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I've looked at the possibilities and they're either old or don't look to be specific to my problem.

Here's what I've got:

enter image description here

As you can see, it's off center on the X axis. That's because the original was skewed. I'm trying to correct that using the mirror modifier, but, since it's askew on the X axis, the result is equally skewed.

What I'm trying to do is get the object perpendicular on the X axis.

And, I'm not sure where to begin.

Including the original object:

https://pasteall.org/blend/e3122e384e1c4afda8cf77ed84f9b089

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  • $\begingroup$ Hard to say without knowing how the object is rotated as it is. Could you upload a file? $\endgroup$
    – lemon
    Commented Nov 30, 2021 at 17:09
  • $\begingroup$ I can try to answer this in detail later as I'm not in front of my computer, but very roughly, select the face down the centerline (if there isn't one, create one via fill). Then use the camera -> align to selected so that face is directly facing the screen. Add a plane and select align to view. Then that plane's rotation should give you the values you need to rotate the shape back to straight. Hope that made sense. $\endgroup$
    – Dale Cieslak
    Commented Nov 30, 2021 at 18:25
  • $\begingroup$ Dale, that didn't work. Maybe it should. Your directions didn't pan out, for me, to what should've happened according to your directions. I searched for "Align to Selected", using the camera. It didn't "directly face the screen". So, adding a plane and selecting align to view, wasn't likely to work as intended either. Picture's worth 1000 words, a video even better., $\endgroup$
    – unkerjay
    Commented Nov 30, 2021 at 23:00
  • $\begingroup$ lemon, the blend file has been uploaded to pasteall. $\endgroup$
    – unkerjay
    Commented Nov 30, 2021 at 23:01

1 Answer 1

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Ok, here's a step-by-step method:

  1. Select the object and zero out the rotations, first:

enter image description here

  1. Go to Edit mode and select the bottom edges:

enter image description here

  1. Fill in the bottom with faces using Alt-F (and Beauty fill):

enter image description here

  1. Select the middle triangular face:

enter image description here

  1. Go to Align View -> Align View to Active -> Top:

enter image description here

  1. Now the view is aligned to that face:

enter image description here

  1. Snap the 3d cursor to the face:

enter image description here

  1. Go back to Object mode and Create and Empty, with the Align set to View:

enter image description here

  1. Select the shape first, and THEN the Empty. Then Parent using Ctrl-P and just use the "Object" option:

enter image description here

  1. Now select the Empty and zero out the rotation:

enter image description here

  1. Move the Z value of the Empty to 0:

enter image description here

  1. Select the shape and choose Parent -> Clear and Keep Transformation:

enter image description here

Now your shape is aligned (as well as can be hoped as it's slighly uneven) with the Z-axis and can be mirrored - with some merging it should be ok. Delete the extra bottom faces we added in step 3 and you probably want to Apply the Rotations to make them zero.

HOWEVER: this shape is pretty "askew" as you said - so this lines up that bottom edge but the shape is still tilted overall. If you would rather align the shape itself rather than the bottom edge of it, you can do it by using one of the faces:

  1. Select this face instead as step 1:

enter image description here

  1. Align the view to that face like we did above:

enter image description here

  1. Snap the cursor to the face, add the Empty as before:

enter image description here

  1. Follow the steps to align the camera, parent the empty, and rotate to zero. Now the object's parallel edges are aligned to the axes, but the bottom edge isn't:

enter image description here

You should be able to select the bottom vertices and just rotate slightly in X and Y in the orthographic views to get it straight enough.

Hope these steps are more clear than my comment above! It seems like a lot of steps but once you understand, it only takes a few minutes to do it.

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