Is there any extension that will rotate selected groups/objects and rotate them so their side is facing upwards? I need this so I can easily export faces to DXF files. DXF exporter always exports while looking at the drawing in TOP view. It gets tricky once there is a lot of object to export.
Thanks!
The Rotate tool will do that. Or you might find it easier to use the Move tool as that will rotate the object about its center. You shouldn’t need an extension to do this.
I know I can do that manually one by one. But once I need to export 100 objects so their sides face upwards it gets very time consuming.That’s why Im asking for a “one click” solution. Or click to rotate solution.
Select them all and rotate them at once.
Doesnt work when part of the objects are rotaded 45, 30 or another amount of degrees
It does not work in this way. You are just viewing the DXF in an application that defaults to top view when opening files. Basically, for 3D models, the view is irrelevant but your current view is, however, saved with the DXF. When I export to DXF and open the file in Autodesk TrueView 2021, I get the same (approximately) view I had in SketchUp when exporting.
When you export to a “2D image” it works differently. Basically, what you get is a 2D screenshot of what is visible on your screen at the moment. When opened in AutoCad, your view will probably be from the "top ".
@Anssi You made a good point. However both companies that I work with - one produces glass out of my dxf files and one produces steel elements cut out on cnc plasma - can’t view the files properly if not exported the way I described.
Both glass and steel orders I make are expensive so they try to make the process as easy as possible to eliminate potential cutting errors. Basicly they download the files and just copy them directly to the machine
So here I am rotating every element and making sure twice that the face I want to export lays flat on the temporary rectangleII drew on the "ground.
How would an extension know which way to orient your groups so the correct side is up?
I can imagine I’d pick the sides I want to face up and accept
For each of all 100 of your objects?
Hard to know for sure without specifics. Do you only need one orthographic view of each part, or multiple view? For one view, if each part is a component, and you choose the axis orientation wisely, you can create another tag/layer plus a scene to layout one example of each component that can export all at once. I do this all the time for window schedules on my buildings, and recently for Neolith stone schedule. There was a SketchUp Live session some months ago where @jody used a term for this “spreading out of all the parts,” but I can’t think of the word right now.
dispersal ?