Photon Engineering FRED, Coordinate Systems

Coordinate Systems
FRED does not limit the user to only local and global coordinate systems! FRED can position any assembly, subassembly, element, surface, curve or source in the coordinate system of any other assembly, subassembly, element, surface, curve or source; any entity added to the model becomes a potential reference for positioning any other entity. Furthermore FRED can transform any entity’s coordinate system into any other entity’s coordinate system at any time.

The advantages of this functionality are numerous:

•	Logical and/or hierarchical relationships can be created and maintained
•	Complex coordinate transformations may be reduced to a simpler representation by choosing a different reference
•	Groupings of entities can be moved together
•	Immediate coordinate transformations simplify model verification
•	The user creating the FRED model can reference the location of an entity to whatever coordinate system is convenient and then transform to another coordinate system as needed

Ebert Spectrometer w/drawn coordinate systems

FRED also has tools for re-establishing coordinate systems when entities are copied from another FRED document and for re-parenting entities within an assembly, subassembly, or custom element. FRED can also display the local coordinate axis for any entity.