Scalin/moving vertex by give size, not factor

Hi!
I was wondering - is there in blender a way to scale/move many points by given distance, not scale factor? For example, I have a furniture - 10 fronts and I want to make some spacings between them, 4 mm. So, I’d like to move all vertices by 2mm (individual origins) inwards in every front on two axes. Is there a way just to select all of the elements and do it for all of them at the same time?

sounds like the inset individual option is what you want:

make sure your object has scale applied, then select the faces in edit mode and press ‘i’ twice to Inset Individual

Nope. By inserting I’m making new vertices, and after that I need to delete old ones and connect new ones to make new elements. I want to move existing points. So I’m looking something like that but just to move vertices.

Can you post a screenshot of what you are working on?

There you go. Simple kitchen ferniture fronts for example.


There is no space between them, because the simplest way to make them was to duplicate one, move it, snap vertices etc.

I want to make 4mm spacing between them, so I need to move inwards every vertex of them by 2mm in x/y and z axes.

ok, for this I would use the shrink/fatten tool (alt+s). this move faces along their normal a set amount.

So, I would first select the front and back face of a panel:

Then I would select coplanar faces (shift+g):

Then I would invert the selection to get the edges(ctrl+i):

Then, hit alt+s to shrink/fatten the gap, and type the distance you want to offset the faces(negative in this instance):


Press S after enabling the command to make sure the offset is even (not sure why that isn’t default)

Still, it is same as scaling - you have a factor, not distance in units, so there is no way to make it exactly 2mm. I was hoping it would work, but I have tried it and on many fronts of different sizes, it was giving me different numbers (with S) - spacing in z and x was same, but not same when used on different obejcts. Close, but still not something I was hoping for. I’m kind of person that if I know that something is moved by 4,312321 mm, not 4 mm it will give me a sleepless night. :stuck_out_tongue:

It should be consistent unit displacement. Check your object scaling, if it is non-uniform, you will get non-uniform results. Also make sure you are in face mode, and make sure you press S again to get consistent offsets

Here is my sample, I shrank the perimeter faces in .125, resulting in a .25 gap between the panels:

Ok, it gives me like 4,004mm, 3,997mm, but it is close enough. :slight_smile: Thanks!

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