Rotating the Terrain

[Ross Young]

Hi All

I want to rotate my 3 storey BUILDING by 5 degrees clockwise on my terrain.

Advice on this forum suggests that rotating the building is to be avoided, and that rotating the TERRAIN (ie, everything but the building itself), is preferable.

Again, following advice on various posts, I created a Layer Set called "MY HOUSE LOCKED, ROTATE TERRAIN".

On this new Layer Set, I locked every layer that pertained to the house.

My goal was to "Shift- Select" everything else (ie, everything that would be selected by this action, which would include everything but the locked "house" layers) and then use the "Transform - Replicate" tool to rotate everything (but the house) by 5 degrees counter- clockwise.

However, when I do this, I can "Shift-Select" everything, but the "Rotate" option of Transform-Replicate is greyed out.

Also, I have no rotation handle in the plan view when I have shift-selected everything.

Does anyone know what I might be missing here?

Thanks

[Ross Young]

A little more information.......
The "Transform-Replicate" tool will allow me to carry out the following when I Shift-Select:
COPY, MOVE, or REFLECT.
It will not allow me to ROTATE or RESIZE

[billemery]

It's my guess that you have a wall, or a camera or some other item selected that will not rotate.


Try using the all off set, and just select the layers you need. Make sure to close any open camera views and turn off the inactive camera layer.

[Ross Young]

Bill, thanks for the reply

I don't have any camera views open, or any other view except for the Floor Plan.

When I used the "All Off" layer set, I could only find a single point on the first floor, which I deleted, but still no joy on the rotating.

The only thing I can think of at this stage is that there are some layers associated with an imported AutoCad site plan. I haven't locked these as I want them to rotate with the terrain, but perhaps they are causing some problem??

EDIT..... Sorry, Bill, I didn't read your reply carefully. I'll try your method of just selecting the layers I want...... although that was what I was trying to do with locking the house layers?

[Joe Carrick]

Hi Ross,

I think that locking the layers in Chief doesn't preclude selecting objects on those layers. Turning the layers off is the way to go - so what you see is all you can select and then you should be able to rotate the terrain, including (if you want) the terrain boundary.

[Ross Young]

Hi Joe

I tried the following:
Unlock all the locked layers on my new layer set.
Turn off (ie, turn off the display) of all layers that I want to stay in place during the rotate (ie, the house).
Then, Shift-Select everything that remained......... still no rotate option (either via a handle or via Transform-Replicate).

I'm going for a short walk to think about it
Many Thanks

[Allen Brown]

Joe, that's exactly what locking layers is for, so you can't select them.

Ross, I just did a test, and go to the all on layer, select all, check lock, so everything in the plan is locked. Now shift select every layer that starts with "Terrain", and unlock.

At that point you can do a shift select, and you will get a rotate handle, and you will be able to rotate via transform/replicate.

[marty]

As said before it is most likely that saved cameras are causing the problem even if the are closed. I have also found that dimensions can sometimes cause the grey out problem.

[billemery]

If all else fails, you can "copy, Paste, and hold position" the topography in a new plan; rotate it, and then bring it back in.

[dshall]

Bill, I want to thank you for many of your recent posts, you are on fire, great insight.

[Ross Young]

I've done a test along the lines that Allen B suggested, and it works fine if I just have the just Terrain layers unlocked and everything else locked.

However, there are items on other layers that I also want to rotate.

I've added these layers in progressively and found that there is something on the Default CAD layer that gives the problem.....

ie, if the Default CAD layer is unlocked and I shift- select everything else, I don't get a rotate handle.

If the Default CAD layer is locked, and everything else is unlocked, I do get a rotate handle.

SO, I've made a layer set called DEFAULT CAD ONLY, and had a look at what is on that layer ..... nothing special ..... some polylines, a few lines, etc.

I've tried to find the problem item.....it seems that it is not any particular item that causes this problem. Every item/object/line selects individually with a rotate handle, but a combination of two or more of several of them means that there is no rotate handle.

What I've done is create two new layers..... CAD ITEMS TO ROTATE, and CAD ITEMS TO NOT ROTATE and am moving the CAD Default objects onto those layers.

My other tip to anyone following this is to rotate everything around a current point or absolute point, rather than the object centre, because if you do this rotate in two or more stages (as I have ended up doing because I haven't selected everything I want to rotate), the object centre will change with the different group of objects.

Its all learning!!

Thanks

[Ross Young]

Bill, I hadn't thought of that! I'll try it, but I think that my "rogue Default CAD object" may still be there.
Thanks

[Ross Young]

Marty
I don't have any saved cameras or dimensions on that Layer (Default CAD), or on any layer at the moment.
Thanks

[Ross Young]

In case anyone wants to look at the plan and see if you can find the problem item, I'll post the plan (thanks dshall for the instructions)