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# Solid Editing

There are two classes of editing operations that can be performed on leaf nodes, the primitive solids. The first class of operations are generic operations which can be applied to any type of solid, and the second class of operations are those operations which are specific to a particular type of solid. Generic operations which can be applied to all primitive solids are rotation, translation and scaling. Recall that primitives can be treated as any other object and ``object edited'' as detailed above. Each primitive solid also has a variety of editing operations available that are specific to the definition of that solid. These operations are detailed below.

The solid editing mode is necessary to perform to basic shapes of solids. Precise modifications of the shape are possible (using the p keyboard command) in the solid editing mode.

The solid editing feature allows the user to interactively translate, rotate, scale, and modify individual parameters of a solid. Whenever one is in the solid edit mode, the parameters of the solid being edited are listed and continually updated at the top of the screen. Certain parameters are also labeled on the solid being edited. Solid editing is generally used to ``build'' objects by producing solids of the desired shape and size in the correct orientation and position. Once the object is built, object editing is used to scale, orient, and position the object in the description. The general philosophy of solid editing is to first create a solid with the desired name and then to edit this solid. As an example, suppose one were to build an object called ``BRACKET''; to produce the base of the object the primitive solid type ARB8 would be used along with either the in command or make command, so one would type:

in btm box 0 0 0 0 -90 0 40 0 0 0 0 6
make block arb8

A new solid called ``btm'' or ``block'' would be created and displayed on the screen. These solids would then be edited using solid editing to produce the solid parameters for the shape desired.

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