This is a mechanical figure with no bending.  The question is simple.  When imported into Poser some of the figure parts are rotated from the standard axes (X,Y,Z).  In the joint editor I can manipulate the origin and local angles so that the part rotates about the local axis as I want it to.  So rotating the parts is not a problem.

However, this doesn’t work for translation.  For example, if I adjust the object so that its local X-axis is rotated 45 degrees around Y, when I attempt to translate it in X it moves in the world frame, not the local frame, that is, along the world X axis.  I need to translate simultaneously along both the X and Z axes to move along the local X.

Is there a way to adjust the local axes, so that translation is along the local axis, similarly to the way rotation works?  I am doing this in Poser 7 to maintain compatibility with older Poser versions.

Thanks for any insights.

I'm not sure if it'll help but this gent's blog deals with rigging mechanical figures.  

http://brian-the-techie.blogspot.ca/2013/03/how-to-rig-poser-prop.html

I'm presently struggling with this sort of thing and some of his information has been invaluable despite his sadistical love of editing text files by hand.

Here is one solution, it may not be the only or best solution but it is quick and it works.

Select the body part.
Open the joint editor.
Select the center from the top drop down list.
Make a note of the orientation angles.

With the body part still selected go to the Poser menu Object > Create Magnet
Select the new magnet base and rotate to match the body part orientation.
Select the magnet zone and scale it up really big. It is possible to edit the fall off zone to achieve a true constant but scaling is almost as good and quicker.

Now translating the magnet will translate the body part along its axis.

You can tidy it up by adding ERC dials in the forearm to move the magnet.

All of the above could be scripted.

Plan B would be to "do the maths" and add ERC dials and controls accordingly.

An improvement:

You could use the magnet to create TRANSX, TRANSY and TRANSZ morphs in the body part then delete the magnet. No ERC code required.

Again that can all be scripted. Run the script to create and set up the morphs then save the figure. You will not need to run the script again.

but:

If you have bending turned off then the morphs will not work ... boo :(

But if you rig the figure with dummy parts between regular parts and keep bending turned on then it works ... yeah :)

Thanks Bob for the link.  Looks like some interesting stuff there, but I didn’t want to wade through it just yet.  I typically use four programs for editing CR2 and other Poser files.  First Poser 7 to create and do general manipulation  (Poser 7 to maintain back-compatibility), Dimension3D’s Poser File Editor 3 for cleanup and other tasks, sometimes Phil_C’s CR2 editor for tasks I find easier to do there than in PFE 3, and for text editing NotePad++ with my own custom language add-ons for Poser files (the add-ons allow block collasping and expansion and paranthesis nesting is checked automatically).

Phil, thanks for the tips.  In those places where I can’t easily do the following, I’ll try them.

What I ended up doing is a solution I’ve used before although in this case I needed to edit the mesh and change the hierarchy.  There are a slew of mechanical parts that operate together but, because of the way the mesh is set up are rotated 5.625 degrees from a cardinal axis.  I added a dummy parent and changed the mesh so the whole slew are now aligned on a cardinal axis.  All the child axes are now nicely orthogonal and rotating the parent to the 5.625-degree alignment puts everything in the correct position.  This is sort of a simpler take on Phil’s last note.

This is only needed for translation; rotation works fine after the origin axes are adjusted to match the part.

I would have to check but cant you align the axis to the body part whn you edit the joint ??   

Quote - I would have to check but cant you align the axis to the body part whn you edit the joint ??   

Yep, and the part rotates around that new axis.  The problem is that it ignores the aligned axis for translations, at least in Poser 7.  I haven't checked later Poser versions, but as I said, I need to maintain compatability with the older versions.