Truss, Frame, and Beam Generation II

Selected structural components (currently restricted to Members, Joints, and Supports not internal to a member) can be transformed via the Transform Selected... command in the Modeling menu -- which will bring up the following floating dialog box:

The floating dialog contains a set of combo boxes and text fields that allow the user to select the transformation type as well as set various options and numeric values appropriate for the current transformation type. The transformation types available in the Transform Type combo box are translation, rotation and reflection. When the type is changed, the information required to define each transformation becomes available:

Translation requires a vector defining the distance to translate each selected object.
Rotation requires a reference point and a vector defining the location and orientation of the axis of rotation as well as a scalar value representing the angle to rotate each object around the rotation axis.
Reflection requires a reference point and a vector defining the plane of reflection -- in this case the point is any point on the plane and the vector is the plane normal.

Additionally, the second combo box (Transform What) allows the user to choose what the selected transform type should be applied to: either Selected or Duplicate components. If Selected is active then the transformation will be applied directly to the Joints defining the selected components so that the result is the effective transformation of the component -- and all attached components (member loads and supports) will go along for the ride. If Duplicates is chosen two additional input fields appear: Extrude and Iterations. The Extrude combo box allows the user to toggle on/off the ability to "extrude" members to connect the transformed members. The Iteration field allows the user to apply the iteration repeatedly. As an example, the following three images show the result of applying a single iteration of duplicate translation transformations to the selected members and supports with the Extrude option on and off:

When Duplicates are transformed, the transformation is effectively applied to copies of the underlying Joints of the selected components. As a result, no objects associated with a selected member (member loads and supports) will be associated with the transformed duplicate.

Future Improvements

The current implementation of component transformations represents can cover many common situations, but it is worth noting some of the improvements planned for the future:

Visual representation and direct manipulation of geometric quantities defining each transformation type.
Optional duplicate transformation of member loads and supports.
Direct manipulation transformation to complement current table-based approach (e.g., duplicate-drag-create style of transformations).

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