Swapping the Privileged Plane

Swapping the Robot to a different privileged plane (XZ or YZ) is useful when running commands that use handles which require working planes (for example, when creating planar patches or modifying control points). It is not useful when simply using the Select command.

  1. Open any product with a planar patch.
  2. From the Compass, click FreeStyle Shape Design.
  3. Select the planar patch.
  4. From the Edition section, click Control Points .
    Control points appear on the patch.
  5. Point to a control point on the patch.
    Handles appear:

    Handles, by default, are oriented in the same plane as the privileged plane of the Robot, in the XY plane.

  6. In the Control Points dialog box, click Cancel to close the dialog box.
  7. Click anywhere in the 3D area and drag the Robot onto the patch to align it in the following direction:


  8. Drop the Robot onto the patch as follows then click Control Points once again:
    The Robot has now detected the orientation of the patch:

  9. Drag the Robot away from the patch and drop it into empty space (in other words, not on another object).
    The Robot keeps the same orientation:

  10. Point to the Robot and right-click to select Make UV the Privileged Plane, for instance.
    This means that you now want to orient the handles in the UV plane of the Robot. Therefore, the handles are now located in the UV plane:

    Important: Do not be confused by the fact that the Robot's axes do not change: the Robot is reoriented to make the UV the privileged plane, even though the axes on the Robot still indicate that the privileged plane is XY.