Aligning Tools

The Aligning Tools mode provides all aligning and similarity related functionalities of the packer.

In order to use the Aligning Tools mode select it from the Main Mode selection menu:

The Aligning Tools mode provides two operations:

• Select Similar – selects all islands which have similar shape to at least one from the currently selected islands.
• Align Similar (Stack) – aligns the selected islands, so that islands which are similar are stacked on top of each other.

Accuracy of similarity detection on a general level depends on two parameters:

• Precision: more precision means better accuracy in looking for similar islands. Precision set to 500 should be sufficient in most cases. This value should be increased in the first place, when dealing with really small islands.
• Similarity Threshold: a greater value of this parameter means islands will be more likely recognized as similar in shape. A lower value means more accurate distinction.

By default similarity comparison is based on island outer shape only without taking into account the island topology (UV vertices count and their positions). This default behaviour can be changed by enabling the Check Vertices option (read below).

Other aligning options

• Adjust Scale - when this option is enabled, the packer will scale islands to the same size before determining whether they are similar.
• Check Vertices - consider islands as similar only if they have matching vertices (not only outer shape).
• Correct Vertices - correct position of matching UV vertices of similar islands so they are placed on the top of each other after aligning. This option is only available when the Check Vertices option is enabled.
• Vertex Threshold - maximum distance below which two vertices are considered as matching.

Align Priority

By default you don’t have control over which island will be aligned to another, when two islands are considered similar by the packer. You can control this behaviour by enabling the Align Priority functionality.

Align Priority is a per-island integer parameter - you can assign a priority to every island in the UV map. When two islands are considered similar by the packer, then the island having a lower priority value will be aligned (moved) to the island with a greater priority value.

By default all islands will have priority 0 assigned.