Attaching one entity to another to eliminate overlap
Rex Loewen
Newcomer
As I understand "Attach", I should be able to attach one entity to another. I was hoping to use this to connect two entities to one another without any overlap. I admit, the overlap that does occur is not visible when printed. Hell, it is only a few inches in scale. But it annoys me!
Normally, when I zoom in, I can move the entities to match up without overlap, but every once in awhile, for some reason, this does not happen. I thought it was just with entities that were copied in drawing, but a few tests disproved this theory.
I thought I had the sequence worked out for Attach, but I must be doing something wrong, or the Tool does not do what I want it to do.
Any suggestions. I know I can use the Move Point command to make up the distance, but the two endpoints are very far apart, and it just wonks the entity I try to adjust.
Comments
Hi Rex :)
Attach is for when you are using the move node tool. It snaps the node you are moving to the nearest node on the line or polygon click. If you miss the line or the edge of the polygon it does nothing.
You can't use it to snap polygons together when you are moving whole polygons.
To an extent, this depends on what the entities are you're trying to attach to one another. With lines for example, they have a specific thickness, and that can cause the edges at the end of one line to not align with the other, which looks untidy. Usually the only way to resolve that is by-hand minor adjustments with Attach turned off, and in some cases adding a tiny polygon to smooth out the joining point.
For things such as river lines, I rarely use Attach at all, and simply zoom in and adjust the line position by-hand after it's been drawn, to get the "tributaries" to match up into the "main river".
Attach also has its oddities, like attaching to the wrong entity or node sometimes, and that can be irritating too.