Snapping Objects to Objects

An utility to clog slits and holes in your aircraft

Context

This utility is useful when you need to snap some points of a part to the points of another part. In an aircraft model, such a situation is very frequent: joints between wings and the wing base, doors and the fuselage, gear doors and wings etc...
In FSDS, you select the joint points one by one and press "v" to snap them to the nearest point of any other part.
In GMAX, there is a snap functionality but it doesn't work well when the points are close one to another. It is also necessary to select points one by one.

The present utility allows to do this job automatically just by selecting a part to snap, a target part and a threshold. It is tested in 3DsMax7 but should work in any other version of 3DsMax or GMAX.

Instructions

	Here is an example of a typical "hole" between the engine and the engine's entry
	Install the script (by placing it into the "Scripts/Startup" directory). Choose MAX SCRIPT in the Utilities panel, then choose "Snap to Object" in the Utilities menu. Select the object (and only one) that you want to snap.
	Press the button "Pick Target Object" and pick the target object from the scene. The script shows the number of candidates for the snapping, i.e. the number of points of the current object that are situated closer than the threshold to some points of the target object. In our example no point is as close as the default threshold 0.01m
	Increase the threshold slightly, now there are 48 points to snap
	Press "Snap" - and the job is done.

Dimitri Samborski
Samdim Design