Move Component
Updated v2.3.8At a glance
- Place whole components with a 3D triad — axis arrows to slide, rings to rotate
- Type exact distances and angles mid-drag, in your units or with expressions
- Instant — moving a part never rebuilds its geometry, even on heavy models
- Sketches, work planes, and 3D dimensions follow; modeling works at any position
- Ground a component to pin it in place; grounded parts show a pin badge
Move Component places whole parts. Pick any body and its component gets a placement triad — axis arrows to slide it, rotation rings to turn it — so you can lay out multiple parts the way they fit together, not just where their sketches happened to put them. It's the foundation of assembly modeling in JetCad3; joints build on it in upcoming releases.
The triad
Click a body and the triad appears at the component's center: red/green/blue arrows for X/Y/Z, and
matching rotation rings. While you drag, a floating box shows the running distance or angle — type
into it to hit an exact number, in your preferred units or as an expression (10mm, 1/2,
(5+3)/2). The dialog offers the same control from the keyboard: Move X/Y/Z and Rotate X/Y/Z
fields, plus a Reset that puts the component back where the session started.
Moving a component is instant no matter how heavy it is — the part's geometry is never rebuilt, only repositioned. Each completed drag or typed value is a single undo step.
Everything follows
A moved component behaves exactly like one that was modeled in place:
- Its sketches and work planes stay glued to their faces — sketch on a moved part's face, extrude, fillet, and the features land where you'd expect.
- Quick Measure and 3D dimensions between two components read true face-to-face values wherever the parts sit, including between two parts that have each been moved and rotated.
- Move a sub-assembly and every component inside it comes along rigidly.
Start the tool from the toolbar (Transform group) or right-click a component in the browser → Move Component.
Grounding
Right-click a component → Ground to pin it in place. A grounded component shows a pin badge in the browser panel and refuses the Move tool until you unground it — the frame, the base plate, whatever the rest of the machine positions against. Grounding is also the anchor the upcoming joint system will solve against.