How to flip or rotate objects 90 degrees

Thanks for the suggestions… however, I find both of those methods andquot;tediousandquot;. andnbsp;You can enter exact angles that way, which is nice.

It’d be nice if I could hold down a key while dragging on one of the rotatation axes and cause the rotation to be constrained to some andquot;snap toandquot; increment… like 90 degrees, or whatever…

I find that when I’m working with models I often need to flip an object about an axis (180 degrees) or rotate an object 90 degrees. andnbsp;Using the drag-axes is a pain because you can never get it to come out exactly the angle you want (always a tenth or two or three off). andnbsp;Is there any way to do this? andnbsp;Are there hot-keys for the simple manipulations?

Agreed. There should be a separate rotational snap. Probably something to andquot;suggestandquot; in the suggestions forum.

Oh and I don’t have the alternate keyboard functions in another format. It should be simple enough to copy and paste it to an editor and reformat (or print horizontally). Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of time for this sort of thing.

Richard

I found the section of the help called andquot;Using Alternate Keyboard Functionsandquot;. andnbsp;Great! andnbsp;Now if I could just get it to print without chopping off the right edge of all the tables. andnbsp;Do you have this section in another format (the Help utility that comes with 3DC doesn’t have any page formatting options… just Print)? andnbsp;This should be a single-page cheat-sheet for under everyone’s pillow… <!– s;-) –><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" /><!– s;-) –>

Snap-To Grid is on the main toolbar (it’s a push button) there are no separate rotation options. Nudge is in the help file but you have to search for andquot;Nudgesandquot;. The search function of the help file is pretty literal. andquot;Nudgeandquot; should really find andquot;nudgesandquot; if you ask me.

Richard

Set the grid to .5 for object snap and .5 for point snap, and then make a standard cube. andnbsp;Turn on andquot;Snap To Gridandquot; with the toolbar button. andnbsp;Now rotate the cube about the Y (green) axis using standard coordinate mode… this is what I mean about the object andquot;waddling aroundandquot; – rotate slowly and see how the object moves in the X-Z plane as your rotate. andnbsp;Note that it’s even harder to get a 90 degree rotation. andnbsp; Very strange… there really should be a quick way to do these right-angle rotations to make for smooth workflow while modelling.

I don’t see any andquot;snap-toandquot; options for rotations on the main toolbar of 3DC LP v6.0.1.1. andnbsp;I don’t see any grid snap options in the Tools-]Options dialog.

How do I access the andquot;Nudgeandquot; function?

There is a snap-to option for rotations (see the main toolbar). I forget what the increment is exactly – probably somewhere around 1 degrees. Note that the snapping is not in degrees so you can snap to 0, 90, 180, 270 fine, but not to individual degrees such as 27, 43 etc. But there is a andquot;Nudgeandquot; function to rotate in very small increments if you need a precise angle (or you can right-click and use properties of course).

Richard

Okay, I see the andquot;Snap To Gridandquot; button on the main toolbar. andnbsp;But it doesn’t seem to have any affect on rotations, except that it somehow moves the object around to try to make it’s points fall onto grid points (this is a guess, I can see the object waddle around as I slowly rotate it – this effect is exaggerated if I set the grid snap to .1 or something like that). andnbsp;Are you saying I need to set the grid sufficiently large enough to make the objects point pull it to a specific orientation when Snap To Grid is turned on and I’m rotating an object?

Eddie – Two options for you to try…

1) right click on the object, select properties and enter an exact value in the group rotation box

2) use the Shift Operation – which includes rotations and enter exact values for the operation.

Okay, after playing with it more, I think I see what you mean. andnbsp;You turn on the grid (I typically use .1 for both snap settings) and then you watch the andquot;Orientation:andquot; display in the left side of the status bar. andnbsp;It locks into 90 degree increments pretty easily. andnbsp;Then after you’re done, you drag the object back to it’s original grid position and for the multiples of 90 degrees this works very nicely… for most other angles, either the X or Z coord has wandered away from the original position and move the object in the X-Z plane, with the grid snap on, will not allow you to get it back into the original position.

It’d probably be a lot nicer to have a rotation snap, object snap and point snap that each worked independently of each other…