Snap pie tool nodes?

[lukejanicke]

Pie tool is great when I know the angle I want. But sometimes I want to snap to a line, like measuring out the angle between two intersecting lines when I don’t know the angle between those two lines. The pie tool node only snaps to common angles. It doesn’t snap to paths when you cross them. Even if you place another shape with a corner at exactly the intersection of the air and the pine, the pie node doesn’t pick it up. Is there any technique I am missing?

 

 

[lukejanicke]

Oh, just noticed similarly, you can’t snap to other objects when rotating either. Only to multiples of 15 degrees.

[gdenby]

The built in shapes operate differently from standard curve objects. The control points are not nodes, they are visual representations of the numeric input that determines the form at that moment. So they don't snap the same way. The shapes have internal indicators for things like portions of radius, right angles, axial symmetry, etc. The shapes bounding boxes will show alignment to other objects. But forming remains largely a hand & eye operation.

 

Inversely, ordinary curves can be drawn w. the pen tool that will show then they touch shapes. 

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, lukejanicke said:

Is there any technique I am missing?

 

To cut a predefined wedge out of a circle in AD, place the wedge on top, select both shapes and click on the ‘Subtract’ icon in the Geometry section of the main toolbar. To retain all the pieces instead of discarding the wedge shape, use ‘Divide’ rather than ‘Subtract’.

[lukejanicke]

On 20/01/2018 at 8:46 PM, Alfred said:

place the wedge on top, select both shapes and click on the ‘Subtract’ icon in the Geometry section

 

Thanks! That was perfect for my needs.

 

@gdenby Good to know! As a mathematician, I would love numeric access to those parameters.

[Alfred]

4 hours ago, lukejanicke said:

Thanks! That was perfect for my needs.

 

You’re very welcome.