The Cabinet/Assembly Editor has powerful tools for moving, aligning and positioning items within the workspace. This is another area that can be confusing at first but is quite simple when you figure it out.
First, let’s define what we are aligning. These features are used to align independent items, that is multiple cabinets, assemblies or parts that are not controlled by an Editor. You cannot use the Align feature to align cabinet parts with the cabinet they are part of. This must be done in the appropriate editor. For example, moldings that are placed as a display item are positioned using the Align tool described here. Moldings that are placed using the Molding Editor are positioned in the editor, not using the Align function. Just remember that items such as face frames, shelves or moldings added using the Molding Editor are aligned in their individual Editor. Cabinets, assemblies and other display items are aligned with each other using the techniques we are about to cover here.
The key to understanding is realizing there are two ways to move and item, you can move the entire workspace with the item in it. When you do this the item does move on your screen. You can also leave the workspace stationary and move just the item within the workspace. If there is more than one item in the workspace, only the item selected will move.
If you want to examine items in the workspace, you move, zoom and rotate the entire workspace. If you want to move items together or apart, you must move and rotate items within the workspace.
When you first enter the workspace, you are looking at a three dimensional workspace defined by three axes, X,Y and Z. The entire workspace is rotated by holding the Shift key and using the LEFT mouse button, it is panned using the Shift key and RIGHT mouse button and zoomed using Shift and BOTH mouse buttons. The key ingredient is that when you hold the Shift key you are moving the ENTIRE workspace and everything in it.
To move an item within the workspace, highlight it, hold the Ctrl key and use the RIGHT mouse button. Remember, Shift key to move the workspace, Ctrl key to move the item.
At this point, you need to deal with a feature called the C-Plane. When you first enter the Cabinet/Assembly Editor, you are looking directly at the XY Plane with the X Axis defining left and right movement, the Y Axis defining up and down and the Z Axis defining in and out. The C-Plane is also set to the XY Plane called C-Plane Front. This means left and right movement of the mouse moves items along the X Axis and up and down movement of the mouse moves items along the Y Axis, or mouse movements correspond to a front view.
Since you can rotate the entire workspace, you can orient the workspace so that these motions don’t make sense. For example, if you rotate the workspace 90 degrees to the left, the mouse motions behave differently. Up and down motions still work because the Y axis is still pointed up. Side to side mouse motions still move the item along the X axis, but now the X axis is in and out, not side to side.
To get the mouse motions to correspond to the new workspace orientation we need to change the C-Plane. If you are looking at the left side of the cabinet, change to C-Plane Left, if you are looking at the right side of the cabinet change to C-Plane Right etc. Basically, this reassigns mouse motions to different axes so that the item moves on the screen as you feel it should, that is it move side to side when you move the mouse side to side and up and down when you move the mouse up and down. The C-Plane determines what the mouse does.
The Reset View feature sets the workspace orientation to the Front, Left, Right, Back, Bottom or Top and also automatically sets the appropriate C-Plane. You can also execute these using the arrow keys, left arrow for left view, right arrow for right view, etc. The Home key gets the front view and the End key the back view. This is probably the quickest way to change views once you get used to it.
Through this discussion we have been talking about moving left right, up and down. The third axis, in and out or zoom also exists (Shift and Both mouse keys). It exists throughout these movements and is also changed with changes in the C-Plane.
Now that we have looked at moving the workspace, let’s look at moving items within the workspace.
We have already partially covered moving items within the workspace. Highlight the item, hold the Ctrl key and use the RIGHT mouse button. Unlike the workspace itself, an item cannot be rotated in the workspace using the mouse. Instead, to rotate, the item is highlighted and you right click and then select Rotate Item. A dialog appears that can be used to rotate the highlighted item. Note that only one item can be rotated at a time. This is OK because it is difficult at best to try to accurately rotate an item using the mouse and when you are trying to align items, they must be precisely rotated. The dialog is a good way to do that.
You can align parts by carefully using the mouse but there is a better, faster way, the Align feature.
Start by rotating the items so that they are properly rotate with respect to each other.
Now, press and hole the “M” key on your keyboard. All those blue dots are called alignment nodes. They are used to align items with each other.
Release the M key and highlight the cabinet by double clicking on it. Slowly move your mouse cursor over the corners of the cabinet and the alignment nodes will appear.
We are going to pick a node on one item and the pick a node on a second item and then move them together. Make sure the two items you want to align are both highlighted and also make sure nothing else is highlighted. We will explain why in a minute.
In this move, one item will remain fixed and not move, and the other item will move to the first. The first item you click a node on remains fixed. This is important. The first item you click a node on remains fixed and doesn’t move.
Move over a corner and when a blue node appears, click. The blue node now remains lit even when you move away. By the way, the blue color also indicates that this is the node that will not move.
When you move over a corner on the second part, a red node appears along with a line connecting it to the blue node. The red color indicates that this is the node that will move. Go ahead and click.
Now, the blue node, the red node and the connecting line are all lit meaning we are ready to do the alignment.
Click on the Align icon in the toolbar or right click and select Align Items. A dialog appears.
The dialog currently displays the X, Y and Z distances separating the two nodes. You can type in the distances you would like the nodes separated by after the move and press OK. If you want the nodes moved together with zero distance on all axes, simply press the Align to Zero button.
Once the move has occurred, you can move and rotate the workspace to see if that is what you wanted. If not, you can press the Align icon again, bring up the dialog, make adjustments and press OK again.
You can do this over and over until you select a new node or change focus by starting a new function.
There is another way to move a part a precise distance, but it uses the Shift key which is normally used to move the workspace. Despite this it can be quite useful.
Start by defining the increment by which you want to move. Right click and select Edit Move Increment. In the dialog input the distance and press OK. This is the incremental distance the item will move each time the key is pressed.
Now, highlight the item to move. If you hold the Shift key, the left, right, up and down arrow keys can be used to move the item. Note that the keys move along the axes that correspond to left-right up and down mouse movement and that they change with changes in the C-Plane. Although this may sound a little confusing, if you play around with it a little, it soon becomes second nature.
The next area is placing items such as carvings, hardware or other decorative items on a panel where convenient nodes don’t necessarily exist. There are two considerations. First, we must align the back of the item to the face of the panel, then we must locate the item on the face.
There are two ways to align the back of the item to the face of the panel. First, you could align a node on the back of the item with a node on the face of the panel, even though the location isn’t correct. Then switch to a front view and move the item into position on the panel using the mouse.
A second approach is to switch to the Orthographic View and a side view of the panel. Then using the mouse, align the back of the item with the front of the panel. Since we aren’t using perspective, this is relatively easy to do. Then switch back to a front view of the panel and position the item using the mouse. You can then switch back to the Isometric view.