HOW TO TRANSFORM OBJECTS WITH THE MOUSE

POVLAB provides lots of functions, which enable you to scale and/or translate objects with the mouse. Here's a brief overview ...
Scaling

· When transforming objects, cameras or light-sources with the mouse, you should know about a nifty feature of POVLAB. Using the TAB-key enables you to allow movements or transformations in just one direction. For example, if you have a cylinder in the front-view and you just want to scale the height, than you can select the command »modify« | »scale 2D«. After clicking on the object, you can determine with the TAB-key, which of the directions (height or width or both) you want to scale.

Translating

· Just as within the scale-function, the TAB-key provides direction-lock whilst the translation of objects. You simply have to select the desired command (for example: »modify« | »translate«) and the object you want to translate. Pressing the TAB-key afterwards changes the mouse-cursor, which then shows you, in which direction a translation is possible. Pressing the TAB-key repeatadly changes the locked direction.

Mirroring

· Another valuable mouse-feature is the »mirror«- command in the »modify«-menu. 		· Clicking on an object after »mirror« was activated, results in a 180° rotation of the selected shape. Before the mirrored shape is displayed again, cou can drag it to a new position in the scene.


Rotating

· The commands mentioned so far make translating and scaling pretty easy. But POVLAB provides similar features for rotations with the mouse as well. Pressing the SHIFT-key while rotating, will allow only rotations by +/- 45°. Pressing the ALT-key, results in a smooth rotation in 5°-steps. Last but not least a 1°-degree rotation is also availiable by pressing the CTRL-key.


Object alignment

· To get an exact alignment of two objects, you can use the command »Tools« | »Object align«. First you have to click on the object, you want to align. After that, you can determine, to which object the first one should be aligned. Clicking on the second object will display a dialog-box, where you can select the horizontal and vertical alignment.


· The above mentioned features are very useful, when you are creating objects, where the measurements of the single objects don't need to be as precisely as possible, or where you want to make a fast change to an objects size, alignment or position.
Quick-Info: TRANSFORMING OBJECTS (Page 1)
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This page was last modified on: 1996-07-14