Is there a trick to getting prims positioned so they touch without overlapping?

[Rolig Loon]

If you are creating two or more prims and you want each one to butt up snugly against the previous one, you can open the Build menu and then

• Copy selection: This is a very powerful feature which allows you to create a series of perfectly aligned prims, perfectly touching. Very useful for building floors and walls. To use it, first select a prim to copy from, in Edit mode. Then go into Build mode, enable this, and touch a face of the selected prim. A new prim will be created, adjacent to the face you touched, and it will be an exact copy of the originally selected one.
  This works not only with single prims, but also with linked sets. It will also work with objects not made by you, as long as the object is copyable for you.
  There are two sub-options here:
  • Center Copy: Creates the new object on the center of the object face upon which it is created.
  • Rotate Copy: Matches the rotation of the new object to the rotation of the object upon which it is created.

You can also use the Align tool in Edit, as described in this tutorial video >>>

[Rolig Loon]

If you are creating two or more prims and you want each one to butt up snugly against the previous one, you can open the Build menu and then

• Copy selection: This is a very powerful feature which allows you to create a series of perfectly aligned prims, perfectly touching. Very useful for building floors and walls. To use it, first select a prim to copy from, in Edit mode. Then go into Build mode, enable this, and touch a face of the selected prim. A new prim will be created, adjacent to the face you touched, and it will be an exact copy of the originally selected one.
  This works not only with single prims, but also with linked sets. It will also work with objects not made by you, as long as the object is copyable for you.
  There are two sub-options here:
  • Center Copy: Creates the new object on the center of the object face upon which it is created.
  • Rotate Copy: Matches the rotation of the new object to the rotation of the object upon which it is created.

You can also use the Align tool in Edit, as described in this tutorial video >>>

[Lindal Kidd]

Rolig's method is fast and precise.

I tend to align prims manually, though.  First, I'll make a copy with SHIFT+drag.  Then I will get it as close to touching as I can by eye.

To get a closer fit, zoom your camera in very close to the joint.  Use the up and down arrows in the Position boxes of the Edit/Object window to "nudge" the prim one way or the other.  If the nudge just can't quite get it right, enter a value in the position box that is midway between nudge positions.

This method can pretty quickly get things lined up within a millimeter or two.

[Fionalein]

Am I the only one doing math in here?

Prims have a size and a position...by knowing both you can place a prim pretty precisely next to another...

[Meowzing]

Size and position is what I use. I am bad at maths though, so I sometimes forget to factor in rotational axis if I'm aligning two identical prims, like one facing horizontally, the other facing vertically.

[LittleMe Jewell]

I used to use math and calculate everything.  However, I recently learned how to actually use the Align tool in the Edit window (per the above video) and that is much faster.  

Edited April 28, 2020 by LittleMe Jewell