Transformation Points Tools

The third row of the Transformation Tools palette contains the 'transform points' tools. These operate on a selected area of the drawing, and they move, rotate, scale, mirror, shear or distort objects or parts of objects within that area.

Move Points Tool

The Move Points tool allows you to move all vertices of objects within a selected area to a new location. This may include one end of a line, or both ends. Or it may include a few vertices in a polygon or the entire polygon. You can control whether the tool operates on all objects or only selected objects.

To use, draw a rectangle around the points, or hold down the Option key and draw a polygon around the points. If you have failed to select any points, the tool will fall out.

If you have selected points to be moved, they will be shown by 'marching ants' boxes on each point, and there will also be a 'marching ants' rectangle enclosing all of the points. If you move the mouse inside or near the marching ants rectangle enclosing the points, the marching ants boxes at each point will not be painted.

When the 'ants are marching', you have a choice of the following actions:

Press the Enter key to cancel and get out of this operation.
Option-click on a line in the drawing to move points by the geometry of the line. The length and angle will be adopted from the line.
Tab into the Edit Window to edit the move by delta X and delta Y. The selected points will be moved. If you want to move the points by length and angle and edit these settings in the Edit Window, then see the next choice.
Click in the drawing and drag to interactively move the points. You may press the Shift key to constrain or unconstrain the move. You may tab into the Edit Window.

The selected points will be moved. Note that, like the Linear Transformation tools, you may click anywhere in the drawing.

The objects may be inside groups. Rectangles will be converted to polygons and rounded rectangles will be converted to Béziers, but if possible (because of a horizontal or vertical move) they will remain as rectangles or rounded rectangles. Arcs are selected by the ends of the arc, as if they were lines. Thus, if both ends of the arc are selected, then the entire arc is moved. Dimension lines with witness lines are moved by this tool as well. In addition to these objects, the tool also operated on points, lines, dimension lines, polygons, B-splines, Béziers, ellipses and arcs. All other objects, if fully enclosed, are offset appropriately.

Rotate, Scale, Mirror and Shear Points Tools

These tools work exactly like the Move Points tool except that they allow you to rotate, scale, mirror or shear the vertices in the drawing. They are not often used, but they provide a full range of transformation capabilities.

Distort Points Tool

The Distort Points tool allows you to distort vertices of objects within a selected area. This is useful for creating perspective drawings, and it's the only method available within PowerCADD to convert text to a perspective view, but you must first convert the text to Béziers with Convert to Paths.

To distort points, select the points to be distorted using the same technique described for the Move Points tool. At this point in their operation, the tools are identical.

After doing this, a marching-ants rectangle will surround all selected points, and there will be a hollow handle at each corner of the rectangle. If you wish, you may manipulate the points by these handles, or by the sides of the bounding box, however before you begin the distortion, you have the opportunity to 're-define' the starting rectangle.

When the 'ants are marching', you have a choice of the following actions:

Press the Enter key to cancel and get out of this operation.
Press the Option key, click and drag on a side of the rectangle to adjust the starting rectangle in or out
Click in a hollow handle and drag to distort the objects.
Press the Command key, click in a hollow handle and drag to move all of the points at once. This is useful for dragging the entire image over a perspective grid.
Click and drag on a side of the box to distort by one side.

Once the distortion has begun, as in Photoshop, you can cancel the distortion by clicking outside the box with the 'Cancel' cursor, or confirm the distortion by clicking inside the box with the Gavel cursor.

The tool operates on the same types of objects as the Move Points tool. These objects can be inside groups. When you use this tool for perspective drawings, it's essential to set up a perspective grid of lines to one side and drag the distortion box over this grid and then snap the corners of the distortion box to this grid.