I recently upgraded from CS2 to CS6. CS2 troubled me in the area of not being able to get a shape that was originally 90 degrees to the X axis, back to that same position. Or similarly, even if an object was never 90 degrees to the X axis, there was no way to reliably force that condition. And there was no way to force an object to be perpendicular to any user selected line. The rotational information provided was only incremental, ie, it showed how many degrees you just rotated an object, but gives no clue as to how far off of absolute vertical a part is. My CAD software, (Design CAD and RHINO) allow this as basic functionality.
Before asking this, I did a search, and I found that John Stanowski asked this same question in April of 2008. Is it possible that his valid observation was acted upon, and that after these past 6 years, someone provided this logical update to CS6? IE: "Is there now a way in CS6 that I can force an object (or a reference line within an object) to be rotated to be perfectly perpendicular to a specified axis or line?"
I would think that the rotation window should call the presently defined angle information as "relative angle". And in addition to that information, the dialog box should allow the user to click on any segment within a shape, and then that segment's "absolute angle" would be displayed. This would be very easy to understand, and it would be easy to use. The rotation dialog box would allow me to enter in a "relative rotational angle" as is presently provided, or if I wanted, after clicking the side segment I choose to have used as the reference side, I could enter an "absolute angle" that the object would be rotated to, with the segment that I had selected, as being the reference.
Thank you, Chuck