flatten not working as expected

Flatten keeps flattening to a certain direction, rather than to the averaged normal of my selection. Here I've aligned the workplane to selection, and first I try flatten, and then I scale along the axis I'd expect flatten to choose.

Flatten works to average normal position/orientation. (just been re-checking, it does appear to work correctly on the tests I made)

Try using "Align" (although that brings up the visual tools UI options, which you may not want).

Looking at the gif, is the first result the average normal, do you think? That's precisely what I expected it to do, but instead it's bending to an unexpected direction.

Looking at the gif, is the first result the average normal, do you think?

I do not know, I cannot see the normals.

But there's the workplane, which I aligned to the selection.

I really believe there's something going wrong here. Perhaps it takes the model's pivot/orientation into account, or some other hidden thing I can't see. But I'm the one who requested flatten, and this isn't what I expected from it. What I expect is for an averaged normal (pivot and orientation) to be calculated from the selection, and for the verts to be aligned on a single plane, located at the averaged position and pointing in the direction of the averaged orientation.

It may be a problem(bug) specific to the geometry on the model?

I do not use "Flatten" much, if at all now, as I do not like relying on an underlying algorithm. For a flatten command, I would expect options, such as flatten to specific chosen axis.

Ah yes, the current option would be in addition to a flatten x, flatten y and flatten z command.
I however only use the regular flatten, and don't think it's such a confusing algorithm, as I can easily do it by hand, and can predict what it does.
It just tends to save a lot of time, and it's a useful command for keeping things planar.

It's possible it's something to do with the mesh, I will try it in a few different usecases. It's just that it can be replicated on this one, hence my posting it in the Bug Reports forum.

I however only use the regular flatten, and don't think it's such a confusing algorithm,

As long as it works.

You would probably be better to e-mail the model(if you can) to IStonia, so he can then check for problems easier.

It is a bug. The local space is not taken into account.

Fixed.

thanks!