Example: Align Two Solids

The following example takes a look at two cylinders with the goal of aligning their faces.
Figure 1.


  1. From the Home tools, click the Move tool.
    Figure 2.


  2. Set the selector to Solids then pick the cylinder on the left.
  3. Align the tool with the cylinder's face.
    1. Double-click on the origin of the axis to enter editing mode and reposition the tool.
    2. Drag the origin of the axis to the snap point on the center of the cylinder's face.
      Figure 3.


    3. Click at the tip of the X arrow and drag to a snap point on the face's edge.
      Figure 4.


    4. Drag the Z axis' curved arrow to a similar snap point on the face's edge.

      By rotating this axis, you lock the other two degrees of freedom.

      Figure 5.


    5. Left-click in empty space to exit editing mode.
    Tip: It is also possible to automatically align the tool to the selected part by clicking in the microdialog. This works well in many cases, but the result depends on the position and geometry of the selected parts; so for complex scenarios, manually repositioning the origin and axes (as shown above) is a more dependable way of aligning the Move tool.
  4. Translate and rotate the cylinder so it aligns with the other.
    1. Drag the origin of the axis to the snap point on the surface center of the other cylinder.
      Figure 6.


    2. Click at the tip of the X arrow and drag to a snap point on the target face's edge.
      Figure 7.


    3. Drag the Z axis' curved arrow to a similar snap point on the target face to finish the alignment.
      Figure 8.


      Figure 9.