Subject:
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Rotating and Aligning Elements in MLCad
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad.mlcad
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Date:
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Thu, 12 Sep 2002 22:49:05 GMT
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Viewed:
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3562 times
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Hey Y'all:
I know this is answered elsewhere, but it's a hassle to look for. As great
as MLCad is (for me it is "THEE" CAD tool for LDraw action), the
documentation is just not there in some ways.
Recently I had cause to mess with an angled element like 6044.DAT, "Slope
Brick 53 3x1x3 1/3 with Studs on Slope." If you wanted to set an element on
that sloped angle, say a 1x4 plate going down the slope lengthwise; normally
this would be a pain because the default rotation setting is 15 degrees and
that slope is 53 degrees (probably very close to it anyway). You will have
the problem of a mismatch of 8 degrees.
Instead of just slopping it, as I once might have done, here is the real way
to do it quickly and easily without messing with the rotation matrices (no
Algebra required):
1) Go to "Settings" on the menu bar.
2) Hover on "General", then click on "Change".
3) Click on the "Step, Grid, Snap" tab in the resulting popup window.
4) For this job, we concern ourselves only with the bottom row: "Default for
Grid Off"
5) Note the values for each text box (by default they should be as follows):
X Step Units = 1
Y Step Units = 1
Z Step Units = 1
Rotation Angle = 15
6) Those values aren't going to help if you need finer moves for your
elements. Look at the "Rotation Angle", change the value from 15 to 1 and
click the "OK" button. Now instead of moving the element by 15 degrees with
each click of a rotation tool, you will move it only by 1 degree. This is
going to take more clicks this way, but it will enable you to do precisely
what you need to do. If you are ahead of this game you might have set the
value to 8 instead realizing that if you moved 45 degrees already in the
default setting, you need 8 degrees more to get the 53 degrees.
7) To set everything to default again, simply do as before and change the
values back again. Easier still, you would click on "Settings", hover on
"General", and click on "Default." It's done -- the drawback is that this
sets EVERYTHING back to default, now you have to go back in and tweak
everything you had changed in everything else -- for example I like to
change the grid to "fine" rather than "coarse". That's probably more hassle
than it's worth. For me, it's easier to just change the settings in "Step,
Grid, Snap" tab.
8) Okay, if you followed these instructions and actually tried what I have
written above, you are looking at the results with a funny expression. I
know, the elements will not now match up quite correctly, everything is just
a little off by a teeny bit. Here's the fix...
9) You need to go back into "Settings" --> "General" --> "Change" --> "Step,
Grid, Snap" and mess with the X, Y, and Z Step Units -- I'd recommend 0.5
(Zero-Dot-Five) instead of the 1 there. At this finer level, you will end
up being able to position the element tightly enough to make a nice set of
instructions are even a POV-Ray render later on. Obviously, you can
optimize your visit to the "Step, Grid, Snap" tab and do everything in one
go -- I kept repeating the steps only to highlight what it takes to
accomplish each unique function.
10) The end results of your labors will look like this:
http://www.ozbricks.com/blaktron/misc/53slope.jpg
That's perfectly adequate for your needs, trust me. I didn't need this much
before, but I am glad to know of it now.
-- Hop-Frog
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Rotating and Aligning Elements in MLCad
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| thanks for the great headsup... -tk "richard marchetti" <blueofnoon@aol.com> wrote in message news:H2CKpt.DLy@lugnet.com... (...) great (...) on (...) normally (...) and (...) way (...) for (...) follows): (...) with (...) hassle (...) just (...) (...) (22 years ago, 13-Sep-02, to lugnet.cad.mlcad)
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