TerraExplorer provides a wide range of drawing and editing tools for objects and feature objects. The top bar of an object's property sheet includes mode buttons, which determine how the objects in the 3D Window are manipulated. Objects can be moved in the XY or Z planes or positioned based on where the mouse is pointing in the 3D Window. This makes it easier to move an object above a 3DML layer or other terrain object. Objects can also be snapped to another object.
For some objects, you can edit either the entire object or specific nodes. Other objects, like buildings, provide more complex features for 3D Window editing.
Drawing surfaces make it simple to draw objects on a particular plane. After creating a drawing surface with a certain orientation, all objects created in the area of the surface are automatically aligned to the surface. Polylines and polygons can also be easily aligned to the ground (mesh ground, terrain, or any ground object) at each of their vertices using the align to ground command.
In this article:
Moving an Object
- Project Tree > Right-click object and select Properties.
- On the top of the property sheet, click Edit Object
to edit the entire object. Then:
To change the object’s altitude. Drag to required height.
To move the object. Drag to required location.
To move the object based on where the mouse is pointing (rather than according to XYZ offset). Drag to required location.
To set position based on mouse and snap the object to another object. Drag to required location.
More about: Moving an object >
Modifying an Object's Nodes
You can edit object nodes of polylines, 2D polygons, and 3D polygons:
- Project Tree > Right-click object and select Properties.
- On the top of the property sheet, click Edit Nodes
. Then:
- To move a node. Click required node and drag to new location.
- To change node’s altitude. Click required node and drag to new height.
- To move a node based on where the mouse is pointing (rather than according to XYZ offset). Click required node and drag to new location.
To set position based on mouse and snap the object to another object. Click required node and drag to new location.
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- To delete a node, point to the node, right-click, and select Delete Node.
- To add a node, point to one of the object’s lines, and click anywhere a red node appears.
- To set how a node or object snaps to other objects: On the top bar of the object’s property sheet, click Set Snapping Options
. More about: Setting snapping options > - Set properties such as color, altitude, timespan, tooltip, and texture in the object’s property sheet.
More about: Editing object nodes >
Setting Object Orientation Using Drawing Surfaces
- Create a surface with a particular orientation: On the Objects tab, click the arrow next to Drawing Surface and select one of the alignment options.
- A surface is placed in the current location of the cursor, and the cursor changes to XYZ Magnet mode
, so you can drag the surface to the required location. Click the left mouse button to set the drawing surface in its place. - To align polylines/polygons to your drawing surface: Select Set Position Based on Mouse
, and then draw the polyline/polygon in the area of the created surface. More about: Drawing polylines and polygons > - If you draw a polygon or a polyline that is not aligned to surface or a polyline/polygon becomes misaligned with the surface as a result of editing in XY or Z mode, rather than in Set Position Based on Mouse mode, Show/Align to Surface
becomes enabled. Click Show/Align to Surface to align any misaligned nodes. The node's alignment is represented by its color:
- Black – aligned
- White – misaligned
Note: The selected node is yellow, regardless of alignment.
- Other polylines or polygons in the area of the surface that were drawn before the surface was created, can also be aligned by selecting the polyline/polygon, and then clicking Show/Align to Surface .
More about: Drawing surfaces >
Polylines and polygons can also be easily aligned to the ground (mesh ground, terrain, or any ground object) at each of their vertices using the align to ground command. More about: Aligning to ground >