Object orientation.

[jackamus]

Can you give me a reason why 'Width' in the Transform Tab is not always the horizontal orientation and Height always being the vertical orientation even after rotating it to some other position? I constantly copy certain objects, for ease of drawing, and rotate them always to find that the height and width are reversed. I am aware of the 'Cycle' selection box but find it unhelpful because it reverts back after deselecting it. I know that this issue has been brought up before but nt in the way I'm suggesting, i.e. Width is always horizontal and Height is always vertical.

[Alfred]

1 minute ago, jackamus said:

Can you give me a reason why 'Width' in the Transform Tab is not always the horizontal orientation and Height always being the vertical orientation even after rotating it to some other position?

It’s straightforward enough if you rotate the object by 90°, but what about 89° or 91°, or 45°?

[jackamus]

It stays the same as before rotation. This action I'm suggesting is only when rotating 90deg.

[R C-R]

12 hours ago, jackamus said:

This action I'm suggesting is only when rotating 90deg.

I think the "why" is because the majority of users would find it weird if for example an object was currently rotated by 89.99° or 90.01° & its width & height suddenly reversed if it was set to 90.00°.

[jackamus]

But you get exactly the same thing when you do rotate an object 90deg and that is why, I guess , that there is a 'Cycle selection' box. I'm happy with that if when you used it it stayed at that new orientation.

[R C-R]

Just now, jackamus said:

But you get exactly the same thing when you do rotate an object 90deg and that is why, I guess , that there is a 'Cycle selection' box. I'm happy with that if when you used it it stayed at that new orientation.

I am not sure what you mean about getting exactly the same thing. As it is, the height & width do not change places in the Transform panel, regardless of the angle of rotation.

[firstdefence]

What if you had symbols and you rotated them 90º the width and height should not change.

When you create an object and rotate it it's dimension do not change, just because the orientation has changed doesn't mean it's dimension have. What you are suggesting is changing a 2 unit by 4 unit rectangle, to a 4 unit by 2 unit rectangle if it's rotated, this will just lead to confusion and makes no sense to me at all.

[Move Along People]

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[jackamus]

This is a problem of what you see and what actually is happening. If you see something that wider than its height it is obvious which is which if you then rotate it 90deg visually it looks different - width and height have changed places according to the Transform tab.

If the Cycle selection box permanently set the orientation until you changed it again it would be a more useful feature.

This problem becomes very acute for me when I  dimension a technical drawing. Because there is no dimension feature I construct one dimension and its extension lines and then copy it, rotate it and then modify its proportion to suit its new position. If you need an example I'll attache one to another comment if necessary.

As a workaround I suppose I could use the Cycle box each time I needed to rotate the dimension line group.

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by jackamus
Additional comment

[jackamus]

3 minutes ago, haakoo said:

Group the object and rotate the child within the group to 90 degrees ,width and height of the group properties are the opposite.

That's interesting I'll check it out.only what do you mean by' rotating the child within the group'?

[Move Along People]

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[R C-R]

1 minute ago, jackamus said:

This is a problem of what you see and what actually is happening. If you see something that wider than its height it is obvious which is which if you then rotate it 90deg visually it looks different - width and height have changed places according to the Transform tab.

I have no idea what you mean about the width & height changing places in the Transform panel. 

Consider for instance this simple Figure Height.afdesign example. It doesn't matter if the shape is rotated to 90° or not. Its height is still 3".

[jackamus]

9 minutes ago, haakoo said:

A shape can be grouped(ctrl/cmd+G) to itself and in the layers panel you'll see the group with your shape inside.
The shape can be rotated and the group can be rotated independently ,the transform panel will show different angles op on clicking either.
Not a great workaround but may be of help in your workflow.

OK I'll check it out. In the mean time I have attached a file to explain what I'm trying to achieve.

Drawing A shows the drawing with its first dimension at '1'. I copied this resized  and where necessary rotated it for each dimension. The double headed arrows are an Asset.

How would you get from A to B?

 

Orientation.afdesign

[Move Along People]

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[jackamus]

No. Visually it has changed but because it looks like a man its obvious but if it were a rectangle then it wouldn't be obvious.

[jackamus]

6 minutes ago, haakoo said:

Sorry,I may be daft but I don't see what it is that you want in this file?

 

Copy the dimension lines at '!' (the double headed arrow and the two other lines) and from that copy create all the other dimensions.

[PaulEC]

Being an awkward ****,  I can see both sides of the argument. But I did start wondering if a six foot tall man lies down on the ground, would you then say that his height had changed to around (say) 18 inches?

[Move Along People]

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[Move Along People]

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[jackamus]

1 hour ago, PaulEC said:

Being an awkward ****,  I can see both sides of the argument. But I did start wondering if a six foot tall man lies down on the ground, would you then say that his height had changed to around (say) 18 inches?

I would apply some common sense! however, as I said previously suppose it was a rectangle?

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, jackamus said:

No. Visually it has changed but because it looks like a man its obvious but if it were a rectangle then it wouldn't be obvious.

Neither the height nor the width changed in the Transform panel. This has nothing to do with the kind of shape -- it would be exactly the same for a rectangle or any other shape. And for any of them the width & height certainly do not reverse when rotated by 90° increments but remain unreversed at any other angle, nor should they. That makes no sense.

[jackamus]

1 hour ago, haakoo said:

But if it were a picture frame one could argue if you were to hang it in either portrait or landscape mode
This would depend on the picture that is used 

Exactly. - it is common sense because you can visually see what the object is and how it would ought to be viewed.

[jackamus]

1 hour ago, haakoo said:

Still don't get though but you could take the lines>group>rotate>group again
First group(inside the second group) has say dimension h2/w4 where the second group has dimensions h4/w2

Unable to follow what you are suggesting. I need to be spoon-fed!

[dutchshader]

You could just create a horizontal arrow and make a asset from it, and create a verticlal arrow and make a asset from it.

No need to rotate

[jackamus]

5 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Neither the height nor the width changed in the Transform panel. This has nothing to do with the kind of shape -- it would be exactly the same for a rectangle or any other shape. And for any of them the width & height certainly do not reverse when rotated by 90° increments but remain unreversed at any other angle, nor should they. That makes no sense.

If you draw a horizontal rectangle and then rotate it 90deg the 'visual' appearance has been reversed although the Transform orientation has not changed. So the height is now larger than its width.

What I don't seem to get you guys to understand is this is a VISUAL problem - What you see is not what is shown in the Transform tab. Anyone looking at this for the first time would assume it must be wrong because the size for Height is smaller than the size for width ( after rotating that is).