Automatic 'axis alignment'?

Is there an option to have something automatically sign to a certain axis?

Nearly every item I import never aligns with any axis. So if I want it to align, say with the x-axis, how do I do this without doing multiple ‘moves’ to get it there when I don’t see any reference like “This face is -2.5mm from the x-axis”? That way I could simple set the move to +2.5mm and know it was at 0.

Hi! Have you tried the Align tool?

Ah, thanks for the suggestion.

When I tried, I get ‘mesh bodies cannot be aligned’ message. So what does that mean for me?

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Mesh bodies are not really ideal in a CAD environment. Meshes are just a bunch of triangles, while CAD geometry is made of surfaces and curves. Try to get those files in a proper CAD format, like STEP or X_T. Meshes in a CAD system are mostly useful as reference objects, not as editable objects.

Whelp, lot more learning to do as I really have no idea what either of those are. It was an ‘stl’ file that I imported, and a fairly simple one at that. Might just have to make my own…but boy does that turn this project into a much longer process.

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This is a good read on the topic: Mesh vs. CAD - 3 Space

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