AutoCAD Tip - 3D Rotate Gizmo not aligned to object

By Dennis Collin

AutoCAD has some quite powerful tools to relocate elements accurately in 3D space. Elements can be moved and rotated, but sometimes elements are not always aligned to the transform gizmo object due to the elements being drawn on a different UCS or otherwise rotated from the current coordinate system. In the example below a solid object needs to be rotated vertically from its current position. Notice that the transform gizmo is out of alignment from the element that is to be changed, making it difficult to be rotated to the desired angle.

This is easily solved by right-clicking the gizmo before selecting the rotation axis. From the context menu choose the ‘Align Gizmo with object’ option. This will ensure the reference axis, angle or offset can be correctly identified with the element being rotated relative to its local axis.