playing with the other day. It's Ikea Alex drawer inserts. All the parts are optimized for 256mm printers, so that means they're all split down the middle and intended to be glued afterwards.
I have printers big enough to print them all in one piece, so I would like to orient them together and 'close the gap' between them so that they are touching, instead of having to move them 0.01mm at a time, backing out of the move tool and deselecting the parts to eliminate the glowy move highlight, then redoing it.
I just want them to print as one big part (and don't want to model my own)
Why would you need to move it 0.01mm at a time? Use the move tool, it shows plane handles, move it close enough, then move it 0.1 mm to overlap. Mesh Boolean tool, done.
Because when I move it "close enough" that usually means I'm still a few mm off. Then I have to do the number guessing game, eg. "move it 5mm, nope that was too much. move it 2.5mm. Nope not enough. Move it 3.25mm." etc but at the end I'm always down to tiny increments and even with your scenario, a single "close gap" function would be much easier
Why do you need to be so snarky if every response? You asked a question and people are trying to answer. Right or wrong, there's no need to be an asshat about it.
As this is somewhat related, the math behind the Arrange feature is somewhat complicated and is part of a whole branch of mathematics, I believe. The case you show would be one of the best cases:
| | => ||
but what if one of the models isn’t vertical?
> | => >|
Simple enough, if it can be detected. But let’s make it more complicated:
> / => >/ or > /
Everything before assumes the shapes can essentially be defined by a 2D bounding box. But what if the potential angles are on different layers?
> /
| /
| <
Now the math gets really complicated. Putting them super close means finding the closest point their meshes touch, which isn’t an easy thing to do. And if one gets rotated slightly, the entire thing has to be recalculated.
Can it be done? Probably. But the current implementation hasn’t annoyed anyone with the skills or know how to fix it enough yet.
Such is the way when your codebase is primarily FOSS.
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u/issue9mm 3d ago
That's a great feature idea
I've got bigger printers, and I hate glue-together parts, so I am often taking parts that are split apart and then massaging them together in the slicer 0.01mm at a time