Axes and views - I have a feeling i'll be embarrassed...

[ccsc]

i've read the axes are assigned the convention rgb=xyz. When i start a sketch and set camera to front view, i get red to right (pos x) blue up (pos y) and green z - pos or neg depending on how i orbit. I have always thought front view would show red to rt and green pos up. If is set camera top i get red to rt pos x, and green up. Have i accidentally set my axes wrong? Am i missing something dumb? If i orbit around to get the axes the way i understand them to be correct, orbit is wonky.

Thanks

Chip

[Rich O Brien]

Red = X = Left to Right
Green = Y = Front to Back
Blue = Z = Top to Bottom

From Front View you see Red and Blue
From Top View you see Red and Green

[ccsc]

thx Rich- I'm just used to graphing 2d plots - old school, where x and y are left/right and top/bottom.

[TIG]

Don't be embarrassed.
There are two different 'CAD' coordinate/axes conventions.
One grew from 2d the other reflects 3d more sensibly...

The older way is indeed what you had wrongly assumed for SketchUp.

Old way...

X left/right on screen == 'Width'
Y up/down on screen == 'Height'
Z in/out of screen == 'Depth'

SketchUp and several other newer 3d apps...
With an 'Origin' at [0,0,0] defining the 'ground-plane'

X left/right on a 'ground-plane' == Red, aka 'Length'
Y in/out on a 'ground-plane' == Green, aka 'Depth'
Z up/down from the 'ground-plane' == Blue, aka 'Height'

Points, offsets etc are always defined as [X, Y, Z] values

In fact for those of us using the Ruby API... the SUp 'bounding-box' convention is the awkwardly set up as the 'old-way' - which can be very confusing as bb.width/bb.height/bb.depth is actually bb.x_size/bb.y_size/bb.z_size, when intuitively we might assume the SUp convention of x/z/y

The two coordinate/axes conventions lead to some anomalies when importing/exporting - where you might see 'Flip Y/Z Axes' options. This is there to convert one set of axes to another, otherwise an imported object might come in 'laid on its back' etc...