COPY / MOVE relative to the DUCS

Jason Bourhill

When working in 3D I often find it easier to construct new objects on the WCS, then manipulate them into place afterwards. Placement can still be a bit of a task, It would be nice if you could simply MOVE or COPY them relative to the DUCS. I recently realised that I could do this by levering off the fact the INSERT command works in respect to the DUCS, and created some LISP to take advantage of this.

The Forum doesn't seem to be uploading images at the moment, so have created a post here with some graphics to illustrate what I mean.
http://www.cadconcepts.co.nz/news/copy-or-move-relative-to-ducs/

The attached LISP has two commands, COPYDUCS, and MOVEDUCS. It is also useful to remember when using DUCS that the alignment will change depending on which way you move your cursor onto a face. Also that you can lock your DUCS by pressing the Shift key.

Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

Tom Foster

Seeing you mention it, can you clarify whether 'pressing the Shift key' (to lock DUCS and/or to lock any DIstance, Move, Line etc vector) means just a dab on Shift, or a 'press and hold'? Help seems to be inconsistent on this, and the result of doing either approach seems to be so unreliable, that I can't guess which is correct.

Jason Bourhill

A press of the Shift key is all that is required. You don't hold the shift key down. To use:

1. Make sure DUCS is on! Press F6 to toggle, or pick on DUCS down in the settings bar. Obviously it is also useful to have UCSICON ON so you can see your UCS Icon :-)
   
2. Run a command the invokes DUCS such as INSERT (as used by my LISP below), or LINE...
3. Move your cursor to hover over a 3D face. You should see that the UCS Icon reorient to the 3D Face.
4. If the DUCS orientation isn't what you want, try moving off the face, then move back over from a different direction.
5. Once your happy with the DUCS orientation press and release the shift key to lock it. You should also see the face is highlighted to reflect that its locked.

You can also press the Shift key again to unlock the DUCS.

Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

Jason Bourhill

In regards to locking for distance movements, this isn't related to the OP. However when drawing a LINE or doing a MOVE etc you can press and hold down the Shift key to toggle the current Ortho state.


Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts

Tom Foster

Thanks Jason for clarifying that these are different functions of Shift - wasn't obvious to me - and that the latter really is 'press and hold'.

Jason Bourhill

Animated GIF added to OP

Regards,

Jason Bourhill

CAD Concepts