Any orient view buttons?

Submitted by behunter on November 22, 2010 - 02:34

Questions

Are there any canned orient view buttons in Caedium?

Edit: Caedium v5 has a selection of standard views.

Transforms->Orient tool

Submitted by symscape on November 22, 2010 - 09:47.

Try the Transforms->Orient tool in the Geometry Tool Palette. Drag and drop the tool onto the background (camera) to align the camera, then click the Fit-All button on the toolbar. The Orient tool properties let you specify:

Forwards - Into screen direction
Up - Screen up direction

If you just want to align the view and not animate it, then you need to ensure you are at Simulation->Time = 0, i.e., click the Start button on the toolbar. If you want to preserve your current results and orient the camera then be sure to click the Lock button on the toolbar first, click the Start button, perform the orientation, and then toggle Lock to return to your previous Simulation->Time. For more on Lock try "Run, Stop, and Lock Controls."

Another Question About How to Get Pre-Defined Views

Submitted by rbgordonus on March 26, 2011 - 10:52.

After further experimentation with the Transforms->Orient tool, it appears that the X Axis and Y Axis parameters are relative to the orientation of the previous settings for background (camera). This is not useful when trying to obtain pre-defined views such as X-Y, Y-Z and X-Z plane views. Is there a way to get these pre-defined views in Caedium?

Make Sure You are at Simulation->Time = 0

Submitted by symscape on March 26, 2011 - 13:33.

I think you are animating the camera (i.e., Simulation->Time > 0), whereas I presume you want to just set the camera view. In which case:

See comment "Transforms->Orient tool"
you need to ensure you are at Simulation->Time = 0, i.e., click the Start button on the toolbar. If you want to preserve your current results and orient the camera then be sure to click the Lock button on the toolbar first, click the Start button, perform the orientation, and then toggle Lock to return to your previous Simulation->Time. For more on Lock try "Run, Stop, and Lock Controls".

For your example you need to set:

Forwards: -Y
Up: +X

Behavior of Transform-> Orient tool

Submitted by rbgordonus on March 26, 2011 - 10:41.

I'm not clear on the behavior of this tool. I want to orient the coordinate axes so that +Y is out of the page, +X is up and +Z is right. After trial and error, I was able to achieve this using the following settings for Orient tool:

X Axis: +X (i.e., Screen Up direction, not into the screen)
Y Axis: +Z (i.e., Screen Right direction, not Screen up direction)

This appears to be counter to the directions provided in the post above.

Also, is there a general user reference for the underlying geometric modeler used in Caedium?

Builder Tutorials

Submitted by symscape on March 26, 2011 - 15:17.

The Builder tutorials and the construction in the other tutorials forms the bulk of the geometry user documentation for Caedium. The underlying geometry engine in Caedium is Open Cascade.

If you have specific geometry questions then feel free to start new threads in the Questions forum.

Symscape