I need to set the axes of a bunch of individual components. Specifically: I’m setting the Z axis (blue) to align with the length of framing members, for the purpose of generating a report that lists board dimensions (with length matching LenZ column, thickness LenX, & width LenY).
It would be great to be able to use the “Change Axes” command on several objects at once. Or at least to set nested objects’ axes to match the parent group’s axes. Any ideas are much appreciated! I’m open to trying Ruby scripts.
Here’s a screenshot of the CSV file (comma-separated seems to work) – created with Generate Report – in which the lengths of X, Y, Z are “mismatched” i.e. cumbersome to read.
I tried Eneroth’s Line Up Axes in conjunction with Axes Manager, and while this allows me to set the axes of multiple components at once, it seems to also set each as unique, which is not ideal for my situation.
Here’s the CSV after manually setting the axes in part of the model. It wasn’t too laborious, because axes change across components.
I’m training myself to set the axes immediately upon creation of an object – X for thickness, Y for width, and Z for length – or more generally, Z for the volatile dimension, so to speak. There’s a keyboard shortcut to set axes without opening a component.
Still would love to find a way to edit the axes of multiple components at once, or copy/paste axes, or something equivalent!
I think the convention is X for length, Y for depth/width and Z for height/thickness.
Regarding the original post I’m not sure what the question is. If you want several objects to all match the parent axes, but being in different places, they need to be made unique.
I think the request is to make it so all of the longest dimensions, the length, of the components show up in the same column. This is a complaint I’ve had about (and discussed with several of the team members) for a long time. It makes the report generator useless for my application. The Cutlist extension does what the OP is trying to accomplish without requiring the axes to be changed on the components. The longest dimension is always assumed to be the length while the shortest is assumed to be the thickness.
Obviously the OP’s current solution to get the longest dimensions to show in the same column in the report can create other problems so it isn’t desirable.
@eneroth3 Ah, thanks for telling me the conventions. And that makes sense re: parent axes – I actually just want to set the directions of the axes; the locations don’t seem to matter for my current workflow (struc. design of a cabin, for the purpose of docs & material list.) But it seems like this might cause trouble with other sorts of projects.
@DaveR The approach of Cutlist sounds sensible; I’ll try it out. Might keep using my solution for this small project, and see how it goes. Maybe I’ll figure out some spreadsheet magic to sort the numbers as Cutlist does.
Just one problem you could create by realigning the component axes is related to inserting components into models. For example, if you set the axes for a stud component such that the red axis is parallel to the length, each time you insert an instance of the component, it’ll be laying down parallel to the red axis. Then you’d have to rotate the component to be able to put it into place.
