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Move, scale and rotate the points a construction rests on, and everything built from them follows.
Locus does not transform objects. It transforms points.
A circle is not a thing you can grab and resize: it is a center and a point on its edge, and it is exactly as big as those two points say it is. The same holds for every constructed object on the canvas. So the transform commands take the free points in your selection and move, resize or turn those. Everything built on top re-solves and follows.
This is why the first step is almost always Select Roots. It walks a construction back to the foundational points it rests on and selects those, so the whole thing travels together instead of tearing apart. See Selecting objects.
Points that are not free are left alone. A midpoint, an intersection, a point riding a curve: each is worked out from something else, so there is nothing in it to move.
Important
Sharing a point? Detach first. Root points are often shared. Two objects built on the same free point both move when it moves, and no transform can take one without the other. When that is not what you want, select the object you want to free and run Edit > Detach before transforming. It copies the defining points to new free points of its own, so the object keeps its exact shape but stops depending on the points it was sharing. See Duplicate, detach & ownership.
Four commands, all with the same shape: Move, Scale, Rotate, and Scale & Rotate. Each asks for a center to work around, then a reference point, then a handle you drag:
- Move: shift the selected points by the amount you drag. Nothing resizes, nothing turns.
- Scale: resize around the center. How far the handle sits from the center, against the reference, sets the factor.
- Rotate: turn around the center, by the angle from the reference to the handle.
- Scale & Rotate: both at once, sized and turned so the reference lands exactly on the handle.
You can type exact values instead of dragging. Press a number key during the flow to open a value box: dx and dy for Move, a factor for Scale, degrees for Rotate, or a factor and an angle for Scale & Rotate.
Note
Rotation counts positive degrees as clockwise on screen.
While you drag, Locus draws the operation: a vector for Move, a circle and line for Scale, spokes and an arc for Rotate. Reference and handle clicks snap in all the same ways a point does. See Snapping while you draw.
Moving a root point is not an edit to the objects standing on it. Those objects never stored a position of their own: each one remembers how it was defined, so when the points underneath move, it works itself out again and lands where it belongs.
That is what keeps a whole motif intact while you drag a single point, and why transforming a point something else depends on never breaks the dependency.
Tip
Rough a motif in, then keep refining it by dragging its root points. Everything built on them follows along, however deep the construction goes.
Mirror lives in the Construct menu, not here, and it is the one command in this family that really does act on an object rather than on points. Select the objects to reflect plus a line, segment or ray to use as the axis, then run Mirror. If a single infinite line is selected that is the axis; otherwise the last line you selected is used.
It builds a live mirror image of the same kind: segments stay segments, arcs stay arcs, circles keep their radius, groups reflect their members. Edit the original and the reflection follows. Delete the original, or the axis, and the reflection goes with it.
Don't confuse these with the array nodes in the node graph, which stamp out many copies on a grid:
- Array: a plain orthogonal grid: a count and spacing in X and Y.
- Array: Directed: tiles along two arbitrary directions instead of straight rows and columns, for sheared, oblique, hexagonal, or centered lattices. It also offers a Deskew option to keep a slanted lattice from leaning, so the overall block trends rectangular while every cell still lands exactly on the lattice.
Reach for the Transform menu when you want to shift the points a drawing rests on and have everything follow; reach for the array nodes when you want a field of repeats. See the node graph for arrays.
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