About the Orientation of Commands

Joints are used to move a mechanism along different directions. Depending on the joint type, you can define one or several of the degrees of freedom of a joint as commands. During a simulation, you can drive commands to preview the behavior of the mechanism before the simulation.

You can display the commands of the current mechanism in the 3D area to visualize and anticipate the motion of the mechanism.

Each command has a direction and an orientation. The direction corresponds to the translation or rotation of a product along a specified axis.

The orientation of a command corresponds to the relative motion of a product with respect to another product, as the value of the command increases.

• : Product A
• : Product B
• : Command orientation (motion of product A relative to product B)
• : Command direction (translation axis)

You can display the orientation of the commands for the following engineering connections:

• Prismatic
• Revolute
• Cylindrical

The orientation of a command does not define which product is moving, nor the absolute motion of that moving product as the command value increases.

The motion of a command is relative: you can either visualize the motion of product A according to product B, or the motion of product B according to product A.

Depending on the orientation option selected at the creation of the engineering connection, the relative motion is either displayed for the first or for the second positioned product.

Orientation Option	Command Orientation Displayed for...
Position First Component	The first positioned product
Position Second Component	The second positioned product
Automatically Position Components	The second positioned product

For more information, see Movable Component.

The orientation of a command depends on the controlled constraint specified for the engineering connection. For more information, see About Engineering Connection Definition.

Constraint Type	Constraint Alignment	First Impacted Product	Second Impacted Product	Result
Controlled Offset	Above	The translation orientation is the opposite of the orientation of the first plane.	The translation orientation corresponds to the orientation of the first plane.
	Below	The translation orientation corresponds to the orientation of the first plane.	The translation orientation is the opposite of the orientation of the first plane.
Controlled Hinge	Sector 1, Sector 2	The trigonometric rotation orientation is the opposite of the axis orientation.	The trigonometric rotation orientation corresponds to the axis orientation.
	Sector 3, Sector 4	The trigonometric rotation orientation corresponds to the axis orientation.	The trigonometric rotation orientation is the opposite of the axis orientation.
Axis-based Constraint	/	The orientation of the degree or degrees of freedom is the opposite of the direction orientation specified by the first option (x, y, z, -x, -y, or -z).	The orientation of the degree or degrees of freedom corresponds to the direction orientation specified by the first option (x, y, z, -x, -y, or -z).

If you reverse the orientation of a command, the controlled constraint is modified accordingly.

Constraint Type	Result 1	Result 2
Controlled Offset	The constraint alignment switches from: Above to Below Below to Above	The nominal value is replaced by its opposite value. The minimum value becomes the opposite of the maximum value. The maximum value becomes the opposite of the minimum value.
Controlled Hinge	The constraint alignment switches from: Sector 1 to Sector 4 Sector 2 to Sector 3 Sector 3 to Sector 2 Sector 4 to Sector 1
Axis-based Constraint	The option switches from: x to -x or from -x to x y to -y or from -y to y z to -z or from -z to z

Important: If formulas are used to define values, replace them with new formulas referencing the previous ones.