How do I calculate 3D rotation values for an existing image?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
May 7, 2018
1 reply
1318 views

I frequently work with artwork exported from SolidWorks in various orientations (all axonometric). I occasionally need to "apply" labels that I create in Illustrator to one or more faces of the product.

Is there a mathematical relation between the angles I can measure from the artwork and the values I would need to enter into the 3D Rotate effect fields to match the orientation of each face? If so, what are those equations?

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Mylenium

Legend

Same as when you do manual isometric drawing - the angles are based on the cosine function. Ergo the angular deviation from the perpendicular world axes can be calculated using acos and then the angles dialled in, give or take the typical oddities with specific angles and rotation order. If you have sufficient reference points you could of course also go super fancy using vector math to calculate all that stuff...

Mylenium

ryanddAuthor

Participant

Thank you for replying. I must confess, I have never done an isometric drawing manually (and only have moderate, self-taught experience with SolidWorks). I am familiar with trigonometric functions, but unsure of how to apply them with only these three measurements. Most of what I can find requires some distance measurements, too. I understand I may be asking for more than is feasible.

John Mensinger

Community Expert

ryandd wrote
I understand I may be asking for more than is feasible.

And perhaps making more of it than is necessary. While i fully understand the desire to apply appropriate math, in my experience, that doesn't always yield a pleasing or convincing aesthetic. Before concluding you're "dead in the water," I'd suggest you try just "eyeballing" a label onto a surface using Free Transform adjustments until it just looks right. If it looks right no one will question whether it is mathematically accurate. Trust your eye.

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