Translating Geometry

You can translate one, or more, point, line or surface element along a vector.

This task shows you how to:

Before you begin: Create a 3D shape containing a geometric element.
Related Topics
About the Transformations Commands

Translate Along a Direction and a Distance

You can translate the element by specifying a direction and defining a distance.

  1. Click Translate .

    The Translate Definition dialog box appears as well as the Tools Palette. For further information about the Tools Palette, refer to Infrastructure User's Guide : Selecting Using Selection Traps.

  2. Select the Element to be translated.

  3. Select Direction, distance as the Vector Definition.

  4. Select a line to take its orientation as the translation direction or a plane to take its normal as the translation direction.

    You can also specify the direction by means of X, Y, Z vector components by using the contextual menu on the Direction box.

  5. Specify the translation Distance by entering a value or using the spinners.



  6. Click OK to create the translated element.

    The element (identified as Translate.xxx) is added to the specification tree. The original element is unchanged.

Translate Using Two Points

You can translate the element by defing the start and end points.

  1. Click Translate .

    The Translate Definition dialog box appears as well as the Tools Palette. For further information about the Tools Palette, refer to Selecting Using Selection Traps in the Infrastructure User's Guide.

  2. Select the Element to be translated.

  3. Select Point to Point as the Vector Definition.

  4. Select the Start point.

  5. Select the End point.



  6. Click OK to create the translated element.

    The element (identified as Translate.xxx) is added to the specification tree. The original element is unchanged.

Translate Using Coordinates

You can translate the element by defining the coordinates.

  1. Click Translate .

    The Translate Definition dialog box appears as well as the Tools Palette. For further information about the Tools Palette, refer to Selecting Using Selection Traps in the infrastructure User's Guide.

  2. Select the Element to be translated.

  3. Define the X, Y, and Z coordinates.

    In our example, we chose 50mm as X, 0mm as Y, and -100 as Z.

  4. When the command is launched at creation, the initial value in the Axis System box is the current local axis system. If no local axis system is current, the box is set to Default. Whenever you select a local axis system, the translated element's coordinates are changed with respect to the selected axis system so that the location of the translated element is not changed. This is not the case with coordinates valuated by formulas: if you select an axis system, the defined formula remains unchanged.



  5. Click OK to create the translated element.

    The element (identified as Translate.xxx) is added to the specification tree. The original element is unchanged.