Source LCS Manipulators of 3D Transformations

This chapter describers types, contextual menus and settings of 3D Elements Transformation LCS manipulators.

Usage of these manipulators for applying transformations is described in the Types of 3D Transformations chapter.

Scaling manipulators and their usage are described in the Scaling chapter.

Types of LCS Manipulators

Upon selecting an object of transformation, its source LCS manipulators appear in the 3D scene. Position and orientation of manipulators depend on applied transformations.

Axis manipulators look like arrows: X - red, Y - green, Z - blue.

Plane manipulators look like planes of a same color as a normal axis.

The origin manipulator looks like a turquoise ball located in the axis manipulators' point of intersection.

Manipulators of rotation look like arcs locate to both sides of an axis normal to an axis of rotation. One of the arcs define positive rotation angles, another one - negative angles. Positive angles are counted clockwise, negative - counterclockwise when looking along the rotation axis. Rotation manipulators have same colors as their corresponding axes of rotation.

 

Contextual menus of LCS manipulators

Clicking on a manipulator invokes its contextual menu. Set of options available in the contextual menu depends on the type of manipulator. However, two common options are always available:

•Rotate to
Applies such view orientation, so the X axis is pointed horizontally to the right, Y - vertically up, Z - opposite of the view direction.

•Settings...
Invokes the common manipulator settings dialog.

 

Contextual menu of the rotation manipulator contains common options only.

Contextual menu of the origin manipulator beside common option also contains the Cyclic Axis Change option, which works in the similar way as the automenu option.

Contextual menu of the plane manipulator beside common option also contains following options:

•Move to Point

•Fully Combine

 

Contextual menu of the axis manipulator beside common option also contains following options:

•Move to Point

•Rotate Parallel to Direction

•Combine Axis

•Direct Axis to Point

•Direct axis to point with rotation around axis

•Move to Curve

•Move to Surface

 

Manipulator settings

Manipulator settings dialog is common for all types of manipulators. Here you can define custom manipulator's movement step when applying Move (translation) and Rotate transformations, by typing the value into the input field to the right side of the corresponding checkbox. Move step is measured in the Length units set in the Document Parameters. Rotate step is measured in degrees. Enable the corresponding checkbox and click ОК to apply a custom step value. If the checkbox is disabled, then a custom value will be saved in system parameters upon clicking ОК, but will not be applied to manipulator's movement.