To revolve the view around a center of interest

Revolves the camera about the center of interest in the perspective view. Azimuth refers to a horizontal angle from a reference point, while elevation refers to a vertical angle. The reference point for this tool is the current aim of the camera.

1. Place the cursor in the perspective window and click a mouse button to make the window active.
2. In the Tool Palette, select Azimuth/elevation from the View > Local move camera cascading menu or click its icon.

   As the cursor moves, the view rotates about the center of interest (initially the origin).

Use the mouse

• To rotate horizontally, click and drag the .
• To rotate vertically, click and drag the .
• To rotate the view both horizontally and vertically, click and drag the .

Release the mouse button when the desired angle is reached.

The view rotates about the center of interest, which is the viewpoint of the perspective camera. To set the camera’s viewpoint select WindowDisplay > Toggles > Cameras to display the perspective window camera. When you can see the camera, the viewpoint can be picked using Pick > Component, and then positioned by selecting Transform > Move.

To identify a particular point as the center of interest, move the camera’s view icon so that the target end is at that point of interest. Subsequent manipulation of the camera with Azimuth/elevation now keeps that point in the center of the view.

NoteWith a large model, screen updates caused by moving the camera are faster if you decrease Motion Precision in the Preferences > Performance options window.

Use cursor keys

You can use the four cursor keys (arrows pointing up, down, left, and right on the keyboard) to rotate incrementally. The amount moved depends on the Arrow key step size set in the Input section of the General Preferences option box (Preferences > General Preferences r).

Pressing an arrow key once moves the cursor one pixel in the corresponding direction, by default.

• To rotate the view horizontally about the up point of the camera (azimuth), press either the left or right arrows.
• To rotate the view vertically (elevation), press either the up or down arrow.

Use the keyboard

You can type the azimuth and elevation angles from the keyboard when the system prompts:

Enter azimuth and elevation angles (REL):

Type the angle and press Enter.

• A positive azimuth moves the camera around to the left.
• A positive elevation moves the camera up under the scene.

Options

Eye/View/Up

These sliders let you define a view by moving the camera.

The view is determined by the Eye position, View point position and Up vector end point. The nine fields that define these positions contain decimal numbers. They represent, from left to right, the X, Y, and Z coordinates for each of the three camera parameters.

To see the camera as you modify it, use WindowDisplay > Toggles > Cameras.

NoteFor orthographic windows, two of the three Eye and View values must be the same, and two of the three Eye and Up values must be the same. If they are all different or all the same, the results are unpredictable. This is because viewing in orthographic windows is done on the window rather than on a camera.

Zoom

The Zoom slider takes a decimal number that defines the extent of the camera's field of view. Values must be positive in the range of 0.2 to 179 degrees.