View Control
This menu appears in the rotate and move modes. It provides buttons for orthogonal rotations relative to the current view and displays the current viewpoint and viewing offsets. Precise positioning can be achieved by typing appropriate values into the edit boxes (and clicking on another box or tabbing or pressing return !).Typing in angle values requires all three angles to be entered together so a small extra window is put up for manual entry of orientation. The new orientation is achieved by an ordered application of the three rotations (right,down,anti). The offset values are in the object's frame of reference, not the current view (unless this is the initial view).

The sensitivity of the system to mouse movement and cursor keys can be altered by changing the angle increment (which defaults to 1 degree). The return key must be pressed in the edit box for the increment to be updated.

The radio buttons allow access to modes which can only be used after multiple objects have been loaded. To load a second object, first click on the Current obj. button which will display a selection window like this:
and select a number for the new object. If a number with an object already loaded is selected then loading a new object will replace the old object. After selecting a new current object number, the appropriate load option from the file menu can then be used to load a new object.

The Current Obj radio button allows access to a mode where shifts and rotations are applied only to the current object. Clicking on this button changes the view control to a mode where only the current object is allowed to move and the frame of reference of the remaining objects remains static.The control menu changes to show its altered function. All orientation and position changes on the object can be removed with the re-align obj button which restores the current object to its default orientation and position. The numeric displays of angle and offset relate to the composite orientation and cannot be edited in this mode.

Show Composite View causes both the current and aux objects to be displayed. This can be useful when trying to adjust the relative positions of two objects in Current Obj mode.

Back to index