Manual/Snap to Mesh

From BlenderWiki

Snap to Mesh

Description

Used in conjunction with Grab, Extrusion, Scale or Rotation modes. Once the tool is activated you are ready to drag the surface to its destination.

Move your mouse pointer to where you want to snap and hold down Ctrl, move your pointer to adjust.

When satisfied with the result, confirm with LMB

Options

Snap Mode

• Closest: move the closest point of the selection to the target
• Center: move the current transformation center to the target. Can be used with 3D cursor to snap with an offset.
• Median: move the median of the selection to the target.
• Active: move the active element (vertex in edit mode, object in object mode) to the target.

Snap Element

• Vertex
• Edge
• Face

The following shows different Element and Mode options. [Download Demo Video](theora)

Align Rotation

Align Object's Z axis with the normal of the target element.

Normals are interpolated between the two vertex normals when snapping to edges, otherwise, face normals and vertex normals are directly used.

Only works with Translations (Grab) done in object mode.

The following video shows a tree being snapped and aligned on a ground mesh. [Download Demo Video](theora)