Hello!
As the title (partially) says I’m in a situation where I have multiple edges selected and I want duplicates of it on each side, which I have to slide away from each other of a specific amount, so that their distance from the center edge (the previously selected edge) is the same.
Keep in mind that although I’m in orthographic view this mesh is not flat, but it’s actually equally raised in the center towards the camera.
The shape it’s also not a rotated square but it’s a diamond.
Finally, the example has been obtained using the Offset Edge Slide tool with “Even” selected but the width marked in red is not the same, because the tool works with a factor, and since the shape is a diamond, some of the edges the new edges slide on are shorter than the others.
I’ve seen that a way to obtain edges spaced with the same distance is using bevel and selecting the width method, but the issue with bevel is that it rounds the ends of the edges (it’s a bevel after all :D), which I don’t want.
Clearly I can do that and then delete and recreate some of the geometry to obtain what I want, but seems a bit fiddly.
Another idea was to create a second object which is a rotated square, create the edges with the same width there, thanks to scale. Then remove the faces but leave the edges, center it and then use knife project to cut those edges on the other shape.
But this also is a bit fiddly.
Isn’t there a more immediate way?
Or do you know of an addon that adds this functionality?
You can customize bevel profile so it would not change the shape of corner with 2 Segments and Width Type “Absolute”:
In Bevel Modifier simply set Superellipse Shape to 1 (mark the desired edges with appropriate Bevel Weight and hit Apply):
OR in Edit Mode bevel lacks the same shape option, but you can still make use of Custom Profile, by dragging the middle handle to the top right corner. This option does not seem to make a nice intersection where 3 beveled edges meet, but in you case might not be a problem:
Ah, yes, I see it too now It is a pretty small scale, I suppose, and Blender is no CAD program, some issues with precision at “extreme” scales are bound to happen…
Well, I’m modeling at scale (it’s meant to eventually be a pattern on the side of a whiskey glass :P), I didn’t expect it to be too small.
I’ve also seen though that although I can change the unit scale and make things 10 times bigger to compensate, the things like Cycles/lights won’t adjust… which is why I was modeling with the correct scale.
If you really need a workaround for the issue with the scale @stray pointed out, you can use a bevel modifier with two very simple geometry nodes that scale the geometry up and down, respectively:
I.e., you scale the model up by a factor of 10000 such that the numerical issues with the bevel modifier disappear, and then scale the model down by a factor of 0.0001. Of course, you also have to increase the bevel width by a factor of 10000.
It is a pretty small scale, I suppose, and Blender is no CAD program, some issues with precision at “extreme” scales are bound to happen…