How to extrude in a direction paralell to active selection?

Hi. Anyone knows how can I extrude/grab that face in the same direction as the highlighted edge, or in other words, set the direction of the current selection as as a restriction?


You can use custom orientations, by example :

Select a face
http://i.imgur.com/hyIfTMB.jpg

Change the transformation orientation to “Normal”
http://i.imgur.com/46ITdxj.jpg

Press N to display the Properties shelf and click the “+” button at the Transform Orientation panel to create a custom one based on those axis orientation
http://i.imgur.com/43SIUCP.jpg

Press F6 and give it a name
http://i.imgur.com/3KjGDE7.jpg

Change the Transform Orientation to your newly created custom orientation
http://i.imgur.com/utMs6xp.jpg

Now select the upper face of your mesh and notice the orientation is still following your custom one.

http://i.imgur.com/ZDIzSaN.jpg

Press E to extrude then press Enter or Left Click to validate the extrusion
Press G and (in the case of my example it’s on the Y axis, the green arrow) press Y 2 times so you’ll move the extrusion along the custom Y axis

Although I’m not the OP, thank you for explaining it.
I was going to ask the same thing :o

Thanks. I had actually read about custom orientations, I was just thinking if there was a shorter more direct method.

But your definition is much more clear than the wiki one and did it for me.

When I try extruding in the custom orientation, it still goes in a normal direction to the face. Not the same case for G.
Is there a way to be able to extrude in the same direction or is G + Cut Loop always my best bet?

also, you could extrude past where you ended your first extrusion, and then use the knife to cut it at the middle.