Work plane and coordinates
A plan is three-dimensional; your pointer is not. A click is a ray through the scene, and the work plane decides at what height it arrives.
As long as you build flat on the table, it lies horizontal at height 0, and you don't need to worry about it. It gets interesting on a second level: a mountain station, a mezzanine.
What it determines
- Where drawn things land: polylines, rectangles, and paths lie on the work plane.
- How an object travels while dragged: parallel to the work plane, so it keeps its height.
- Where heights are measured from: embankments and ramps measure from it.
Anything attached to a surface, a window for instance, goes by its wall instead of the work plane.
Setting the work plane
Edit → Edit Workplane…
The workplane editor: the normal case above, "Advanced" below it for tilted planes.
The Height field is almost always enough: 0 for the table, 400 for the level above it. Entering a value there also levels out a tilted plane.
Under Advanced you can specify an arbitrarily tilted plane, via origin and normal, three points, or its equation. This rarely helps while planning and quickly gets confusing.
Coordinates
Raily calculates in millimeters: X to the right, Y to the back (upward in the top-down view), Z upward.
Model scale or reality
Raily shows lengths either in model scale or at real-world size. Most editors carry the switch at the top of the properties area; otherwise Model scale for lengths and sizes in the settings applies. If a number is off by roughly the factor of your scale, that's almost always why. The work plane's height is always in model scale.
Every element also has its own axes. When rotating and moving, you choose between world and object.
The display at bottom right
On the right of the status bar are the X, Y, and Z of the point under the pointer, plus, for a track, its item designation. If something is selected, next to it you'll see:
120.0 × 80.0 × 35.0 mm |
width, depth, and height of the selection, as it needs space in the plan |
⌐ 42.0 |
the height of its underside |
Putting one thing on top of another
Underside plus height of the lower object is its top edge. Enter that number for the upper object as Z in Translate mode.