Morph - or Affine Transform

The Morph Sheet provides a way to apply an affine transform to the selected graphic(s). This allows graphics to be scaled, stretched, moved, or rotated. This action may be undone.

Morph is called from the Transform submenu found on the Tools menu of the Main menu. The command opens a sheet on the document window. You may then select desired transformation with the checkboxes and factors. The transform is performed by clicking the "Transform" button.

Resizing may done interactively with use of the Interactive submenu. The level of on screen interaction for a graphic may be increased to provide additional on screen handles for interactive resizing.

Rotate
If this is checked the selected graphic(s) will be rotated the specified number of degrees in the clockwise direction. The rotation is centered on the geometric center of each individual graphic. In other words, several selected graphics will all spin individually about their centers. If you need to rotate several graphics about their common center, first Group the graphics then transform the "Group".
Translate
This is a simple transform that will move the selected graphic(s) the amount entered for the X and Y values. These lengths are entered in the Units (cm, inches, points, ...) defined for the document on the Scale parameter panel
Scale

A scaling is defined by two factors, one for the width or X axis and one for the height or Y axis. Enter the number as a factor (not percent), e.g. a factor of 1.000 will not change the graphic. To apply the same scaling to both axes select "Uniform". To apply a transform without scaling uncheck both boxes.

When applying a scaling, the line widths of Bezier graphics may be changed in proportion if the "Scale Line Widths" check box is checked. If Uniform scaling is applied the scale factor is used, for asymmetric scaling the average of the Width and Height factors is applied to all line widths.

Two check boxes are provided to independently include or exclude normal Text and / or Annotation Text with a scaling. The upper check box and popup menu control the behavior of Text scaling, the lower pair control Annotation Text scaling. The adjacent popup menus define how the scaling is applied to the text characters and the enclosing bounds of the text. The menu selections are self explanatory.

Text is scaled by Stretching or changing Font Point Size . Both methods are available for normal text but Annotation may only be scaled by a change of font point size.

Scalings are normally applied by holding the geometric center of each graphic constant. For text other reference points may be selected using the submenu found at the bottom of the Text scaling popup menu. Use this menu to change the normal reference point. This selection only applies to the scaling of text, any rotation is applied - before the scaling - relative to the geometric center of the text area.

If a particular transform does not apply to any one selected graphics, that selection will be disabled. For example you can not rotate a rectangle, and a square (or any Equilateral Polygon) will only accept a uniform scaling.

All three transforms may be performed together. There is little confusion as to order of operations since rotation is performed about the graphic's geometric center.

A Bezier Curve or path will accept any transform or combination of transforms. Therefore any graphic may be transformed by first Converting to a Bezier Curve.