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Turn the view and use your own coordinates (UCS)

Turn the view 90° or to any angle without moving anything in the drawing, and set a user coordinate system (UCS) so points, ortho, polar tracking, the grid and new text follow a building's own axes.

Written for CadCraft 0.5. The same help is inside the app: press F1.

What you will learn

How to look at a drawing turned, so a building drawn at an angle reads square on screen, and how to type points along its own axes. Nothing in the drawing moves while you do this: objects keep their coordinates, a turn is not an edit, and the drawing is not marked as changed.

Turn the view a quarter

  1. Click View › More › Turn view 90° left or Turn view 90° right.

The drawing turns on screen about the middle of the drawing area. Do it again to keep turning.

  1. Click View › More › Back to world to level it again.

The commands behind them are TURNLEFT, TURNRIGHT and TURNWORLD. To give one a key, add a line such as TL=TURNLEFT to your aliases with ALIASEDIT.

Line up with an angled building

  1. Type UCS and press ReturnEnter, then OB and ReturnEnter.
  2. Click a wall line near the end that should be the origin.

The UCS now starts at that end with its X axis along the wall, and the view turns so the wall is level on screen. The axis icon in the lower-left corner shows where the UCS axes point.

  1. Draw as usual. With the UCS set:
    • x,y and @dx,dy are measured along the UCS axes; d<a measures the angle from the UCS X axis.
    • Ortho, polar tracking and the grid follow the UCS axes, and so does the crosshair.
    • New text and new paragraphs run along the UCS X axis; DIMLINEAR's horizontal and vertical follow it too.
    • The coordinates in the status bar and from ID are UCS coordinates.
  2. To type a world point while a UCS is set, put * in front: *0,0 or @*100,0.
  3. Type UCS, ReturnEnter, then ReturnEnter again to go back to the world.

Other ways to set a UCS

At the UCS prompt:

You typeWhat it does
a pointA new origin; then click a point on the new X axis, or press ReturnEnter to keep the angle
ZTurn the UCS about its origin by an angle you type (degrees, counter-clockwise) or pick
3 (3point)An origin, a point along the positive X axis, and a point on the positive-Y side
OB (OBject)From a line, arc, circle, polyline segment, text, block reference, point or construction line
P (Previous)The UCS before this one (the last ten are kept while the drawing is open)
W (World)Back to the world
NA (NAmed)S saves the current UCS under a name, R restores one, D deletes one, ? lists them

Every change turns the view so the new UCS X axis is level. PLAN turns the view without changing the UCS: ReturnEnter for the current UCS, U for a saved one, W for the world.

Good to know

  • Each pane of a split screen keeps its own turn. The UCS belongs to the drawing.
  • Sheets work in paper coordinates; set a UCS on the Model tab, or inside a viewport.
  • Selection windows dragged in a turned view select what lies inside them on screen.
  • LISP routines get points in the UCS from getpoint, can read UCSORG, UCSXDIR, UCSYDIR and VIEWTWIST, and trans converts between the world, the UCS and the display.