Changing Trihedron Settings

A trihedron is an XYZ symbol in the Graphic Display window that shows the intersection of three planes. It defines the coordinate system's origin, and shows the current orientation when you rotate the part.

The Edit | Graphic Display Window | Trihedron menu item displays the Trihedron tab of the CAD and Graphic Setup dialog box. You can use this tab to change the colors for the different components that make up the trihedron and to size the rotation widget.

 (Looking for a different tab?)

CAD and Graphic Setup dialog box - Trihedron tab

You can change colors for these trihedrons with these areas:

Original Colors

The original colors for the part alignment symbol and the rotation widget are red (X), green (Y), and blue (Z):

Original Colors of the Part Alignment Trihedron

Trihedron Rotation Interface

Original Colors of the Rotation Widget

Colors area

The Colors area contains a grid of colored boxes.

These grids of boxes represent the different components for each of the three axes of the two trihedrons.

Trihedron Diagram

You can click on a colored box to change that component's color.

Rotation Widget area

The colored boxes in this area work the same way as the colored boxes in the Colors area above, except that they affect the rotation widget.

The Size slider changes the relative size of the rotation widget.

You can temporarily change the size with the mouse pointer. Hover your pointer over a face on the rotation widget until it highlights that face. Then rotate the mouse wheel. The size change remains until you close the measurement routine. To make the size change permanent, first open the Trihedron tab, resize the widget, and then click OK.

Changing Colors

You can change these colors by clicking on one of the colored boxes and choosing a new color from the Color dialog box:

Color dialog box

As soon as you click OK, the Color dialog box closes, and PC-DMIS updates the trihedron color in the Graphic Display window.

When you click OK on the CAD and Graphic Setup dialog box, PC-DMIS stores the color information in the registry. All measurement routines then use these colors for that trihedron.

Example

This example shows a modified alignment trihedron. If you change its Text colors to white, Cylinder colors to pink, and Cone colors to orange, the trihedron looks like this:

A Sample Modified Trihedron