Item Editing - Move Objects

Selected objects can be moved in several different ways .

Drag Graphically

This option provides a means to move objects by dragging them within the graphical view. This is quite helpful when a user wishes to roughly place objects in the job relative to each other or objects with know positions. It can be quite helpful to use orthogonal views for this process as you can only drag objects in the plane of the graphical view.

Note that this Item selection option does not include Instruments. They are handled separately but a similar command is available on the Instrument tab.

 

Enter Transform

This option offers a means to directly edit the position of objects by directly editing the transform of objects with respect to the current working frame.

The Move Objects dialog provides the ability to apply a relative movement to an object by typing in values, expressed in the active coordinate frame. In this dialog, you can explicitly type in the positional and rotational deltas—these values are initially zero because they are relative movements from a starting position. Positional deltas can be entered in Cartesian (xyz), Cylindrical (rθz), or Spherical (rθϕ) values. Rotational deltas can be entered in Fixed notation, Euler notation, Equivalent Angle Axis notation, or as Euler Parameters.

When the Object Objects dialog opens the values will always begin at zero, indicating the starting position and the move can then be entered as a relative position change.

When only a single object is selected additional controls will become visible:

This is particularly helpful when considering angular changes in position as it allows you to either use the Working frame origin point or the local object frame.

 

Frame to Frame Transform

make note of the transformation required to go from one coordinate frame (the source frame) to another (the destination frame), and then applies that transformation to selected objects.

An interesting characteristic about coordinate frames is that they store complete information on position and orientation. As a result, they can be used to keep a record of an object’s position. As an extension to that idea, two different coordinate frames store a positional and rotational delta (a transformation). Frame to frame transformations take advantage of this fact. If you plan on applying a transformation to an object, you can store the object’s initial position by creating a coordinate frame at its location (the Construction > New Frames > From Objects> On an Object command is very handy for this). If, after moving the object, you change your mind and would like to put it back to its original position, you can create a frame on the object’s current position, then use a frame to frame transformation to move the object back to it’s original location.

 

Translate Point to Point Delta 

offers the ability to move (translate) a selection of objects without editing the rotation of those objects. Translate Point to Point Delta use a source point and a destination point to calculate a positional delta to apply to one or more objects. A point to point delta transformation is the 3 degree of freedom, where as a frame to frame transformation involves movement in 6 degrees of freedom.

 

Relocate to Another Collection

this command could arguably be placed under Rename. It moves the selected objects within the SA Treebar from their current collection to the selected collection.