Rotate 2012

Months back I posted on Revit rotate behavior (Twist and shout).  In the post we explored options for addressing some wishes, mainly better control over the specification of the center of rotation.

The feedback from this post helped inform the addition of some new behaviors to 2012 and the design approach.  In the approach we tried to maintain existing workflows for those who found the default behavior workable yet add enhancements allowing experts to quickly take full control.

So what is new in 2012?

New control behavior

The little blue rotate control that you could previously drag to re-position now allows repositioning with a two click operation.  "Click" "Click" instead of "Press" "Hold" "Release". The drag behavior will still work for those with strong muscle memory since both behaviors are compatible.

Option bar commands

The option bar now displays two choices for the center of rotation "Place" and "Default"

The former will place the center on the pointer and allow you to define the center manually - especially handy when rotating large elements that might have a center off-screen.

The later is the legacy behavior where the center is placed at the centroid of the element.

The tooltips and status bar were updated to provide further clues to the added behavior.

Spacebar

The above UI improves discoverability of the new behaviors for new users but could easily be viewed as more work by experts so more was done.  The spacebar has long been used to rotate components in selection or during placement and can now be used to quickly switch between the two rotation behaviors.  Type "RO" for rotate, tap the spacebar and you are in 3-click rotate.

Keyboard Shortcut

A shortcut for 3-point rotate was defined "R3".  Select an element and type R3 and you are in 3-click rotate.

Has anyone been using the enhanced rotate in 2012?  Are new Revit users able to perform a 3 point rotate?  Are experts also happy?  I'm curious to gain feedback on the approach and final design solution.

_erik

 

Comments

[Jacobischwartz]

It's a good little refinement. A number of the less intuitive users in my office immediately noticed and appreciated it. Now that I know about the spacebar shortcut, I'll definitely use that.

I would have been missing out on the spacebar thing if not for your post though, so one step further would have been to put [space] in the tooltip for the "place" button.

[The_viking]

If I was new to Revit "Default" would make little sence to me. I would have no point of reference. Why not just say what it does like you describe in the post? :-)

[Anthony Hauck]

Good point.  Center is more specific.

[Chris Needham]

Love it, use it (spacebar) every time I use rotate.

[Revitez.blogspot.com]

Très bonne interprétation de nos demandes. MERCI
La barre espace est très pratique.
Ne serait-il pas possible que si l'on choisit l'option "Lieu" ("Pointer" would be a better translation), elle soit conservée la prochaine fois quand on utilise la fonction "rotation" ?

Excellent interpretation of our requests. THANK YOU
The space bar is very useful.
Would it be possible, if you select "Place", to remain it the next time using "rotate"?

[Tom]

"Place" should be sticky - the old default method has never be very nice and I curse every time I have to drag that thing into the right location.

[Ed Jones]

I would like to see the possibility of rotating multiple objects about their individual centers of rotation. i.e. if you place a bunch of elements and then want to rotate them by an arbitrary angle along their individual centers. Or perhaps someone else has a way to deal with this?

[Erik E]

Merci pour les commentaires. Enregistrement de la préférence pour la session est une bonne idée. Je vais travailler pour cette.

Thank you for the comments and suggestions. Saving the preference for the session is a good idea. I will investigate this.

[Erik E]

Ed,

What you ask for works if you are OK with 90 degree increments. An arbitrary rotation would need further input or a setting to hold additional increments to try in succession. I can't think of another workaround but perhaps others will chime in.

[Andy Milburn]

Would it be possible to have the centre of rotation for a camera default to the camera itself rather than the centroid of the view cone ?

[Anthony Hauck]

Excellent suggestion.  I should have pointed out that the origin for loadable content is the same as the family origin but for hard coded elements like cameras the centroid may not be the best choice.

[Tim Waldock]

It is a really nice little enhancement - will use it all the time.

However, I do remember from earlier testing that the new keyboard shortcuts don't work in a consistent way: from memory, "Define a new center of rotation" (R3) can be used to invoke the Rotate command AND/OR to change the mode [this is good]; the other new shortcut "Set the center to default" only works to change the mode, not to start the rotate command [bad], it also protests if you are already in that mode [unnecessary]. So now we have 3 "Rotate" shortcuts that each work in a subtly different way. 2 consistent ones would have sufficed.

[Peter in MD]

My longstanding frustration with RMEP Rotate, (aside from not being prompted for a centerpoint), is that the command is unable to snap to a center of a vertical duct or pipe elbow in plan view. This means I have to draw a temporary line across the base of the elbow, snap the center of rotation to the midpoint of that line, then go back and erase the line.

I don't expect this can be fixed.

[Anthony Hauck]

This would be handled from the element.  It should make a reference available to the command.  Ill see if this issue is logged.