How do you align vertices?

I know about aligning vertices to an axis, but that doesn't help me most of the time, because when I do, I have to rotate and rescale to the angle I need them match the rest of the sculpt. It's a guessing game of working back and forth between the scale and rotation to get it right.

I need to know how to align a selection of vertices that are NOT aligned to any axis.
For example there is row of vertices 7 along a angle and I want to align them from the first of 7 to the last of 7. There would be other vertices before the first of 7 and after the last of 7.

How can I get the ones between to align from the first to the last?

An intriguing question.
Where are these vertices located?

They are in my Blender mesh sculpt. I'm not sure I know what you mean...

There is one very simplistic approach:

- go to object mode
- open up the object transform properties and remember the values of RotX, RotY, RotZ
- still in object mode rotate your object until the vertices are aproximately aligned to one axis.
- got to edit mode, grab the vertices, align them along the axis
- got to object mode and in the transform properties type in the remembered values of RotX, RotY, RotZ

I know, this is trivial, but it works

Another option could be to use the mesh deform modifier, although i guess that would be too complicated?

Oh, some time ago i found a python script for mathematical operations on meshes. I only remember that i found it in the script repository on the blender site. and i think it had some function like "align selected vertices along path" which would straighten the set of vertices, align them along the line from the first to the last vertex and distribute them along the path with a constant distance. But there was something that left me dropping that again, sorry i do not remember any further details

For approximate alignment repeated key w - Smooth will do the job (just select the middle verts not the ends for this)

Alt-Space (or box next to hand icon) lets you select the transform direction, so you can get it exact by rotating until the line you want is aligned in the view, set the transform type to view, and scale with shift z (or x or y) 0. Setting transform direction to Normal before scaling would also work in some cases.

You could also use the magnet to enable snap to verts. Then holding ctrl while transforming will snap to vertice rather than the grid. By limiting the transform on x, y and z and using this snap type you can align vertex to each other.

Or as Gaia mentioned, you could try one of the align vertex scripts. There's a few different ones and I've not tried any of them.. eg http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=150522

Hey, another 4 buttons i constantly ignored until now Oh, how much time would it have saved me when i only had taken 2 minutes to understand the orientation buttons when i first visited them a year ago ?
Since then i constantly wiped out the existence of these buttons fr0m my (visual perception)? and always asked myself, how i could align along the normals... Shame on me

What other jewels are hidden in blender then ?

Just to be sure: You mean "transform Orientation" not transform direction, correct ?

http://www.blenderguru.com/25-useful-blender-tricks-that-arent-so-obvious/



Orientation, yeah that's how it's labelled in Blender. English wise they mean pretty much the same in that context