Position

The first spatial editing tool is the Position tool. To begin, you will need to select an object from the asset pack or one that already exists in the scene. Normally the Position tool will be the active tool by default, but if it is not, click on the first button that appears on the left to activate it , or use the W key on your keyboard.

The gizmo will show six components: three axes and three intersecting planes.

The three axes are absolute, so if you move the POV they will move with it accordingly, always showing the true orientations and easily recognizable by the colors:

• Red: x axis;

• Green: y axis;

• Blue: z axis;

The same colors in the gizmo also apply to the squares representing the planes perpendicular to the axes.

If you move the mouse pointer over one of them, the selected axis will change color to yellow. You can then simply left-click and drag in any direction or axis to move the object.

Movement along the x and z axes is affected by the snap on the grid, a kind of magnetic attraction that forces positioning to fixed values. The grid shows 1m intervals, but remember that the increment (or decrement) is 1/4 unit at a time, so each advance is 25cm. Movement along the y-axis, on the other hand, has no snap constraints, but is continuous, so it will always provide intermediate positions.

When an object is selected, a block of information appears at the top of the workspace giving its spatial description in relation to the selected tool. In this case, the position returns the coordinates on the three axes as values. These coordinates are dynamically updated as we move the element, allowing us to monitor its current position.

The same block carries a form. This is a second editing mode based on direct input of values. Knowing the exact distance and direction of movement, it is then possible to enter the target coordinates directly.

To take advantage of this system, simply enter the coordinates in the appropriate fields and validate them using the green adjacency button. Unit or floating point values are allowed to three decimal places (note: precision to the cm, i.e. two decimal places are more than sufficient to search for adjacencies without interpenetrations). Values, if decimal, must be written in the fields using the comma character. It is not necessary to fill in all the fields, only those of interest. Fields left blank retain their value.

A typical use of this input mode is the repositioning of many duplicated elements by copy/paste, such as the distribution of objects that are repeated several times at regular intervals, or the need to reproduce the same layouts on different floors of a building. Once an object has been duplicated, it is sufficient to modify its y-value.

Note: The values shown are rounded down to one decimal place. The following images illustrate a shifting of the object by 0.5m on x. This is done by hand, so there are two steps of 0.25m. The first will therefore approximate a value of 0.2, while the next will show the round figure of 0.5.

It should be noted that the actual displacement still occurs for the exact 1/4 unit increment, i.e. 0.25m. To demonstrate this, the same displacements can be replicated using the input form.

Example of a linear displacement movement

In the example below, the yellow cube is positioned at coordinates [x: 24 y: 0 z: -24]. We want to move it 1m to the right along the x axis and 1m up along the z axis. The y remains unchanged, so the cube remains on its own plane.

Select the cube. The corresponding detail appears at the top. We then fill in the form by entering the correct values for the new x and z coordinates, i.e.: 25 and -23.

By validating the values with the green form button, the cube will move to the new position.

Confirm the operation by clicking on the Confirm button in the control panel. The cube is now in its new position.

Movement along the intersection plane

The squares shown at the intersection of the gizmo axes represent the imaginary plane relative to the two axes involved. Each square shows the color of the excluded axis, i.e. the coordinate that remains fixed.

If we wanted to reproduce the previous example by moving the cube manually, we could intervene one axis at a time, dragging it to the correct coordinate until we reached the final position. But not involving the y-axis whose value remains fixed at y: 0, we could move the cube by acting directly on the green square. As with the axes, when the mouse pointer is over the green square, it turns yellow. By clicking on it, we will be able to drag it along the horizontal plane directly to the right position with a single mouse movement.

Again, the movement is anchored to the grid, with the snap set to 1/4 units on an axis and the corresponding plane.

The same rule applies to planes that intersect the y-axis and therefore move in vertical planes, which is useful when we need to place decorations on walls, for example. The red square will therefore move the object in a vertical plane of a fixed x, and the blue square will do the same in the vertical plane of z.

The snap has priority over the float (fluid movement not locked to the grid). This means that for the movement along the two vertical planes, despite the fact that y is involved, which allows a smooth increment, the second axis will dominate by imposing the snap. We will therefore also have movement on the vertical plane always in 1/4 unit increments.