How to change base orientation of block without affecting its instances orientation?

[Gijs (Gijs de Zwart)]

Is it possible to change a block’s base orientation that was (carelessly) made in place relative to the item? I was tidying up a file that has some blocks that, once I want to replace it with another block item, gets a wrong orientation, because the to be replaced block has its base orientation not aligned with the object(s).

See attached simple example: block base orientation.3dm (269.9 KB)

[Rickson]

i would do it something like this…

scripting wise you could set something in your block 01 to get a new plane to place the 02 block.

[Gijs (Gijs de Zwart)]

Thanks, this workaround might work indeed. Still I hope that I can fix it in the block in question. Otherwise I need to use your workaround first to make a replacement block, fix the block in question and do another replace block, if you understand what I mean.

[Gijs (Gijs de Zwart)]

it doesn’t seem possible since objects have no recorded transform. Also I found this old wish:

Block Origin Direction Wish

I pretty sure this was brought up in the old newsgroup, but wanted to mention it in the new format. I would really like to see the ability when creating blocks, to not only set the origin point but to set the direction for the axes. Currently it uses the world plane to set the different axes. Side note is axes the plural of axis? Dennis

[wim (Wim Dekeyser)]

Hi Gijs - I’ve added your request for the feature to RH-20718.
-wim

[John_Cerone]

I very much support this note/request. It seems like a simple way to handle this would be to add an option to “UseCurrentCPlane” when setting the block, in which case the user could easily set a CPlane to the desired orientation for the block