Contour Moving

This dialog is used to move contours to a different object or to a different surface, or to toggle adjusting the size or position of a contour with the mouse. Use the spin box to select the object or surface # to move the current contour to. 3dmod remembers the object #, so the hot key Shift+M in the Zap window can be used to move contours quickly.

Ordinarily, a single contour will be moved, the current contour. If you have selected multiple contours using Ctrl and the first mouse button, all selected contours in the current object will be moved to the other object or surface, unless you have checked the option to move all contours in a surface.

When Move all contours with same surface # is selected, all contours with the same surface number as the current contour will also be moved to the selected object or surface. If no surfaces have been assigned in the current object, then all contours in the object will be moved. If contours are being moved to another object, they will be assigned a new surface number that is different from the existing surfaces in the other object.

When Move contour to different surface, not object is selected, contours are assigned to a different surface in the same object rather than moved to a new object.

Replace contour by single point of same size can be used when the type of the selected target object is scattered points and the current object is not scattered points. Moving a contour will convert the current contour into a single point centered on the contour and with a size that corresponds to the area of the contour. The new point will be added to the end of the last contour in the target object. The current contour will be deleted.

Replace spherical point with circular contours can be used when the type of the current object is scattered points and the selected target object is not scattered points. Moving will convert a point to a set of circular contours, one on each of the sections where the sphere of the point appears. When the option Show spheres only on-section only is checked in the Object Edit dialog, only a single circular contour will be created. Just the current point is converted, unless Convert all spherical points in contour is selected, in which case every point in the contour is converted. The radius of the new contours, and the range in Z over which they appear, will thus depend on the model's Z-scale, just as the appearance of a spherical point does. For each point converted, the contours will be given a unique surface number in the target object so that they can be manipulated together or deleted easily. Whatever points are converted are deleted; when the whole contour is being converted, it will also be deleted unless there are some points with radii under 1.5 that could not be converted.

When the current object consists of scattered points, the Preserve sizes of points with default size button can be used to specify whether the sizes of the points will be completely preserved when they are transferred to the new object. If the button is selected, points that do not have their own individual sizes will be assigned the default size of the current object before being moved to the new object. If the button is not depressed, such points will not be assigned individual sizes, and they will acquire the default size of the object they are moved to. In either case, points that do have individual sizes will retain these sizes after the transfer.

When moving contours to a different object, the surface number that they have in their new home depends on whether the first toggle button is selected. If it is not (i.e., you are moving one contour at a time), then each contour moved will have the same surface number as before, and no surfaces will be created if there are none already. If the button is selected (i.e., you are moving all contours with the same surface number), then the set of contours that get moved in one operation will be assigned to a new surface with the next free number in the new object. If you want to move all of the contours in an object with no surfaces into a different object and have them occupy a separate surface in that object, select the option to move all contours with the same surface number.

Move contour one section can be selected to shift contours up or down in Z, provided that other kinds of movements are not selected. If Move all contours with same surface # is selected, then all contours in the surface will be moved. Otherwise, all selected contours will be moved if there is more than one. Unlike other move operations, if contours are selected from more than one object, they will all be moved. The current point and selected contours remain unchanged so it is easy to repeat this operation.

Toggle adjusting contour with mouse toggles a mode in which you can shift, rotate, stretch, or scale the whole current contour by dragging with a mouse button held down. The first mouse button is used to shift; the second button is used to rotate; the third is used to stretch the contour along an axis, or to scale it uniformly if the Shift key is held down. If mouse buttons have their default mappings, these functions are the same as in the Midas program. If multiple contours are selected, the same operation will be done on all of them. This mode stays active until toggled off again. These operations work for any contours in closed contour objects and for coplanar contours in open contour objects.

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