moving in a chosen direction or un grouping

[e.dicker]

Hi
I have a model one part of which is at 45 degrees to the rest, in which are two parts joined as a group.
What want to do, is move that group a uniform distance along the 45 degrees section.
When I select move, no matter what I set; I can only move left right up down at 45 degrees to the angled section, not along it.
I though this might be because I had them as a group, so I though I would just break the group; returning them to two individual items. But no, I cant see any way of doing this!
Is it at all possible to 'ungroup', returning grouped items back to individuals?
Or, is it possible to draw some kind of reference axis line; that I can aline the move tool to. Thus moving things in the direction I want?

[INNEO_MWo]

There are several ways to solve this. It depends on the models and the modeling tool. Most typical MCAD Tools supports local coordinates. This allows to use the part center as rotation point or hinge. So use the move tool just select one part of the group as hinge and choose local. Then the translation is oriented to the part and can be moved along the axis.

But design tools like Rhino does only supports local coordinates if you define the different volumes/bodies in blocks.

Otherwise you can add a geometry like a small cube that works like a datum coordinate system. You can rotate the cube in the orientation you need and hide this part.
Then you can select this cube as a hinge to move the group or any selected part along the cube orientation weather the models supports local coordinates or not.


Hope that helps

Cheers
Marco

P.S.: written on a mobile

[e.dicker]

perfect thanks Marko, zoomed in to just one and picked the main arm and bingo aligned in the right direction.

[INNEO_MWo]