Rotatable Working View

[C. Andrew Dunning]

I find myself wishing for this one a lot: The ability to rotate (and store) a working view (similar to changing Working Planes).

I often work on projects where, for whatever reason, either all or a portion of the drawing has to be drawn at an angle that makes drawing somewhat challenging. Being able to rotate the view (not the geometry itself) would be quite welcome.

Changing the grid angle is somewhat of a work-around, but does not quite fill the need.

[mike m oz]

Andrew

OPTION A: Layer Linking

- Draw the separate plan parts in individual layers so that each is orthogonal.

- Create a new Plan Layer for assembling the separate plan parts

- Use Layer Linking with Project 2D Objects checked to bring each of the plan part layers in.

- Unlock each of the Layer Links and rotate them as required.

- Assemble them to form a contiguous plan

OPTION B: Viewports

- Same process as above but with Viewports on a Sheet Layer

- Rotate and assemble the Viewports in the sheet layer.

- Work in the 'orthogonal Design Layers'

Either option will allow you to work in the "Orthogonal Plan Layers" and have the information automatically update in the "Assembled Plan Layer". All it requires is clear demarcation line between the separate parts so that there is not duplicated information. Annotation is best done in the "Assembled Layer" so that the text is aligned correctly.

VectorBits has a free Rotate Drawing Plug-in which you could try as well. My concerns with this would be in having confidence that all of the drawing information remained correctly located after repeated rotations. For this reason I think the two options above would be far safer.

[ 08-17-2005, 07:03 AM: Message edited by: mike m oz ]

[C. Andrew Dunning]

Mike -

I've been using "Option B" (as in the example you sent). It is somewhat of a work-around, but:

- It is seldom practical to split up drawing geometry like that. For many projects I need to be working on the actual geometry as a whole.

- Though I do rotate VPs from time to time, I've had occasional difficulty getting consitent results - especially in being able to predict how text will react. (Perhaps a second wish of VPs being more "aware" of being rotated?)

I have seen the VectorBits Plug-In but am pretty leery about a tool that changes the actual drawing geometry.

I've grown to like the way the Working Plane palette works and could see my wish being implemented in a similar way (or, as part of that tool). That's why I used that as a reference in my original post. In fact, before posting, I did try using that to rotate my view. Didn't work so well...

[BG]

Our old CAD program we used years ago (Generic CAD) had the ability to rotate the working view. It was so useful - A big wish for vectorworks to include this.

Also something Generic CAD had that was also very useful, having multiple windows (views) on the screen at one time.

BG

[C. Andrew Dunning]

BG -

Ahhh...Generic CAD... Now, there are pleasent words from the past... ;-) When I switched to VW, there were (and, still are) lots of "But Generic did this..." moments. I still keep 6.5.1 loaded on my machines. There are still a few things once-in-a-while I need to do that I can only do in GC w. some of the old scripts.