Axes change within component

When you change the component axis, the inference system will snap you to the global axis for each, so it’s really easy to match:

  • r-click on the component (not from within it)
  • select “change axis”
  • click the axis point to start,
  • move the mouse in roughly the right direction until you get the red dotted inference line
  • click to set red axis
  • move the mouse until you get the green one
  • click to set

You can (when you first enter a component/group) r-click on the dotted axis line and select “place”, but unless you have existing geometry you can see and snap to, it’s really hard to get it 100% accurate. (you can use the “move” command if you know the exact measurements of where you want the axis to move to in relation to it’s existing location… but I recommend using the top one.

If the object is a group or a single instance of a component, then there is a simpler way:

  • r-click and “explode”
  • [ctrl]+G to group it again.
    Or…
  • add a line somewhere
  • select this line and the group you want to align
  • group these two things
  • enter this group
  • explode the original group
  • delete the line added in step 1

Either of these will re-generate the group aligned with the global axis. (The second one is safer if you are concerned with clicking to un-select everything or messing up the selection - I only included if you don’t trust yourself or think you might accidentally click something between exploding and re-grouping.)