Setting View Relative Positioning

The purpose of this task is to re-position a Generative or Interactive view relatively to Generative or Interactive elements (a line/callout, a point or the frame of a view).

Before You Begin, make sure you customized the following settings:

Grid:
De-activate the Grid icon from the Tools toolbar (bottom right).

View names and scaling factors:
Go to Tools->Options (Mechanical Design -> Drafting optionat the left of the dialog box, Layout tab) and check the View name and Scaling factor options.

Open the GenDrafting_part_positioningview.CATDrawing document.

1. Right-click view to be re-positioned, for example an isometric view.
2. Select the Set Relative Position option from the displayed contextual menu.

A direction positioning line appears that is related to the isometric view. This isometric view can be positioned as desired and relatively to the front view.

Note that the isometric view is assigned anchor points.

3. Select the direction positioning line end black square point.

Once you have clicked the end square point, this point becomes a blinking red end point and remains so until you select a point or a view frame.

You can also click the direction positioning line. In this case, the positioning line becomes a blinking line and remains so until you select a line (callout line).

Press the Ctrl key to move the positioning line according to a direction that is perpendicular to the positioning line.

4. Click the edge according to which you want the isometric view to be aligned.

5. Click one anchor point, for example, the bottom right one.

The view anchor point aligns to the green point and thereby to the direction positioning line.

6. As you move the cursor over the direction positioning line, the position and length coordinates of the line appear.

Note that you may also select the front view frame and align the isometric view to the front view according to the barycenter.
relativeposition009.gif (5557 bytes)

7. Using the green point, you can rotate the isometric view around the front view.

relativeposition007.gif (6062 bytes)

8. Using the direction positioning line, translate the isometric view along the direction line and locate it at the desired distance.

relativeposition008.gif (6130 bytes)

If you happen to modify the length of the direction positioning line, this new length will be kept whatever positioning modifications you may apply to the isometric view.

Note that if you had previously positioned this isometric view according to a point, not only the line length but also the line angle will be kept.

9. Click in the free space to leave view relative positioning.

As you use relative positioning, do not try to move the view outside of the anchor point frame. If you do so, you will leave view relative positioning.

Additional Positioning:

You can also perform the following:

Align a view relatively to one edge of this view.
For this, you will first select one edge on the view to be aligned. As a result, the manipulators automatically align according to this selected edge.