Measurement, "ABS, "REL" and snapping

[Ken Tozier]

I'm working through thr Amapi Pro 7.5 tutorials and have been having a heck of a time getting the endpoints of two independently drawn lines to "snap".

I come from an Adobe Illustrator background where getting two points to snap into position is as simple as dragging one endpoint over another. The fact that I'm finding it virtually impossible to do it in Amapi seems to indicate that I'm missing something. How does one do this? Is there some preference I need to set?

A second question is related to the "REL" and "ABS" measurement modes. Neither do what I'm looking for which is to have a reference grid whose origin doesn't change with the drawing of polyline or nurbs points. Both "ABS" and "REL" seem to key off the last point drawn.

Basically why I think I need this capability is when drawing curves which are intended to serve as one half of a mirrored curve, the two curve endpoints need to lie at the exact axis of the flip in order to seamlessly join them aftyer the mirror. Is there an "ABS" command that keys off a base grid rather than the last point?

Thanks for any help

Ken

[Shonner]

I turn off the Snap-To-Grid icon on the control panel (I forgot to mention that part last time) and hold down the SHIFT key while I move my cursor near the end-points I want to connect.

[Ken Tozier]

Ah, the shift key! That's what I was looking for. Plus the constraints palette has a bunch of cool snapping options. Life is good!

Thanks for the tip.

Ken