how to make colinear vertices

[bullet1968]

I may have asked this before so forgive me. In the attached image you will see the red circled verts...I want to pick the 2 blue verts and get the rest to line up with these...not on any axis just on line with the blue ones. I have tried a few things but they dont snap correctly...any ideas??

cheers bullet

[chilledoutredhead]

what happens if you just select the 1st two then the rest of the verts and scale them along x axis (if you are working along the z axis) ??

[bullet1968]

No mate I am not working on any axis...thats the trouble...lets say I make a box sub 8 times or so then cut a 45° angle on it and do some modelling and soem verts stray...I want to be able to line them up again without scaling, cos then I have to rotate and they are then out of position in scale..if you get my drift?

[LauriePriest]

Essentially you could create a curve by snapping with points one a two then use the extend curve function to extend along the existing curve direction.. then use that as a to snap to.

Or if you want to be crazy cool about it you could write a python script to handle it given your point selections. Though would invove alot of trig, would be a very useful tool.
Would probably look something like this, where the first two vert selected definte your axis and the rest are the point you want to snap it to, again no language just the rough idea:
selection = points[]
bounding box size of selection = bbox[]
bounding box size of selection[0, 1]= bboxCurve[]
create ep curve from = points[0], points[1] = snapcurve
max(bbox[0], bbox[1], bbox[2])= axis (pick the largest edge of the bounding box)
bbox[axis]/bboxCurve[axis]=scaler
scale snapcurve -r [scaler]
for vert in points[2: numpoints]
transform vert (closestPointOnCurve((vertPos),snapcurve)-(vertPos))
delete snapcurve

[chilledoutredhead]

oh well it was just encase you had forgot to try the easiest solution i always do that.

[bullet1968]

LOL yeh chilledout I try the easy ones too mate...thanks man.

Thanks Laurie...I didnt think of a simple curve....I will try that! LOL I dont know Python....so I will try the curve first. Again its because Im used to my Surveying program where you can insert a point into a string or line or you can snap points to a line when you define the refline...sigh...thanks mate for the advice

cheers bullet

[LauriePriest]

Would be a great tool to have in maya, ill make it if i get time.. fun !

I know its a bit much but thought I'd share

[bullet1968]

LOL no worries Laurie...yeh well I guess there are a few things I wish Maya had, from a Surveyors POV...but then I also wish my Survey software had some of Maya's freedom...sigh cant have both I suppose. I was looking at buying a program called 12D...which has both apparently...but the 12k price tag shot me down LOL..too many kids to feed first. The way I see it, lets say on one edge...verts with differnt values in lets say 'z'...but the line is 45° up from 'x'...then you should be able to nominate 2 verts as a 'ref' line and snap the others to that line....kinda works around the lack of a 'shear' command as in Lightwave..

nevermind...I will try the curve thing when I get a chance

cheers mate