Centering on layers

[toddmaci]

Is there a way to center top and bottom and left and right within a square on a layer. Think of a canoe paddle. I have a square on one layer over the paddle end and want to carve letters into it. When I hit the center button it centers it on the whole piece rather than the paddel part.I have partworks. Thanks for the help

[tkovacs]

Todd - the align vectors operations should do this:


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[knight_toolworks]

odd shaped pieces are hard to center on. you use the controls terry as marked. you click on the pat you want and holding down shift select the item you want to center on. this only works if the item is regular shaped. the paddle you can center edge to edge but if you wanted to center on the blade end to end it would not work with the handle attached.

[curtiss]

Can you create some temporary geometry, say a box around the paddle to center on ??

[toddmaci]

Terry, Steve and Curtis,
Thanks for the help. I have three letters and I want to space them equal distance on the paddle. When I use the buttons it puts the letters together and then centers them as if they where a word rather than initials.( ie: C C C)

[toddmaci]

My work around has been to center it and then tab over the left and right letters the same amount.

[knight_toolworks]

this is something they changed in the last update I did not like. you need to group them before centering. so get them spaced like you want them and group them then center them.

[myxpykalix]

Heres how i would do it. First do a C3 to zero to your corner. Move bit over to find center on your material as illustrated with the red X then write down those coordinates.

Then do another C3 then manually find the center of the orange box and write down those coordinates. Make sure the orange box on the material is the correct size in your part file.

Also keep in mind that any carving you do on the face of paddle will have to be done at the depth AFTER you carve that part of the paddle and if the paddle fin has a slope to it you will have to accomodate for that too.

So then when you are ready to do the carving for the fin use the coordinates from the orange box you wrote down for the center of that file. Hope that helps.

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[knight_toolworks]

or make three boxes spaced evenly and center the letters in the box.

[bleeth]

Todd:
Place a regular shape over just the blade part of your paddle and use that as the centering boundary. Layout the letter spacing the way you want, group them and then center on the shape you created. Delete the shape.