Viewport navigation
Every model opens framed in view. The camera orbits a target point, and all navigation is relative to that point.
Mouse and trackpad
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Drag with the left button | Orbit |
| ⌥ and drag with the left button | Pan |
| Drag with the right button, or a two-finger click-drag on a trackpad | Pan |
| Scroll, or a mouse wheel | Zoom |
| Pinch on a trackpad | Zoom |
| Double-click a surface | Select the node that draws it |
| Single-click empty space | Clear the selection |
Keyboard
| Key | Result |
|---|---|
| ← and →, held | Orbit continuously while held |
| Return | Return the camera to the framing the model opened with |
| Esc | Clear the selection |
The grid and navigation cube
Two aids can be drawn around the model, both controlled from Settings ▸ Viewport ▸ Grid:
- Show Grid draws a ground grid, with Fine, Medium, or Coarse spacing, a colour of your choosing, and optional Axis Lines through the origin. It is on by default.
- Axis Indicator draws a small navigation cube in a fixed corner of the viewport. It shows which way the model is facing, and clicking one of its faces moves the camera to that orthogonal view: Front, Back, Left, Right, Top, or Bottom.
Both are drawn while the sidebar is in Hierarchy or Layers mode, and not in Models mode.
Orbit style
Two orbit styles are available in Settings ▸ Viewport ▸ Navigation:
- Turntable stops vertical rotation just short of straight up and straight down, which keeps the horizon level and means the model never rolls. This is the default.
- Trackball removes that stop. Dragging past straight up continues over the top and turns the model over, which suits examining a part from an arbitrary angle.
Speed, inversion, and limits
Settings ▸ Viewport carries the orbit and zoom speed, scroll inversion, the closest and furthest zoom distances, and the distance a model opens at. Those distances are in normalized scene units.
Projection
The projection a model opens with is set in Settings ▸ Viewport ▸ Camera, offering Perspective, with a field of view between 20° and 90°, and Orthographic.
The inspector's Render ▸ Camera section overrides the projection for the model currently on screen, with its own field of view slider covering 10° to 150° or an orthographic size slider. Default follows the setting.
Background
The viewport background follows the application's appearance by default, so it is light in Light mode and dark in Dark mode. Turning Viewport Background Follows Appearance off in Settings ▸ General ▸ Appearance enables a fixed Background Color instead. The Render tab sets a background colour for the current session; see Lighting and display.