Tool Basics

To orient yourself in the Palette window

1. Find the Palette window on the left side of the screen.

   If the palette is not visible, go to the Windows menu and choose Palette.

   

   The Palette window is divided into separate palettes of tools, each labeled with a tab at the top.

   For example, the Curves palette contains tools for creating new curves. The Curve Edit palette contains tools for editing and reshaping existing curves.

2. Find the Surfaces palette. It is the seventh palette from the top of the window.

   

   NoteIf you cannot see the Surfaces palette, use the scroll bar on the left side of the palette window to scroll up or down until it is visible in the window.
3. Hold the cursor over a tool.

   The name of the tool appears in a small box just below the icon. This small text window is called a tooltip.

   

   This feature can help you to identify tools until you become familiar with the icons in the palette.

   NoteOnce you are familiar with the icons in the palette, you may want to disable tooltips. To do this, choose the Tooltips option in the Interface section of the General Preferences window (Preferences > General Preferences - p).

Now you will use the geometric primitive tools to add some geometry to the scene. The primitive tools create simple 3D geometric shapes such as cubes, spheres, and cones.

As a technical surfacer, you may not regularly need to add these simple shapes to a model. However, they will allow us to practice several AliasStudio interface concepts, including choosing tools, using manipulators, sub-palettes, tool option windows, and snapping.

To create a primitive sphere in the scene

1. Click the Surfaces > Primitives > Sphere tool.

2. A red outline appears around the icon to show it is the current tool.

3. Click in the Top view window to place the new sphere.

   

   A new sphere, one grid unit wide, appears where you release the mouse button.

Using a Snap Mode

To use grid snapping to place a primitive cube

You may have noticed that some tools have a small yellow arrow in the top right corner.

These arrows indicate that more, similar tools are available in a hidden sub-palette. To access the extra tools, you must click and hold the mouse to open the sub-palette.

1. In the Surfaces palette, click and hold the Sphere tool icon.

2. The Surfaces > Primitives sub-palette pops out.

   

3. Hold the on the different tools in the sub-palette to see their names.
4. Click the Cube tool.

   

   The sub-palette disappears. The Cube tool is selected and now occupies the space in the main palette where the Sphere tool was.

   

   This time you will place the new primitive using grid snapping.

   

5. Find the snap buttons, to the right of the promptline.

   

6. Click the button to turn on grid snapping.
7. Click and drag in the Top view window.

   

   The cube snaps to the grid intersections as you drag.

8. Place the cube at a grid point by releasing the mouse button.
9. Click the snap button again to turn grid snapping off.
   NoteIn addition to using the button, you can grid snap by pressing and holding the button while you place a primitive.

To use the palette menu to choose the Cone tool

This time we will show you an alternative method for choosing tools from palettes.

1. Click the tab at the top of the Surfaces palette.

   

   The palette collapses down to just the tab, and the other palettes move up to fill the space.

   This feature is very useful for saving space in the palette window and in shelves. You can still choose tools from the palette using the palette’s menu.

2. Click the on the Surfaces palette’s title tab to open the palette’s menu.
3. Click the Primitives item to open the sub-menu.

   

   Just like the menus at the top of the screen, arrows indicate that an item in the palette menu has sub-items.

4. Click the Cone tool item.

   

   You have now seen two different ways to choose a tool from a palette. From now on, we will ask you to choose tools by name, such as:

   “In the Surfaces palette, choose Primitives > Cone.”

   Whenever you are asked to choose a tool, you can either click the tool icon, or choose the tool from the palette menu.

5. Click in the Top view to place a cone in the scene.

   

6. Click the Surfaces palette’s tab again to expand the Surfaces palette back to normal.

To use tool options to add a half-cylinder

1. With the , click the title tab of the Surfaces palette to open the palette menu, then open the Primitives sub-menu.

   Notice that some items have shadowed boxes next to the name of the item.

   

2. Click the shadowed box next to the Cylinder item.

   

3. The Cylinder options window appears.

   

4. Double click in the text box labeled Sweep, then type 180 and press Enter to set the sweep to 180 degrees.

   

5. Use the slider next to the Sections text box to set the sections to 4.

   

6. Click the Go button at the bottom of the window.

   

   This button applies the settings in the window and activates the tool.

7. Click in the Top view window to place the new half-cylinder in the scene.

   

   As you specified in the option window, the cylinder has a 180-degree perimeter and is created from four sections (spans).

8. Look at the Cylinder tool icon. It has a small option box symbol in the top left corner.

   

   Like the symbol in the menu, this indicates the tool has options.

9. Double-click the Cylinder tool icon.

   The Cylinder Options window appears.

10. Click Exit to close the options window.

Picking and Unpicking Objects

Picking refers to selecting objects in the scene for use with other tools. For example, to move a CV, you must pick the CV, then use the Move tool on the picked CV.

Picking objects in the scene is a fundamental part of modeling with AliasStudio. Because it is so important, AliasStudio provides several different tools for picking.

To pick all and pick nothing

1. In the Pick palette, choose Object types > All objects/lights.

2. All the objects in the scene highlight to show they are picked.

   

   Unlike most selection tools, Pick > Object types > All objects/lights does not stay selected, since you never need to use it twice in a row.

   When these momentary types of tools finish, the current tool reverts to the last continuous tool you selected.

3. In the Pick palette, choose the Nothing tool.

4. The Pick > Nothing tool unpicks every object, leaving nothing picked.

   

   Like the Pick > Object types > All objects/lights tool, the Pick > Nothing tool does not stay selected. The current tool reverts to the last tool you used.

To pick and unpick individual objects

1. Choose the Pick > Object tool.
2. Click the cone primitive in the view windows with the .

   

   The cone highlights to show it is picked.

3. Click the other objects with the . They also become picked.

   

4. With all the objects picked, click one of the picked objects with the .

   

   The object you clicked becomes unpicked.

   The left mouse button toggles objects between picked and unpicked.

5. Now click one of the primitives with the .

   The object you clicked is picked and the other objects are unpicked.

   

   The middle mouse button picks only the object you click.

6. Click the picked primitive with the .

   

   The object is unpicked.

   The unpicks objects. This is most useful with pick boxes, as you will see in the next procedure.

To use pick boxes to pick and unpick several objects at once

1. With the Pick > Object tool still selected, click one of the primitive objects with the .

2. 

3. Press the and drag a box around all the primitive objects.

   

   All the objects inside the pick box toggle between picked and unpicked.

   

4. Now drag a pick box with the around some objects.

   

   Now only the objects inside the box are picked.

5. Now drag a pick box with the around some of the picked objects.

   

   Any objects inside the pick box are unpicked.

To pick by name

1. Use the to pick only the sphere.
2. From the Windows menu, choose Information > Information window.

   The Information window appears.

   

   The information window allows you to adjust parameters for objects in the scene.

3. Find the Name field. The name of the object should be sphere or something similar.
4. Close the Information window.
5. Click in empty space with the .

   All objects in the scene are unpicked.

   • Remember, the middle mouse button picks only what you click. If you pick “nothing” (empty space), then the tool acts as if you had chosen Pick > Nothing.
6. Type sphere, then press . The text appears as you type in the promptline at the top of the workspace window.

   When you press , the sphere is picked.

Shortcuts to Tools

The variety of tools available is the source of AliasStudio’s power, but finding tools in the palette can become potentially time consuming. You can make commonly used tools available more quickly, and hide rarely used tools until you need them.

AliasStudio provides three solutions: shelves, marking menus, and hotkeys.

Shelves are like the palettes, except you control the tools’ options and their position on the shelves. You will use shelves to organize all your commonly used tools.

Marking menus pop-up at the current mouse location. They provide a very fast method to choose the tools you use most often (such as Pick > Object).

Hotkeys are special key combinations that perform common menu or tool commands.

Creating Custom Shelves

To show and hide the shelf window

1. In the Windows menu, choose Shelves.

   The Shelves window appears.

   • The Shelves window provides a floating window in which to keep commonly used tools.

     AliasStudio, however, provides another, even more convenient location for shelves. In these tutorials, you will use the shelf area in the control panel.

   • Since you will not be using the Shelves window, you can close it.
2. Choose Windows > Shelves again to hide the Shelves window, or click the Shelves window’s close button.

To help demonstrate how to make new shelves, you will clear the default shelves and make new shelves specific to these tutorials.

Before you clear the default shelves, you will save them, so you can retrieve them later.

To save the initial shelf set

1. Choose Windows > Control Panel. The control panel will appear.
2. Hold the on the Shelf Options menu button at the top of the control panel’s shelf area to open the pop-up menu.

   

3. Drag down to the Save item and release the mouse button.

   A file requester appears.

4. Click in the Object name text field and type Default, then click Save.

In the next procedure, you will start a new shelf of tools commonly used in curve fitting in preparation for the lesson on fitting curves to scan data.

To clear the existing shelf set and create a new one

1. Hold the on the menu button at the top of the shelf area to open the pop-up menu. Notice how the menu button is now called Default, after the name of the current shelf.

   

2. Choose New from the pop-up menu.

   A requester appears asking for the name of the new shelf.

   

3. Click in the text box, hit the Esc key to clear the text, and type CurveFit. Click OK to name the new shelf.

   

   The old Shelf set is deleted and a new, empty shelf appears in the shelf area.

   Now you can begin adding tools to the new shelf.

4. In the Palette window, find the Curve Edit palette.

   

5. With the , drag the Fit Curve tool onto the CurveFit shelf in the control panel.

   

   The tool appears in the shelf.

   

   You could move the entire Curve Edit palette onto the shelf by dragging its title tab, but you only want a selection of tools from the full palette.

Next, you will add curve drawing tools to the palette.

Since you will often need to create curves of different degree in technical surfacing, it would be useful to have customized versions of tools with different settings.

The shelf allows you to do this. When you drag a tool onto a shelf, the new copy of the tool keeps the settings it had when it was dropped on the shelf, independent of the original tool in the palette.

Using this technique, you will create several versions of the two original curve creation tools, New curve (edit pts ) and New curve (cvs).

Each version will have different settings for the Degree option.

To add versions of the New curve tools to the shelf with different options

1. In the Curves palette, double-click New curves > New Curve by Edit Points and open the tool’s option window.

2. (Remember that you can also choose New Curve by Edit Points from the palette menu).

   The New Curve by Edit Points option window appears.

   

   The options let you set the knot spacing (parameterization) and degree of the new curve.

3. Make sure Knot Spacing is set to Uniform and Create Guidelines is off.

   

4. Set the Degree option to 2.
5. Find the tool icon at the top of the option window.

   

   This icon represents the tool as configured with these settings.

6. Press the on the tool icon at the top of the option box and drag it to the CurveFit shelf.

   

   Now when you choose this icon in the shelf, the New Curve (edit pts) tool will create degree 2 curves.

7. Back in the option window, set the Degree to 3.

   

8. Use the to drag the tool icon at the top of the option window to the shelf.

   

   Another copy of the tool is added to the shelf. When you choose this copy of the tool, the New Curve (edit pts) tool will create degree 3 curves.

9. Click Exit at the bottom of the option window to close the window.

   

To rename the tools

1. Move the mouse over the CurveFit shelf’s title tab and press the to show the shelf’s menu.

   

   Note that the two versions of the tool have the exact same name and icon.

   To be able to distinguish between the tools, you will rename them.

2. Find the first version of New Curve by Edit Points you dragged to the shelf.

   If you cannot remember which is which, double-click the two icons to see their option windows. You want the version with the Degree option set to 2.

3. Hold down the key and double-click the tool icon.

   A name requester appears.

   

4. Double-click in the text box and type Edit_pt_Deg_2, then click OK to rename the tool.
5. Hold down the key and double-click the second copy of the New Curve by Edit Points tool.
6. Double-click in the text box and type Edit_pt_Deg_3, then click OK to rename the tool.
7. Hold down the on the title tab of the shelf to open the shelf menu.

   

   The two copies of the tool are now distinguishable in the menu, but still have identical icons.

   We recommend you keep the shelves collapsed and use the shelf menus to choose tools. This saves space in the shelf.

To remove a tool from the shelf

1. Add another tool to the CurveFit shelf.

   Let’s now assume that this was a mistake and you wish to remove the tool.

2. Hold the over the tool’s icon in the shelf.

   

   The name of the tool appears.

3. With the held down, drag the label to the upper-right corner of the window and position the cursor over the trash can icon.

   

4. Release the mouse button. The tool disappears from the shelf.

   You can also delete groups of tools by dragging a tab with the middle mouse button to the trash can.

You may have noticed that icons are a bit crowded on the shelf. The large icons are good when you are learning which icon is which, but now you will switch to the small icon size to save space in the shelf.

To change to the small icon size

1. In the Preferences menu, choose General Preferences - p. The Interface options appear.

   

2. Set the Tool Icons to Small.

   

   If you wish, you can also turn on the icon labels option to display name labels for all the icons.

3. Click the Go button at the bottom of the window to apply the changes.

   

   AliasStudio loads smaller versions of all the tool icons.

You have seen how to create shelves with customized tools. In later lessons, you will load pre-made shelves containing all the tools you need to complete the tutorials.

Using and Customizing Marking Menus

An even faster method for selecting tools is the marking menus. Marking menus generally hold fewer tools than a shelf, but are much faster since you can use quick gestures to choose tools. With practice, selecting tools with marking menus becomes almost instantaneous.

To choose common tools with marking menus

1. Hold down the and keys.
2. With the keys held down, hold the .

   

   The left mouse button marking menu appears at the location of the mouse pointer.

3. Keep the held down and drag down until the Pick > Object box is highlighted.

   

   A thick black line shows the direction of the mouse pointer.

4. Release the mouse button to choose the highlighted tool.

   The Pick > Object tool is now the current tool.

5. Hold and with the middle, then with the right mouse buttons to see the other marking menus.

   Each mouse button has a separate marking menu.

   

   Once you have learned which direction corresponds to which tool in a marking menu, you can use a quick gesture to choose the tool.

6. Hold the and keys, then drag up and release the mouse button quickly.

   The black line shows the direction, but the menu is not drawn.

   When you release the mouse button, the marking menu flashes the name of the selected tool on the screen.

   You have just selected Pick > Nothing.

   Use this method to choose tools even faster once you have mastered the positions of the tools on the menu.

Learn which tools are on the marking menus, and use the marking menus whenever you need to choose one of those tools. The more you use them, the faster you will become, until you can choose tools with quick gestures.

To customize a marking menu with common tools

1. In the Preferences menu, open the Interface sub-menu and choose Marking Menus.

   The MarkingMenus shelf window appears.

   

   This is a special shelf window. The tools and menu items on the different tabs appear in corresponding marking menus.

   

   The procedure to modify the content of marking menus is similar to the one for modifying shelves that we learned earlier.

   Here you will make a small modification to the Selection marking menu shelf.

2. Double click the Pick > Locator tool in the Palette or Control Panel to open the Pick Locator Options box.

3. 

4. Hold down the and drag the tool icon from the top of the option box and drop it between the third and fourth last icons on the shelf.

   

   You now have a tool on the marking menu to pick locators.

   

5. Hold down and keys and press the to show the marking menu again.

   

   The tool you just added is called Pick > Pick locator in the marking menu. You will change the name to something more concise.

6. In the MarkingMenu shelf window, hold down the key and double-click the Pick locator tool in the shelf (second from the right).

7. A dialog box appears.

   

8. Type Pick locator in the text field and click OK to rename the tool in the marking menu.
9. Show the left mouse button marking menu again.

   

You now know how to customize the marking menus. In later lessons, you will load pre-made marking menus with common surfacing tools.

Using hotkeys

Hotkeys are special key combinations that choose tools or perform menu commands. You can get a complete listing of all the hotkeys in the hotkey editor.

To use hotkeys

1. In the Preferences menu, open the Interface sub-menu and choose Hotkeys / Menus.

   The hotkey editor appears.

   

   • AliasStudio’s option windows use a hierarchy similar to that of the File Lister: options are organized into hierarchical sections that can be collapsed and expanded.
2. In the Menu section, click the Layouts sub-section title to expand it.

   

   Click to open a Section Heading.

   You can see the hotkey for the User windows item, as well as text fields for defining other hotkeys.

   You can define your own hotkeys, if you wish. For the most part, we will not use hotkeys in these lessons.

   If you are new to Autodesk AliasStudio products, we recommend that you spend some time working with the product before you define hotkeys, so you can learn which commands you use frequently enough to need a hotkey.

3. Click the close box to close the hotkey editor.