how to align objects in space?

[proto]

i have a series of exposed rafters that I positioned at an eave.
I started moving them vertically in a section view & subsequently realized that I only grabbed some of them due to the section view, so I have a little mess in the z axis. The rafters are ok in x & y.

I have found "align" under the "edit" menu, but it isn't operating as I'd hope.

When in 3d view & I choose "vertical top", the rafters all leap to one end of the beam & stack all in one spot, basically all coincident in space.

What am I misunderstanding?
Is there a better tool to accomplish just moving objects to the same z coord?

[Lingwisyer]

You cannot just copy the Home Story Offset between them?

[Barry Kelly]

I don't think the align tool works very well in 3D.
Vertical top thinks you want to move to align the tops in the Y plane, not the Z plane.

Best to open another section or elevation looking at it so you can see all of the rafters.

Or just select the ones that are wrong in 3D and drag them vertically to match the one you moved correctly.

Barry.

[proto]

Lingwisyer wrote:
You cannot just copy the Home Story Offset between them?

i hadn't considered that, thank you
does the math work out ok for this?
ie, the floating point math accuracy for an object in space vs the dimensional position per the accepted level of unit accuracy (nearest 1/32" or whatever)
maybe it's close enough not to matter?

[proto]

Barry wrote:
I don't think the align tool works very well in 3D.
Vertical top thinks you want to move to align the tops in the Y plane, not the Z plane.

Best to open another section or elevation looking at it so you can see all of the rafters.

Or just select the ones that are wrong in 3D and drag them vertically to match the one you moved correctly.

Barry.

Yes, with further digging, the tool appears to be only useful in 2d views...which at least helps my understanding of it. Thanks for your comment. It does help cement my learning/understanding.

if i remember correctly, 3dstudio & maya have a pretty good 3d align tool that understands the different coordinate planes...it would be a useful archicad tool, i think