AccuDraw's drawing plane is central to its operation. As you work, AccuDraw orients this drawing plane based on a number of factors including cues from the active tool, the last placed coordinate, and key AccuDraw settings. This is known as context sensitive operation.

For instance, when you use the Place SmartLine tool, the orientation of the AccuDraw compass changes as you enter data points. Because Place SmartLine was designed to take advantage of the context-sensitive nature of AccuDraw, the tool cues AccuDraw to rotate the axis of the plane to the angle between the last two data points.

You can override this feature via the AccuDraw Settings dialog (Operation tab section: Context Sensitivity check box off) in which case, the compass maintains the traditional view axes orientation (+X to the right, +Y straight up).