> Hi Mike,
>
> you can control the rotation placement with the location key and the
> value middle for location seems to be what you want but the the result
> looks to me weird or broken and tried to fix this with the new value
> center, you can see the results in small example below.

I really appreciate the response, but I'm afraid I don't understand how it addresses my question.  I'm not having trouble with the rotation pivot point (i.e., placement), but instead the order in which rotation and scaling are applied to a figure.  I am wanting to rotate a figure within a defined bounding box.  Mojca was kind enough to point out the following technique.

\scale[width=5in, height=2in]{\rotate[rotation=90]{\externalfigure[yourfig]}}

It creates a bounding box 5 inches wide and 2 inches tall, rotates the figure 90 degrees and scales the image to fit in the 5x2" bounding box.  This approach meets my needs except that the scaling is applied non-isomorphically if both dimensions are specified for the bounding box.  I'm now trying to figure out how to optionally scale the image to fit the bounding box while keeping the same aspect ratio.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
Mike