Rotating a View?

[Gadget Man]

Hello there,

Since I am known already on this Forum for asking silly questions, I don't hesitate to have another one.

I am wandering why can't I rotate a View? Lately I had this funny (but not that unussual I think) job where there were 3 buildings in twisted and staggered formation and a separate Garage rotated some further 30-odd degrees from them. While I wanted to show them all on the Site Plan in one orientation (say North-up - none of the building is horizontal then), on the particular Floor Plans they needed to be shown horizontaly (obviously). Together with dimensions, labels, etc.

Now, I know that I could link their separate, respective files to the main host file and position them all as I wish, but that still doesn't answer my question. Should I detail each of the buildings in their private files? And perhaps print some pages from this file and other from that file? How about if I want to show an elevation with the other buildings "in the background" printed in much lighter (thinner) line? It sounds to me very cumbersome!
I hate to work in an "X-Ref" environment without being able to edit my "X-Refs" from within my host file. Often you have to relate to other elements from other "X-Refs" and switching to- and from- is real pain in the back side. Especially if you can't see the other parts simultanieously (spell checker doesn't work !!!!). To have simple possibility of rotating Views in the host file freerly (not only in 90° increments) would be so simple...

Now that I had my today's whine (at your expense...) I am waiting for your suggestions (Please!!!)

Anyway, Happy New Year everybody !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Frustrated Jerry

[beegee]

Not a silly question at all. 7.0 rotation behaviour is different to previous versions.

To rotate a view. Place a view on a sheet. Activate the view and turn on the crop boundary, if not already on. Select the Rotate Tool and either enter an angle in the dialogue box, or rotate dynamically with the mouse. You can now see the difference between this sheet view and your original view, which is orientated according to either Project North or True North.



Different behaviour can be observed with a callout view’s rotation however. This was explained in a recent post by L. Raiz and is worth quoting in full, as follows :-




7.0 behavior may be a bit confusing but I think it is the correct one. It deserves an explanation.



To illustrate open sheet in the attached file, activate callout view, select both view crop boundary and a wall and start playing with rotate command. Callout is deliberately made to look like a rectangle not a square, so the behavior is easier to understand. Observe in the overall (not callout) view that rotation is behaving correctly for any angle. However callout view itself orients itself either horizontally or vertically alternatively depending on rotation angle.



The underlying logic of this behavior is the following. A cropped callout of a plan view knows that it has to orient its vertical/horizontal axes parallel to sides of crop rectangle. However there is still a choice to be made which of the sides to chose as defining horizontal. In 7.0 this choice is made in such a way as to keep resulting view oriented as close as possible to the orientation of an uncropped view. In effect if angle of rotation is greater then 45 degree then horizontal and vertical are swapped. This logic makes it easier for the user to understand the overall orientation of a callout relative to a building. 7.0 made rotation itself a bit less understandable but assured that resulting view is easier to understand.



In 6.1 behavior was different and I think worse. Try similar experiments with 6.1 and you will notice that even though rotation itself is more predictable the resulting views may be more confusing. In 6.1 resulting view was especially confusing in case of large rotation angles. With 180 rotation in 6.1 one could get callout to be upside down relative to uncropped view. Even Ph.D. in geometry or architecture would have difficult time understanding resulting views.



BTW you may notice that changed/improved behavior applies not only to rotation but to mirroring of views as well.



HTH

[gravelin]

This can be done also directly in the view.
- Define and active a crop region
- set visibility on
- select crop region
- Rotation tool is active
- It works !!! (génial...)
- set crop region off
- The view is always rotated.

[aggockel50321]

This can be done also directly in the view.
- Define and active a crop region
- set visibility on
- select crop region
- Rotation tool is active
- It works !!! (génial...)
- set crop region off
- The view is always rotated.
The above works in 6.1, but I've yet to be able to make it work in 7.0, at least for a 90° rotation.

I still don't understand Leonid's reasoning for changing this feature from 6.1 ot 7.0.

The majority of the stuff we output here is on tabloid (11"x17") size sheets, so I'm forever cropping or doing callouts regions, and then rotating by 90° views so they'll fit on the sheets.

In 7.0 I have to now rotate the sheet 90° & then place the view. I also have to annotate the view (not the sheet) with my neck bent 90° so I can read the vertical text.

Worse yet, I can no longer batch print a full set of drawings if I have both vertically and horizontally oriented sheets.

The only workaround I've found, is to maintain & start new projects in 6.1, set up and rotate the views, & then bring them into 7.0.

For some reason 7.0 still reads the views as rotated 90°...

If anyone has a better workaround for a view specific 90° rotation, I'd love to hear it.

[Gadget Man]

Gee! Thanks...

It's so obvious that I'm lost for words...

I never thought of that - I feel (well... let's not specify how).

Thanks again

Embarassed Jerry...

[LRaiz]

The above works in 6.1, but I've yet to be able to make it work in 7.0, at least for a 90° rotation.

I still don't understand Leonid's reasoning for changing this feature from 6.1 ot 7.0.

The majority of the stuff we output here is on tabloid (11"x17") size sheets, so I'm forever cropping or doing callouts regions, and then rotating by 90° views so they'll fit on the sheets.

In 7.0 I have to now rotate the sheet 90° & then place the view. I also have to annotate the view (not the sheet) with my neck bent 90° so I can read the vertical text.

Worse yet, I can no longer batch print a full set of drawings if I have both vertically and horizontally oriented sheets.

The only workaround I've found, is to maintain & start new projects in 6.1, set up and rotate the views, & then bring them into 7.0.

For some reason 7.0 still reads the views as rotated 90°...

If anyone has a better workaround for a view specific 90° rotation, I'd love to hear it.
Andrew,

I have not been able to fully understand the problem that you are describing. I do have a suspicion that it is related to interaction between rotating view itself and rotating view on sheets (including placement of view titles on sheets). It would be helpful if you post some pictures. I think the change in 7.0 was for the better but it is possible that it has some undesirable side effects that were not uncovered and taken care of during testing.

[aggockel50321]

Leonid,

Attached is a callout that represents approximately 20% of a building floor plan.

In 6.1, I can select the crop boundry, pick rotate, type in 90°, and the whole underlying model geometry rotates 90° (view specific). This allows me to place this view on a B size sheet at 1/4" = 1'-0".
I just then adjust the north arrow on the sheet to reflect the views position.

I tend do do all my annotation on the view and not on the sheet, so once rotated, I can do all the annotation in a normal fashion, and then drag the view onto a B sized (landscape) sheet.

In 7.0, I can no longer select the crop boundry and rotate the view a full 90°.

So now I have to do all my annotation vertically in the view. When placing a sheet for the view, I have to rotate the sheet 90° (portrait), and then place the view on the sheet. I can choose not to rotate the sheet, and rotate the view on the sheet via the properties dialog box, but the view title rotates with it.

If I have a project with both landscape and portrait sheets, can no longer batch print the sheets, I have to batch print the landscape views, and then the portrait views, and then correlate the sheets by hand.

Hope this helps to highlight my dilema...

What I'd really like to see, is a return to the 6.1 view functionality, and then possibly an annotation family containing a reference line tied to a view's position for use as a template to make a north arrow or key plan, and let the view's position drive the north arrow direction.

[Exar Kun]

We have had the exact same issues as Andrew and it really is a bit of a pain. A return to the 6.1 functionality would make a lot of sense for us.

[Andre Baros]

It was driving me crazy to try to rotate my building, so I decided to just rotate my views so that they fit on a sheet. But I can't! When I select the crop boundry and rotate it, I cannot rotate to 90, 180, or 270 degrees. ANY angle in between works. Please tell me this is a bug.

I made the mistake of starting out with Project north and True north the same (because the building originally fit on a sheet that way)

I might actually go back to trying to rotate the building model and just redo ALL my annotations.

[beegee]

Andre,

Its sometimes easier to just go to the View Properties and rotate the view on the sheet 90° clockwise or ant-clockwise.

If that's not a suitable solution, read these other posts to get the background to this situation.

[aggockel50321]

It was driving me crazy to try to rotate my building, so I decided to just rotate my views so that they fit on a sheet.
I feel your pain.

I have improved on placing text on views vertically, though...

[LRaiz]

Andrew,

Thanks for articulating the problem you are having with 90° view rotation. Your picture and explanation make a lot of sense.

The change implemented in 7.0 was designed to solve some other problems and the ill side effects that you pointed out unfortunately were not foreseen. Among other things 7.0 tried to address the issue that just by looking at a callout and examining view properties it was impossible to distinguish between rotated callout and view sketched with these boundaries to begin with. User could also get an upside down view by rotating 180°. There were some other issues as well.

However your problem is a real one. In order to address it I think that instead of reverting to 6.1 implementation a better solution would be to adjust effects of View Rotation on Sheet parameter. In case of your illustration and if you want your project west to be at the top of your sheet then you would set this parameter to 90° clockwise. You would not need to do any view rotation at all. While making this additional enhancement it would also be necessary to make rotation of view titles independent of View Rotation on Sheet parameter. (By the way, how often do people want vertical orientation of view tittles?) I suspect that these additional changes would address the described problem and will make sure that this information reaches responsible developers. Unfortunately I am not in the position to make explicit promises regarding timing and details of eventual implementation.

[aggockel50321]

Leonid,

Thanks for your reply.

Your method of re-implementing the view rotation would be fine, if there were a way to add any annotation, etc. to the view, while rotated (as was possible in 6.1).

I tried an experiment & was somewhat surprised by the result.

In 7.0, place a view on a sheet, and rotate it 90° via the properties dialog box.

Activate the view on the sheet. (It activates & stays in it's rotated position.)

Using the text command, place some text in the activated view. (It snaps to the view's project north (vertical) orientation.)

I can then select the text, & using the rotate icon, reposition it in the view.

Not sure if it's possible, but if you could eliminate having to re-rotate the text, it would save a step. I know it may sound silly, but when annotating a sheet, I feel I can work much faster if I'm not rotating my head to place, read, and edit vertically oriented text.

As for view titles, I never place them vertically, but I'm only one user, & there's probably someone out there that does...

[mikefields27]

It would be helpful if the view titles could rotate independently of the view.

[LRaiz]

Leonid,
...
In 7.0, place a view on a sheet, and rotate it 90° via the properties dialog box.

Activate the view on the sheet. (It activates & stays in it's rotated position.)

Using the text command, place some text in the activated view. (It snaps to the view's project north (vertical) orientation.)

I can then select the text, & using the rotate icon, reposition it in the view.

Not sure if it's possible, but if you could eliminate having to re-rotate the text, it would save a step. I know it may sound silly, but when annotating a sheet, I feel I can work much faster if I'm not rotating my head to place, read, and edit vertically oriented text.
...

Andrew,
I understand and was taking into account that once a view is defined as rotated on sheet then the default orientation of text in a view should be according to sheet horizontal axis. It was my operating assumption that overall intent is to keep everything readable on a landscape printed sheet.

[Cathy Hadley]

YES... if we could do this... rotate the view on the sheet, put the view title and text horizontal to the sheet... then that would solve most all of the issues I've run into with clients... and with the added bonus of being very straight forward and easy to manipulate.

Cathy

[Andre Baros]

Our text and labels are 99% of the time aligned to the sheet horizontal axis. This is one of the reasons I don't rotate views unless it's important enough to also rotate ALL the text.