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Co-ordinate rotation (not just view rotation)


Christiaan

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Back to the wishlist board it seems. I'd like the ability to rotate the co-ordinate system (not simply the view). Backwards compatibility be damned.

Am I making conceptual sense here? Do other CAD programs have this capability? How does Microstation deal with it?

Maybe I should state the outcome I want instead:

I want to be able to create our models/plans in real-world positions but have them at right-angles when we're working on them and presenting them as plans on a page.

The reason I want to create them in their real-world positions is that by doing so various complexities would be reduced because you tell the CAD program where the building is relative to its surroundings only once at the beginning of the process and it will always be there.

You can click on any point at any time and that is a real-world co-ordinate. You can use Stack Layers and see your model relative to its surroundings. You can export your plans/model to other file formats and it will be in their real-world position ready to be analysed in any way (such as sun angles). All without going through the error prone afterthought process of creating a translation (aka Layer Link).

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AutoCAD uses the UCS system. You can rotate the UCS (user coordinate system) or use the original coordinates. This is independent of rotating the view.

I've never added this to the VW wishlist as I never found a practical benefit to it really - I only ever changed the UCS to rotate the view in my ACAD days.

I'm not sure about your situation Christiaan, I always give northings and eastings relative to the survey north. I might rotate a building on the site, and rotate a view to work on it, but I don't need the coordinates to rotate. Can you elucidate?

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But while I've touched on the topic, let's add in one of my bugbears:

There are User Origins in VW, but these are pretty dumb - you can't save a named origin (effectively a new coordinate system, like a UCS), and you can't return to the default origin. Despite this (and this is the dumb part), when you change the origin it doesn't amend the origin for either hatches or symbols (I don't mean the insertion point, I mean the origin - the coordinates inside symbol-edit mode still display the original coordinates).

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I do not see the need for this wish.

Although a fix for this should be on the wishlist:

There are User Origins in VW, but these are pretty dumb - you can't save a named origin (effectively a new coordinate system, like a UCS), and you can't return to the default origin. Despite this (and this is the dumb part), when you change the origin it doesn't amend the origin for either hatches or symbols (I don't mean the insertion point, I mean the origin - the coordinates inside symbol-edit mode still display the original coordinates).

in the form of:

"Return to Default Origin" command

and

"Hatches and Symbols follow User-Origin" toggle

at the very least. And in the longer term, perhaps:

"Named User Origin management" for saved coordinate systems.

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If you double-click the page tool, the origin will reset to the default position.

Not sure what you mean by the "Page Tool". I tried double-clicking the "Move Page Tool" which does nothing to the origin as far as I can see.

The default position is, AFAIK, not the original world coordinate position.

Hmm, you lost me Petri.

Anyway, I've looked at the Set Origin command in VW12 and VW13 and realised that you CAN return to the original origin (whether it's Default or World origin?) by selecting the "Set Origin to Drawing Center" option, which just seems like a misnomer for the tool I was looking for all along.

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Chris - that is one of the many ways how one can ruin the coordinate system. Rotating the grid (ie. coordinate system) is another one. Using rulers and dragging the origin to a "convenient" location yet another one. All these methods should only affect the UCS - but, alas, we don't have one!

"Set Origin to Drawing Center" (ie. Set Origin) should be removed from all workspaces. Rulers should be turned off and VW Preferences also removed from workspaces.

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Petri, I agree with you to a certain extent - I always tell people NOT to touch the "Set Origin" command. If they need to move the origin for some reason, they should instead move all the objects relative to the origin. Not advisable once viewports are set up etc.

However, I don't understand your objection to "Set Origin to Drawing Center" if this simply returns the origin to the default position, if it has been moved for some reason.

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NNA, Please keep the insertion point of symbol (0,0).

In the past it didn't, but it was fortunately fixed for VW 9.

Chris, if you insist in seeing the moved origin reflected in your symbols then make a group inside the symbol, edit the group and there you see the coordinates according the moved origin.

Please read the origin article on VCOR:

http://www.vectorlab.info/index.php?title=Absolute_Origin

Gerard

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Please read the origin article on VCOR:

http://www.vectorlab.info/index.php?title=Absolute_Origin

Gerard

I concede to your greater understanding of the matter, on symbols at least.

However, I think I would still like a toggle so that hatches can use the User Origin...or does that complicate things?

I think the problem overall is that User Origins are too easy to set carelessly, not obvious that they have been set in somebody else's drawing, and the reset command is badly described as "Set Origin to Drawing Center" instead of "Reset Origin to Default Position". Then also, User Origins seem to have very little effect - if they don't amend hatches or plug-ins, what's the point?

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However, I don't understand your objection to "Set Origin to Drawing Center" if this simply returns the origin to the default position, if it has been moved for some reason.

If I work in real world (mapping) coordinates, I don't want the origin ever to be at the page centre. At creation of a file, eg. when importing a site survey, the origin should be set - and that's it. End of story. Objects should be placed in independently of any "page" (which is partly obsolete because of viewports - although at least I print from design layers, too) and page moved, if requested.

After that, one should be able to define only a User Coordinate System (I'm not necessarily referring to the UCS of AutoCAD), with an origin anywhere, maybe even with any rotation both in 2D and 3D.

The 3D-user origin should also be able to be defined. It would be so much easier to define that this point is now 36 metres above the project or task datum than that its RL is 129.245 which makes, let me see, 36 metres from such and such. (Maybe the term should be datum?)

Object Info & the silly Heads Up Display probably should show User Coordinates; in programming mode World Coordinates would be fine as long as displaying locations could be toggled to User Coordinates, which should be able to be made to match World Coordinates with a simple command.

---

Somewhat half-baked, I'm afraid, but hopefully conveys the general idea.

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Petri,

I'm terribly afraid that I have to agree with you on this matter. I know you don't like the association with the likes of me. (backwater mud still under the finger nails, my Mac Plus shutting down time after time because it sits under my desk not safe from the murky flood waters the windmill is hardly capable of milling out again.)

Your "half-baked" words bring the message across clear enough.

I wouldn't have called the Heads Up Display silly, other than that: I agree.

Gerard

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