QUESTION:

I've never been able to rotate a whole model -- despite trying, and being able to rotate most of it -- some nodes seem to get left behind leading to weird non-planar shapes. Is there something simple to do to start with ?

I just want to be able to set a building up on it's grid and then adjust for the sun position to look at shading etc.

ANSWER:

Mmmm, some transformations including rotating can be an issue in ECOTECT, and we continue to try to resolve this with each new release.

Basically, the reason for this is object links and relationships. ECOTECT gets confused when a parent object is rotated but perhaps not its child, or visa versa, or even both at once...

There is one heavy handed method that you can try which should ensure that almost any geometry is correctly rotated.

...and this is, select the objects for rotation (in this case an entire model), then unlink them (Edit Menu » Unlink Objects or Ctrl+U). Once this is done the rotate should be okay.

The only problem with this, is sometimes when trying to re-link objects once the rotate is done ECOTECT may again get confused and not re-link everything as was originally.

So instead there is a much easy alternative for this particular goal...

...and that is, to instead change the orientation of your model, that is to adjust the North Point.

Go to the Model Menu » Date/Time/Location, and in the dialog box there is a setting for North Offset. If you change this value it will be, in effect, the same as rotating your entire ECOTECT model, but without the hassle of actually adjusting the model geometry.