Transform vs Positioning Inconsistency...

[R23D]

I have a serious question. Why do we have a beautiful, elegant, intuitive and simple to use tool at our disposal for manually positioning parts of a model by dragging them around with the mouse when we use the transform tool but when we open the placement tool, the same mechanism does not pop up and there is no ability to ACTUALLY move things by dragging them about? I literally cannot understand this. Am I missing something that makes this make sense?

[drmacro]

One provides accurate positioning, one provides approximate postioning.

[Bance]

One requires some thought the other doesn't.

[R23D]

One provides accurate positioning, one provides approximate postioning.

I'm not sure how you mean. Both are equally accurate with the same level of digital precision. It's just the interface which is different...

[drmacro]

One provides accurate positioning, one provides approximate postioning.

I'm not sure how you mean. Both are equally accurate with the same level of digital precision. It's just the interface which is different...

One leaves the "thing" wherever you let go of the mouse button. The other you specify the values.

[KurtF]

A most worthy question, imo. Transform tool brings convenience of mouse motion but lacks ability to mouse to a position then fine-tune the movement (ie- I want to drag a part exactly 14.220 mm in X); while position dialog gives the fine tune ability as a completely separate, data-entry function. This is kinda kludgy when you come from a more robust transform tool from another CAD.

I would like to see an upgrade to the FC transform tool so that when you drag it's linear move handle, a small input box shows up along the axis of drag, showing the precise distance you have moved the part (there is no "minimum increment", transform tool always moves to best resolution the mouse and current zoom level allow). As you drag along an axis, the box always shows the current distance and is centered along the distance moved, exactly like a dimension annotation should behave. At any time during a mouse-drag, you can stop dragging and hit the space bar to put focus on the dimension box, ready to receive your data-entry. Hit enter closes input box but not the transform tool. If transform tool had this, I'd likely never open a Position Dialog ever again.

This same feature can be applied to the rotational handles on the transform tool.

[onekk]

I'm not sure how you mean. Both are equally accurate with the same level of digital precision. It's just the interface which is different...

Maybe a duplicate answer of @Kurtf, maybe not.

If for "positioning" you are speaking of using the "placement" property there are some other thing than a position.

Placement include:

- a position (translation vector)
- a center of rotation
- a rotation

you could specify even a transformation matrix when you use some code (so you could introduce even a scale factor)

It is different from a simple "drag and drop" and object around the screen.

Plus take in account that the same precision could be exact if you are dealing with some units, like mm or inches, and with a decent zoom level, as when you drag and drop thing around you are not dealing with the "real world coordinates" but with "visualization coordinates" managed by pixel on the screen, and for each pixel there could be a different "factor to apply" to the translation.

If you have a zoom level of 10 a pixel, is (x) mm if you have a different zoom level is a different thing, but you could move only pixel by pixel.

They are simply different and not duplicate ways to do the "same" thing.

When "moving" an object on the screen the mechanics could seem the same, but it is not.

Regards

Carlo D.

[adrianinsaval]

I would prefer if the transform tool and the attachment dialog were merged

[KurtF]

For the use case: move part in X until it just touches a target part.

Currently, transform tool gets you in neighborhood, but Position Property is needed to precisely place the part, and you may have to try several guesses before you remember which 10th of a mm you placed the target. Or, you have to pre-calculate every move before you make it.

What I propose is a drag with no minimal increment, and with a real-time update distance box which lets you drag part until it's visually touching target, then you hit space, update your distance box now you remember which 10th of a mm to use, and hit enter. Then you can drag again or exit transform tool.

I'm not sure if this is common practice, but when designing free-hand parts, I tend to dimension things to the 10th of a mm. So when I drag a part to touch another, this proposal, which I'll call "annotated transform tool", allows me to get to the correct 10th of a mm without having to use 2 separate tools, or having to go back and compute the move distances in advance for every object I wanna place.

[drmacro]

A most worthy question, imo. Transform tool brings convenience of mouse motion but lacks ability to mouse to a position then fine-tune the movement (ie- I want to drag a part exactly 14.220 mm in X); while position dialog gives the fine tune ability as a completely separate, data-entry function. This is kinda kludgy when you come from a more robust transform tool from another CAD.

I would like to see an upgrade to the FC transform tool so that when you drag it's linear move handle, a small input box shows up along the axis of drag, showing the precise distance you have moved the part (there is no "minimum increment", transform tool always moves to best resolution the mouse and current zoom level allow). As you drag along an axis, the box always shows the current distance and is centered along the distance moved, exactly like a dimension annotation should behave. At any time during a mouse-drag, you can stop dragging and hit the space bar to put focus on the dimension box, ready to receive your data-entry. Hit enter closes input box but not the transform tool. If transform tool had this, I'd likely never open a Position Dialog ever again.

This same feature can be applied to the rotational handles on the transform tool.

All valid comments.

When can we expect to see the PR request on your code updates?