Snapping

There are two types of snap operations that you can use in Blender. The first type snaps your selection or cursor to a given point while the second type is used during transformations (move, rotate, scale) and snaps your selection to elements within the scene.

Snap Menu

Reference

Mode

Object, Edit, and Pose Mode

Menu

Object/Object type ‣ Snap

Hotkey

Shift-S

The Snap menu (also available from the 3D header in both Object Mode and Edit Mode Object ‣ Snap and Mesh ‣ Snap). This menu provides a number of options to move the cursor or your selection to a defined point (the cursor, selection or the grid).

Selection to Grid

Snaps the currently selected object(s) to the nearest grid point.

Selection to Cursor

Moves each one of the currently selected object(s) to the cursor location.

Selection to Cursor (Offset)

Places the selection at the position of the 3D cursor. If there are multiple objects selected, they are not moved individually at the cursor position; instead, they are centered around the 3D cursor, maintaining their relative distances.

Selection to Active

Moves the selection to the origin of the active object.

Cursor to Selected

Places the cursor to the center of the current selection, unless see below.

Cursor to Center

Places the cursor to the origin of the world (location 0, 0, 0).

Cursor to Grid

Places the cursor to the nearest grid point.

Cursor to Active

Places the cursor to the origin of the active (last selected) object.

The Cursor to Selected option is also affected by the current Pivot Point. For example:

• With the Bounding Box Center pivot point active, the Cursor to Selected option will snap the 3D cursor to the center of the bounding box surrounding the objects’ origins.

• When the Median Point pivot point is selected, Cursor to Selected will snap the 3D cursor to the median of the object origins.

Transform Snapping

Reference

Mode

Object, Edit, and Pose Mode

Header

Snap

Hotkey

Shift-Tab

The ability to snap objects and mesh element to various types of scene elements during a transformation is available by toggling the magnet icon in the 3D View’s header buttons.

Magnet icon in the 3D View header (blue when enabled).

Snap Element

Reference

Mode

Object, Edit, and Pose Mode

Header

Snapping ‣ Snap to

Hotkey

Shift-Ctrl-Tab

Snap Element menu.

Increment

Snap to grid points. When in Orthographic view, the snapping increment changes depending on zoom level.

Note

In this context the grid does not mean the visual grid cue displayed. Snapping will use the resolution of the displayed grid, but all transformations are relative to the initial position (before the snap operation).

Vertex

Snap to vertices of mesh objects.

Edge

Snap to edges of mesh objects.

Face

Snaps to the surfaces of faces in mesh objects; This is useful for retopologizing.

Volume

Snaps to regions within the volume of the first object found below the mouse cursor. Unlike the other options, this one controls the depth (i.e. Z coordinates in current view space) of the transformed element. By toggling the button that appears to the right of the snap target menu (see below), target objects will be considered as a whole when determining the volume center.

Edge Center

Snaps to the middle of an edge. This snap element only pertains to mesh objects.

Edge Perpendicular

Snaps to the nearest vertex in an edge that makes a perpendicular angle. This snap element only pertains to mesh objects.

Tip

Multiple snapping modes can be enabled at once by Shift-LMB the different snapping elements.

Snap Target

Reference

Mode

Object, Edit, and Pose Mode

Header

Snapping ‣ Snap with

Hotkey

Shift-Ctrl-Tab

Snap target options become active when either Vertex, Edge, Face, or Volume is selected as the snap element. These determine what part of the selection snaps to the target objects.

Active

Moves the active element (vertex in Edit Mode, object in Object Mode) to the target.

Median

Moves the median of the selection to the target.

Center

Moves the current transformation center to the target. Can be used with 3D cursor to snap with an offset.

Closest

Moves the closest point of the selection to the target.

Closest.

Active.

Median.

Additional Snap Options

As seen by the yellow highlighted areas in the image above, besides the snap target, additional controls are available to alter snap behavior. These options vary between mode (Object and Edit) as well as Snap Element. The four options available are:

Absolute Grid Snap

Available only for the increase option. Snap to grid, instead of snapping in increments relative to the current location.

Backface Culling

Exclude back facing geometry from snapping.

Project Onto Self

Available only in editing mode for Vertices, Edges, Faces and Volume. Snaps elements to its own mesh.

Align Rotation to Target

Available for Vertices, Edges, Faces and Volume. When the Snap Affects Rotation, this align rotation with the snapping target.

Project Individual Elements

Available for snap to Faces. Project individual elements on the surface of other objects.

Snap Peel Object

Available for snap to Volume. Consider objects as whole when finding volume center.

Affect

Limits the effect of the snap to the transformation type.

Multiple Snap Targets

Multiple snapping targets.

Once transforming a selection with Snapping on (not just when holding Ctrl), you can press A to mark the current snapping point, then proceed to mark as many other snapping points as you wish and the selection will be snapped to the average location of all the marked points.

Marking a point more than once will give it more weight in the averaged location.