Making changes after rotating, WHY NOT ?

[YK]

I make a rectangle, and in that rectangle I can change the dimension of X and Y, from any of the 8 vertex available, but then I rotated that rectangle, and now its a polygon, but in that polygon now I cant change the dimensions because if I do its gonna get changed like if still a rectangle and its gonna get deform.

So, I wonder when I'm gonna be able to change the dimensions of that polygon, using any of the 8 vertex, so it could change in the same angle.

[Petri]

Use 'Reshape' tool. It can be a bit fiddly to get an edge moved in the correct ange (ie. 'parallel'), but with correct constraits, doable. I don't think you will see a fundamental change in the situation any time soon, as the behaviour of rectangles is very deep in the fundamental layers of VW's graphics engine (in fact, in the operating system.)

[propstuff]

Hi again Petri, hello YK,

note:

holding down the shift key while dragging will sort-of constrain the angle. It doesn't lock it in like a shift-move would normally, but makes it much "stickier" and easier to keep parallel.

cheers,

N.

[YK]

thanks, for the reply, I use the reshape tool, and the shift to, but I will love to see when I can change that polygon with exactitude measure, just like I do with lines, that I can chose the angle, and I don't have to make extra lines to see where it ends or from where to where I have to move some vertex of the polygon.

thanks, from R.D.

[jan15]

If you temporarily change the grid to align with the rectangle (pull down Page > Set Grid... > Next Mouse Drag), you can grab the center handle of any side of the rectangle and drag it to the desired length or width, entering the dimension in the data display bar.

[bc]

jan15, I can't seem to get this to work. When and where do you enter the dimension in the data display bar? Thanks, this is a good tip if I can get it to work. When I drag, the rectangle goes skew as if I never rotated the grid.

[Guest]

When moving the vertices, use the floating datum to reset the data display bar values and use them to specify the length you want to extend the object to.

[propstuff]

It would be nice if rotated rectangles could "remember" that they were rectangles, however.....

bc,

entering new co-ordinates in the data bar will not edit the object itself (only the OIP does this numericaly) but it will provide numericaly accurate guides that the vertexes can be dragged to with the Reshape tool.

N.

[jan15]

EDITED:

bc: Use the 1st or 2nd cell to enter a change in width or height. Press the Tab key to skip past a cell without affecting its value. Press the Enter key to lock in the value produced by dragging, or type a different value and then press Enter.

Yes, it can go skew, but it likes to stay orthogonal with respect to the grid and the rectangle. So if you're at all close to orthogonal, an "I" or "J" appears next to the cursor to show you're on track, and a zero appears in the other data display cell (the one you don't want to change), and you can just hit Enter to accept the zero value. If that doesn't happen, you can type a zero as the other value and then hit Enter. That zero value for the other direction keeps the rectangle from racking.

[ 06-18-2004, 08:35 PM: Message edited by: jan15 ]

[mike m oz]

Julian Carr at OzCad here in Australia produced a tool as part of the OzCad pack that allowed rotated rectangles to be resized as you wanted through the OIP

Would be worth contacting OzCad ( www, ozcad.com.au ) to see if it still available and functions in VW11

[Peter Huggins]

There is a free version available at Vector Depot. I haven't looked at it recently, but it will likely do what you are asking. Navigate to http://www.vectordepot.com/PlugIns1.shtml and look for the item called "Rectangle PIO".

[jan15]

EDITED:

quote:

---

Originally posted by propstuff:

bc, entering new co-ordinates in the data bar will not edit the object itself...

---

...unless you follow the procedure I posted, in which case the data bar does edit the dimensions of the object itself.

I think we're describing different parts of the elephant here, and maybe it's my fault for not clarifying that I was talking about using the Reshape tool (following up on Petri's post). Nicholas seems to be talking about dragging with the Select tool, or maybe he's not including the part about rotating the grid. Maybe bc's question was based on trying to do it with the Select tool, and if so I apologize for answering the wrong question.

The procedure I was talking about is actually pretty simple to perform, but I see now that it's very difficult to describe.

So I'll try again.:

-- Temporarily change the grid to align with the rotated rectangle (Page>SetGrid>Next Mouse Drag).

-- Use the first mode of the 2D Reshape tool to grab the center handle of a side of the rectangle (not a corner) and drag it to the desired width or height, entering the dimension you want in the data display bar.

-- Unlike drag-stretching non-rotated rectangles with the Select tool, you can only change width OR height, not both at once. And the values in the cells are increase or decrease in width or height, not final width or height.

-- Use the 1st cell of the data bar to enter change in width (the "I" dimension), or use the 2nd cell to enter change in height (the "J" dimension). This has to be done while dragging, using your other hand to Enter data and/or to Tab past a cell without entering data.

-- Watch for an "I" or "J" screen hint as you drag, to show you're keeping the rectangular shape.

-- Make sure there's a zero in the data bar for the other dimension of the rectangle (the one you aren't changing).

-- When done, change the grid back (Page>SetGrid>EnterAngle0).

[ 06-18-2004, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: jan15 ]

[YK]

Jan15, thanks for the tip, it's useful,to many changes but I'm gonna used if I needed.

I'm gonna try the "rectangle PIO" plug in now, to see haw it woks.

YK. from RD.

[YK]

Peter Huggins, I downloaded that plug-in, but it doesn't allow you to make changes that way, but some one gave another plug-in called "rectangle rotated", that plug-in give you the possibility to change the rectangle from any vertex, and after you can converted into a polygon if you want.

[propstuff]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jan15:

-- Use the 1st or 2nd cell of the data bar to enter change in width or height, or use the 5th or 6th cell to enter final width or height.

This has to be done while dragging, using your other hand to Enter data

and/or Tab past cells without entering data.

---

That was the significant bit.

Very interesting jan!

Always something new to learn.

Although, when I tried this again, the 5th and 6th cells did not give me a "Final" height or width. EG, if I entered 300mm in the 5th field, it neither added nor subtracted 300, nor was the final i dimension 300. It made up an apparently unrelated number to move by. {:-?

cheers,

N.

[ 06-18-2004, 05:24 PM: Message edited by: propstuff ]

[bc]

This is good, this is good. Got it to work. Thanks Jan for the detailed explanation. I was indeed using the select tool rather than the reshape. All this makes me wonder what else is out there in the depths of the program. There's a lot that is still new to me and once in a while I'll be making a mistake doing one thing when I discover the ability to do another and can't find any reference to it in the manuals what-so-ever. Thanks again, bc

[bc]

I'm back! After messing around a bit more, I have to agree with Nicholas on the data entry issue. Plus it seems that I can use the reshape tool alone and not have to alter the grid at all.

[jan15]

Apologies again. And thanks, Nicholas and bc, for pointing out my mistake. I don't actually use this procedure very often (don't have much use for it), and I never use the 5th or 6th cells, so I always misunderstood what they were doing. Apparently they're for entering absolute coordinates -- distance from the "origin". It's hard to understand why they do that, but that's what seems to be happening. Maybe that's to make the ex-Autocad users feel more at home.

I've edited my previous posts to remove the false information about the 5th and 6th cells.

bc: If you don't rotate the grid, then the values in data cells 1 and 2 are the changes in X and Y coordinates, not changes in the I and J dimensions of the rectangle along its axes.

[Petri]

Now as comes to the various rotated rectangle PIOs, including the one I wrote for my own use, far superior (well, of course - he hee) to those at VectorDepot and also to the one Julian Carr offers, one has to keep in mind that in SOME ways they are pseudo-rectangles and not eg. recognised as rectangles OR polygons in reports. They also interact with walls as any PIO or symbol (ie. get sucked in.) So, by and large, they are a workaround and an aberration. But useful.

[jan15]

By the way, since we're talking about rectangles only, it's really easier to draw a new rectangle at the desired angle of rotation, and then delete the original, perhaps after eyedroppering its properties to the new one.

One way to do that is to rotate the grid as described above. Then anything you draw follows the rotated grid, and cells 1 & 2 are the width & height of the new rotated rectangle along its own axes, and horizontal and vertical alignment screen hints also follow the rotated grid, as "Align I" and "Align J".

Or, as I've just discovered, you can use the Rotated Rectangle tool, without rotating the grid. Start at one corner of the original rectangle, drag over another corner and then get "Horizontal" screen hints to continue along that axis, and the first two cells in the data bar are width and height along that rotated axis and perpendicular to it. This looks promising.