SmartTrack

SmartTrack™ is a system of temporary reference lines and points that is drawn in the Rhino viewport using implicit relationships among various 3-D points, other geometry in space, and the coordinate axes' directions.

Temporary infinite lines (tracking lines) and points (smart points) are available to object snaps very much like real lines and points. You can snap to intersections of the tracking lines, perpendiculars, and directly to smart points as well as intersections of tracking lines and real curves. The tracking lines and smart points are displayed for the duration of a command.

You can add or 'capture' new points as needed up to the current maximum after which the oldest smart points disappear as new ones are added. Captured smart points can be cleared at any time if they are not proving useful.

Toolbar	Menu	Application Toolbar
Object Snap Properties Standard Tools	Tools Object Snaps > SmartTrack Tools Options	SmartTrack

Capture smart points

Automatically

Capture smart points automatically by hovering briefly over an object snap point.

Manually

Tap Command ⌘ once to place a manual smart point anywhere in space. This makes it easy to for example to place smart points along curves.
Tap Command ⌘ twice to clear all smart points.

Note

Captured smart points are drawn in their own color and styles: gray with a cross for captured, but not currently active points (that is they are not sending out any tracking lines), and blue for active smart points.
Tracking lines are drawn once a smart point is captured and the cursor is in a predictable relation with the captured point(s).
In this case, predictable means that the cursor is along or near an ortho line through the point, at or near the intersection between ortho lines from two smart points. Ortho tracking lines pay attention to the OrthoAngle setting.
When a single smart point is highlighted and you see the ortho cursor with a distance, type a distance or Enter relative coordinates to place a point relative to the active smart point.

General

Smart point activation delay ___ milliseconds

Max number of smart points

Appearance

Dotted lines

Line color

Tan and perp line color

Point color

Active point color

Behavior

Implied From

When a single Smart point is highlighted, and you see the ortho cursor with a distance, you can either type a distance or Enter relative coordinates to place a point relative to the active smart point.

Example 1

Start the Polyline command.
Place some points.
With Point object snap on, hover over one of the previous polyline vertices (or any other snap) to wake up a smart point and pull the cursor away along an ortho tracking line.
You should see the cursor tooltip telling you a distance from the Smart point and an angle.
Type a single number and press Enter to place the next point on the polyline that number of units away from the Smart Point in the direction you are pulling along the tracking line.
Type rx,y,z then the r will make the point relative to the active smart point.
This only works along a tracking line from a single active smart point.

Example 2

Start the Polyline command.
Place some points.
With Point object snap on, hover over one of the previous polyline vertices (or any other snap) to wake up a smart point and pull the cursor away along an ortho tracking line.
You should see the cursor tooltip telling you a distance from the Smart point and an angle.
Type a single number and press Alt +Enter to activate distance constraint for the next pick.
Without the Alt key, the pick will be finalized number units away from the active smart point rather than the last point picked.

Smart ortho

Sets Smart ortho on or off. Smart ortho automatically draws ortho tracking lines from the last point picked without the need to specifically go back and capture that point. It is independent from the Ortho setting.

Smart ortho is like having ortho on and off at the same time. When the cursor is away from ortho directions or object snapped to something, it works like a normal pick. When the cursor is near ortho directions, it works like an ortho pick.

Smart tangents and perpendiculars

Example

Enable the end object snap.
Draw a curve or a polyline.
When you snap to a curve end, you can see the smart tangent tracking line.

Example

Enable Smart tangents and perpendiculars.
Draw a polyline.
Every time you click, a smart point is generated at the current end point of the polyline.
Snap to a curve end, the ortho tracking line appears.

Parallels

Example

Enable Parallels.
Snap to a curve end and another point with a different type of object snap.
You will see the parallel tracking line (when the mouse cursor is close to the parallel tracking line).

Semi-permanent points

Toggles the retaining of captured points for the duration of a command as opposed to discarding them after each mouse click. For example, when you use the Copy command, clicking the mouse to place an object does not clear the existing smart points.

The SmartTrack command turns on a system of temporary reference lines and points.

Command-line options
On	Turn SmartTrack on.
Off	Turn SmartTrack off.
Toggle	Toggle SmartTrack on and off.

Capture smart points

Automatically

Manually

Note

General

Smart point activation delay ___ milliseconds

Max number of smart points

Appearance

Dotted lines

Line color

Tan and perp line color

Point color

Active point color

Behavior

Implied From

Example 1

Example 2

Smart ortho

Smart tangents and perpendiculars

Example

Example

Parallels

Example

Semi-permanent points

Restore Defaults

SmartTrack

Steps

See also