Let’s Explore v4 – Rotate

Hi everyone! This week we are continuing on our journey to explore more of Silhouette Studio v4.

We are looking today at the Transform Panel – Rotate tab. You will find this on the right side of the Silhouette Studio v4 as shown below.

If  you want to manually rotate an object, you can do that on the design screen by grabbing the green circle at the top of the design when it’s selected and hold down the mouse button and drag it left or right.

Softball Mom by SM Designs

But if you want something more precise, then you want to use the Rotate tab on the Transform Panel.

Let’s take a look at how this can help.

1. Rotate to 0, 90, 180 or 270 degrees – Choosing one of these options will rotate your object to the exact degree you choose.
2. Custom – Change the numbers in the box to a specific degree you would like it to rotate to.
3. Rotate by 45 or 90 degrees, 180 degrees, -90 or -45 degrees – Using this option will move the design exactly the distance you select. For example, in my photo above, I have it selected at 30 degrees. If I now choose -45, it will rotate it to the left exactly -45 degrees from where it started at 30 degrees, placing it at 345 degrees.
4. Custom – Type in a custom amount if you want something in between the standard options.
5. Apply – You can click this after changing the custom amount or just hit the Enter key.

There are many reasons that you would use these rotate tools.

For instance, let’s draw a heart. Now, you’ll notice that the Drawing tools on the left side does not have a heart shape. So let’s make one. Select the Draw and Ellipse tool and then hold down the Shift key and drag your mouse on the design mat. This will draw a perfect circle. Now, let’s fill it with color so it’s easier to work with. (Check out the Let’s Explore Fill Panel here)

Next, make a copy of your circle. There are several ways to do this – Ctrl+c and Ctrl+v, right click & choose copy and then again for paste or hold down the Alt key and drag a copy off, or use the toolbar (QAT) at the top.

And then draw a perfect square by choosing the Draw a Rectangle tool and holding the Shift key down. Fill your square with color as well.

Now let’s use the Rotate tab to turn our square to a 45 degree angle.

Next move the square up to meet the circles and align them how you like it. You may need to enlarge your circles (select them both and resize) to get the dimensions of the heart to align.

And there you have drawn a heart shape using just the basic shapes in the Silhouette software and the Transform panel – Rotate tab. Make sure to select all your shapes and choose weld or it will cut out the individual shapes.

After you weld the shapes together you will have your heart design.

And there is one way you would use the Rotate tab and as a bonus you learned how to draw a heart from basic shapes.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the Let’s Explore v4 session today! Check out all the previous panels we’ve explored HERE.

Enjoy !

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