Users of AutoCAD and other CAD systems will be familiar with the User Coordinate System (UCS) concept. This allows you to define a local coordinate system on each plate which is then used for displaying views of that plate.
To set the UCS of a plate –
Ř Turn on display of Plate meshes (Display | Structure…)
Ř Select 2 points on the plate mesh (shift or Ctrl click to select the 2nd point)
The first point selected will be the origin of your UCS. The second point selected determines the direction of the Longitudinal (x) axis of the UCS. The surface normal of the plate will automatically be used for the Vertical (z) axis of the plate and the Transverse (y) axis will be set to the perpendicular of the other two axes.
Ř Next, choose Plate UCS from the Plate menu
This will display a dialog with the location and rotations of this UCS relative to the global coordinate system.
You can modify these settings if you wish before clicking OK. This makes it easy for you to set the orientation of the UCS to lie in a vertical or horizontal plane for example. The positions and rotations shown in the UCS dialog show transformations required to go from the global to the local coordinate system. You can display the plate UCS by switching on the Plate Axes in the Display | Structure dialog.
All of the plate displays described below use the UCS to display the plate.