perpendicular line to collision surface

I am trying to get a perpendicular line to the surface of an object the character collides with, however it looks like the collision normal is relative to the origin (always within 1 unit of the origin) so I cannot draw a line from collision point to the normal and expect a perpendicular line to the collision surface. Is that a normal behavior (no pun intended)?

I was able to get a perpendicular line to the surface of the object by adding the position of the object to the normal to get a "corrected" normal value and then draw the line from object's origin to the new normal vector. I have a feeling that this isn't a correct approach. Thoughts?

Blue lines are generated with the code below while the red line is a raycast from the collision point directly to the original normal.



Blue Lines

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2.     void OnControllerColliderHit(ControllerColliderHit hit)
3.    {
4.        var point = hit.point;
5.        var dir = -hit.normal;
6.        // step back a bit
7.        point -= dir;
8.        RaycastHit hitInfo;
9.        // cast a ray twice as far as your step back. This seems to work in all
10.        // situations, at least when speeds are not ridiculously big
11.        if (hit.collider.Raycast(new Ray(point, dir), out hitInfo, 2))
12.        {
13.             var normal = hitInfo.normal;
14.  
15.             Debug.DrawLine(hit.transform.position, hit.transform.position + hitInfo.normal, Color.blue, 100f);
16.         }
17.    }
18.  

Red Line

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. Debug.DrawLine(forwardHitInfoTop.point, forwardHitInfoTop.normal, Color.red);
3.  

 

The collision normal is a normalized direction vector. yes it is expected that the magnitude of that vector is always 1, as it is intended to convey a direction only.

Sure you can:

Code (CSharp):

1. Debug.DrawLine(hitInfo.point, hitInfo.point + hitInfo.normal, Color.green);

 

that worked, thanks!