5.2.1 An overview of the view manipulation tools

The camera position, orientation, and zoom factor combine to define the view of an object in the viewport. Your view of the assembly, as well as each of your parts, is positioned relative to a default Cartesian coordinate system, and the orientation of this default coordinate system within a viewport is indicated by the view triad. By default, an isometric view is used when a module first displays a three-dimensional part or assembly.

You can manipulate the view using the pan, rotate, magnify, box zoom, and auto-fit tools on the toolbar to control the relative positions of the camera, the camera target, and the model or results that you are viewing. For example, you might want to pan and zoom a contour plot to view an area of stress concentration. The view manipulation tools allow you to perform the following operations:

Clicking a view manipulation tool puts you into the corresponding view manipulation mode. You then manipulate the view in a particular viewport by moving the cursor to that viewport and dragging or clicking as necessary. In addition, the pan, rotate, and magnify tools have alternate modes that you can access by holding the [Shift] key in conjunction with the normal use of these tools. The alternate modes of these tools are intended for use in the movie camera mode, but they can also be used in the default mode. For more information about camera terminology and the view modes, see Understanding camera modes and view options, Section 5.1. To exit a view manipulation mode, do one of the following:

You can use the view manipulation tools as many times as necessary to reach the desired view, and you can perform the view manipulation in any viewport, regardless of what is being displayed. ABAQUS/CAE stores the eight most recent views from each viewport, and you can use the cycle view manipulation tool to cycle backward and forward through these views.

When you use the move, rotate, magnify, zoom, or rescale tools in a viewport that is linked to other viewports, ABAQUS/CAE manipulates the view of objects in the linked viewports as well. For more information, see Linking viewports for view manipulation, Section 4.5.

By default, ABAQUS/CAE displays the image using the current render style (wireframe, filled, hidden line, or shaded) while you manipulate the view of an object. Alternatively, you can change the Drag mode in the Graphics Options dialog box to display the image as a simple wireframe while you manipulate the view; this mode allows faster manipulation of very large models in the shaded render style. The view reverts to the original render style when you complete a manipulation.

If you prefer to use menus rather than the tools on the toolbar, you can access all of the view manipulation tools through the View menu on the main menu bar. In addition, you can apply predefined and user-defined views using the Views toolbox, and you can numerically specify a precise view using the dialog box that appears when you select ViewSpecify from the main menu bar. For more information on custom and numerically specified views, see Custom views, Section 5.2.8, and Numerically specifying a view, Section 5.2.9, respectively.

Alternatively, you can enter three of the view manipulation modes by using a combination of keyboard and mouse actions.

Add [Shift] to any of these combinations to access the alternate modes of these tools. For example, press [Shift]+[Ctrl]+[Alt] and hold mouse button 3 to access the alternate mode of the magnify tool and move the camera closer to or farther from the objects in the view. The [Shift] key has no effect on the view manipulation tools when you are not using alternate modes. To exit a view manipulation mode after using one of the preceding actions, simply release the mouse button.


For information on related topics, click any of the following items: