Define local object coordinate system

[RichPiano]

Hi guys

 

I have an area of solar panels on my roof, that i want to align with the walls of the building. I grouped them together and now I want to align them to the left and right walls. However, to do so the border box around my group must first be oriented in the correct way. As you can see, it is off angled by a margin. Can I somehow define a local coordinate system so that the box fits neatly around the panels, maybe by rotating the local axis a bit?

[markdd]

Have you thought about rotating the Plan using the Rotate Plan tool. If you align the plan to one of the edges then the Group bounding box should give you a better result.

[RichPiano]

Thanks, but then the other bounding boxes in the scene won't fit again. Everything is at a different angle unfortunately.

[Pat Stanford]

The only type of "Local Axis" would be a symbol.

 

Make the solar panels into a symbol at "zero" rotation. I would make the insertion point be the center of the array with an offset equal to the setback from the "top" roof edge. You can then use the snaps to place the symbol at the center of the top edge and rotate to match the angle.

 

Another possibility would be to draw a polygon to follow the roof edges. Select the poly and the panels and Group them. Edit the group and Align the left/right centers. Exit the group. Move the group back to match the roof. Either put the poly in a class that can be hidden, or ungroup and delete the poly if you don't need it any more.

 

Or add a locus point (either as part of the panel array, or as part of a group as above) at the offset from the roof edge aligned with the center of panel array. Use this to drag to the center of the "top" wall.

 

Or use markdd's suggestion and temporarily rotate the plan to make the left/right walls vertical. Align the panel array and then unrotated the plan.

 

Hmmm. Only 4 ways. I usually say there are at least 7 ways to do anything in VW. Anyone have the other three I have missed?  ;-)

[RichPiano]

Thanks a lot guys!

 

I considered the options. I will probably just draw a line from the left- to the rightmost solarpanel, then drag the midpoint of this line together with the panels and align it with the midpoint of the walls. It bothers me however that a object axis are not a part of vectorworks. I used it a lot in SketchUp.

Edited May 12, 2020 by RichPiano