Here there are a few ideas and suggestions regarding navigation operations.


DYNAMIC ROTATE VIEW

Most 3D apps seem to use one of two dynamic Rotate View styles: one in which orientation depends not just on the click-dragging gesture but on the start position of the cursor in the window when doing so, it behaving as if one was turning a virtual trackball (I believe that was CU's paradigm); and the other just takes the click-dragging into account, disregarding start position data (or acting as if the center of this virtual trackball was always coincident with the starting position of the click-dragging gesture). ViaCad and Modo seem to use the first style, EIModeler and some others do the second one.

I find ViaCad and Modo's are a bit more unforgiving: if one doesn't start click-dragging from near the exact center of the object one intends to orbit, a simple horizontal movement to try produce an Y-axis rotation movement always has rather too much X and Z-axis "spillover". I usually have to compensate by doing two or more small rotation adjustments to get the view I wanted.

I wonder if it would be possible to implement the second style of view rotation too and get some Preference setting to select between styles. If it is too deep a change for the app, could it be possible to add the possibility of constraining the rotation to the X, Y and Z axis by pressing the xyz (or other user-selected) keys?



DYNAMIC ROTATE AND ZOOM VIEW RATES

It would be nice to have a way of adjusting the mouse movement/rotate view angle and mouse wheeling/zoom rates in Preferences (a bit like First Person Shooter games do mouse sensitivity), as working with today's 24" and 30" monitors means having to do really long click-drags to navigate views.



INVERT MOUSEWHEEL ZOOM PREFERENCE SETTING

Just that :)



SHADED WITH DIMMED HIDDEN LINES DISPLAY MODE

It would be great to have a new display mode that combines the shaded view with the hidden lines as dimmed one, to have a sort of x-rays view that allows one to select lines (and faces, perhaps) hidden from view for the tools to act upon without having to resort to the ambiguity popup.

Actually, one sees there could be a main wireframe/shaded selectable view mode plus a secondary hidden lines one (fully visible, dimmed, hidden).

Thank you: I'll try that :)

>>SHADED WITH DIMMED HIDDEN LINES DISPLAY MODE

The Punch Home Design products have a feature called Clear View(TM). We are investigating integrating this technology into the CAD products. This would replace the slower ACIS based hidden line display modes with faster OpenGL display methods, plus a slider for transparency see through. (Internally some folks call this the x-ray mode) The demos I've seen of this technology are exciting.

Tim

Is this still on one of many burners you have lit or is this a no go at this time?

Jason