Scaling Proportions

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hi folks,

This has been bugging me for a hell of a long time, probably the biggest modelling problem I have. If anyone knows an easy answer, please enlighten me!

In the scenario below, we have a shape where the x and y dimensions are not equal:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tootill/temp/blender.png

If I duplicate the object and scale it, the distance ‘a’ and the distance ‘b’ are then different. This is proportional, and is the behaviour we expect.

My question is - how can I do the same operation and somehow keep the distances ‘a’ and ‘b’ equal? Scaling one axis at a time is an option, but it is not easy (impossible?) to get the distances exactly the same. That method wouldn’t work at all with say, a boomerang shape.

What I want to achieve is to duplicate /extrude the vertices and scale them inwards, keeping the distance between the outer and inner vertices consistent all the way around. Is that actually possible in Blender?

Thanks!

DD

2

Alt-S is for Shrink/Fatten along normals but I suspect what you really want is scale in 2D; if you hit S to scale and then (without moving the mouse) Shft-Z it will scale on only the X and Y coordinates.

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3

What I think he wants is an offset command – which unfortunately doesn’t currently exist in blender.

GreyBeard

4

Thanks for the response guys. I can get by using transform properties; just wanted to make sure there wasn’t an unobvious function to do this easily.