Posted by Kevin Matthews on December 20, 2000 at 13:25:33:In Reply to: Re: Help - Need 3D Geodesic Dome House Model posted by Jerud Crandall on December 19, 2000 at 08:43:13:
Maybe I can help with this. You're very close!
When you select an object and then double-click on the Arbitrary Working Orientation tool icon, DesignWorkshop will set the working orientation to match the orientation of the selected object. You knew that!
Here's the problem: Because the triangles are imported, they don't know their own orientation. Since that little bit of object intelligence is handled uniquely within DesignWorkshop, those triangle objects from outside have to be treated as if they are lined up square with the world. So the behavior you see is not what you'd hope for, but it is technically correct.
Here's the solution (if I'm understanding your senario): Instead of selecting the whole triangle object, using the Arrow tool, select the top face of the triangle using the Faces tool. Then double-click the Arbitrary Working Orientation tool, and you should get the orientation you're looking for.
We call this 'setting the working orientation to the face', instead of 'setting it to the object'. While DesignWorkshop figures out the object orientation intelligently based on stored knowledge of the object's history, the individual faces are usually simple planes, each with an obvious orientation that gets calculated on the fly.
Let us know if this what you were looking for! I'd think it would have many uses within the geometric intricacies of geodesic dome design and modeling.
Cheers,
K