Independent manipulation of multiple 3D graphics in Mathematica

Hi all,

This is my first time posting to the help forum. This community has been so helpful for me in the past! However, I didn't see a solution that solved my problem already posted here. I apologize if this is a double-post.

My question involves the manipulation of multiple 3D graphics objects independently in Mathematica. In Mathematica, you can take a 3D graphics object and manipulate it with the mouse--spinning it to view it from different perspectives, using Shift+Mouse to translate it about. I hoping somebody has developed a method to take this one step further: I would like the ability to define clusters of 3D objects into distinct entities, and manipulate them in a similar fashion independently.

I am seeking some method allowing me to takes these entities, and select one as being "active", and then manipulate it--rotate and translate--while leaving the other unchanged. Essentially, I would like to generate, within one 3D graphics window, two or more entities that can be positioned relative to each other in different ways freely using the keyboard and mouse.

I have investigated accomplishing this task by use of the Manipulate function--defining different axes for rotation and translation for each entity and allowing one to move the entities about changing these values on sliders--however, this method is slow and unintuitive. Does anybody know of a way to manipulate objects independently using the mouse as I have described?

Thanks!!

Hello Gary,

I don't think the current version of Mathematica would allow that. But you can ask the experts at:

Math Forum Discussions - comp.soft-sys.math.mathematica

Just drop them an e-mail and see what happens.