Scale tool question

[cunningham]

Hi Guys.

Quick question of on the scale tool.

Is it possible to set it to a default handle arrangement?

I do a lot of work with boards and sheet materials, I'd like to have it so i can quickly grab only either the red, green, or blue handles, and not have to zoom right in to avoid accidentally grabbing scale about green-blue.

NOTE I realize it can be done by using the dynamic components, but I'd rather not have to go through that entire process for every group/component.

Many thanks

[Wo3Dan]

Is it possible to set it to a default handle arrangement?

Yes, DC's can do that but without DC's it's either 8 grips for flat selections and for flat groups and components or 24 grips if the third dimension is included. Nothing you can do about it.

What you can do to make selecting middle grips easier is to include a relatively long hidden line inside the component, perpendicular to the sheet's two largest faces. To "hide" that extra line e little deeper, assign it to an invisible dummy layer.
Now the bounding box will be expanded to make selection of grips easier without zooming in.

If you don't like the idea to put basic geometry on a layer other than layer0, make the line into a group or component, nested inside the sheet group.

[Dave R]

An alternative would be to use the Move tool instead of Scale. With the Move tool you won't have any problems with the scaling of textures if you use them and you won't have to worry about distorting details such as holes if you've drawn them.

[ArCAD-UK]

If you are using textures (woodgrain?) on your sheets you will find the textures distort with scaling. The way round this is to edit the group contents using pushpull or selecting the relevant edge(s) & face(s) and use the move tool. Alternatively after scaling you can explode and then immediately regroup to reset the texture scaling.

[cunningham]

Thanks guys for the numerous responses, all very helpful. I'll have try each to see how easy it is to integrate into my work flow, I tend to only texture the model very close to the end of the process so it doesn't really matter.

[kyyu]

It seems you can set the properties of hiding the scale tool handles, in the component definition itself. Try scaling these parts. Is that what you had in mind?

Hidden scale tool handles.skp

[kyyu]

I've made a plugin and posted here:
viewtopic.php?f=323&t=38888