How to rotate an rectangle in 3D by one of its edges or a center line

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drmacro
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Re: How to rotate an rectangle in 3D by one of its edges or a center line

Post by drmacro »

Hint: unless you are planning to do architectural designs, I'd recommend learning PartDesign or Part workbench and not use Draft for general creation of geometry.

There are Draft tools I use daily...but, I rarely create any geometry with it.

YMMV of course. :mrgreen:
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Spock: "...His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking."
ranila
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Re: How to rotate an rectangle in 3D by one of its edges or a center line

Post by ranila »

In 0.20 (weekly conda version) the command "Transform" *does* works in draft workbench!

So is this a bug in 0.18 and 0.19 - or just 'feature to add' to the already implemented command in the GUI?
drmacro
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Re: How to rotate an rectangle in 3D by one of its edges or a center line

Post by drmacro »

ranila wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 6:27 pm In 0.20 (weekly conda version) the command "Transform" *does* works in draft workbench!

So is this a bug in 0.18 and 0.19 - or just 'feature to add' to the already implemented command in the GUI?
I guess I don't know works in 0.20 here fine:
Peek 2021-12-07 13-57.gif
Peek 2021-12-07 13-57.gif (618.53 KiB) Viewed 937 times
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Spock: "...His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking."
TheMarkster
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Re: How to rotate an rectangle in 3D by one of its edges or a center line

Post by TheMarkster »

In the Placement task dialog there is support for rotating about a particular axis.

Usage: Ensure first the Apply incremental checkbox is checked if the object is not at the identity placement. Select 2 points to define the axis, click Selected points button. Apply your desired rotation angle. Click Apply to apply changes before doing another placement change.
ranila
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Re: How to rotate an rectangle in 3D by one of its edges or a center line

Post by ranila »

Hi TheMarkster,
thank you for this advice. That's quite a nice manipulation tool. I think selecting an axis would be great for conveniance instead of selcting 2 points. BTW, these little highlights of selected points are so small, is there a preference option I overlooked so far to enlarge them a bit? Otherwise I have to enlarge my personal dioptrin :geek:
TheMarkster
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Re: How to rotate an rectangle in 3D by one of its edges or a center line

Post by TheMarkster »

In the view tab there is a point size property that can enlarge them on the screen. This is on a per object basis.

It would be nice to be able to select edges, but edges are defined in the Part module and the placement task is part of the core. To tell the core about Part module edges would make it dependent upon that module, so in order to preserve the modular nature of FreeCAD you must use points in that dialog. Points are also used in the alignment dialog.

But take note that any point along an edge may also be selected. You need two points to define the axis, so one needs to be a vertex (because selecting the edge twice deselects it), but the other can be anywhere along the edge (or face). If the edge aligns with a major axis (x, y, or z) then only a single point (which can be on an edge) needs to be selected, and the appropriate axis to use. For example, with a cube at the default position you could select anywhere on the top front edge and rotate along the x axis.
ranila
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Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2021 5:11 pm

Re: How to rotate an rectangle in 3D by one of its edges or a center line

Post by ranila »

Thanx for showing me these options and what's under the hood.
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