Change the viewpoint of the camera

Changes the viewpoint of the camera (i.e. what the camera is looking at) in a perspective view. To yaw is to rotate horizontally, that is to the left or right. To pitch is to rotate vertically, that is to plunge or rise.

1. Place the cursor in the perspective window and click a mouse button to make the window active.
2. In the Tool Palette, select Yaw/pitch from the View > Local move camera cascading menu or click its icon.
3. Click the and drag. As the cursor is moved, the camera’s view changes, that is the view and up points change, while the eyepoint remains fixed.

Use the mouse

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 arrow cursor keys (arrows pointing up, down, left, and right on the keyboard) to rotate the viewpoint incrementally. The amount moved depends on the Arrow key step size set in the Input section of Preferences > General Preferences q. The default is one pixel.

• To rotate the viewpoint left or right (yaw), press the left or right arrow key.
• To rotate the view and up points (pitch), press the up or down arrow key.

Be careful to keep the cursor in the window when using the cursor keys.

Use the keyboard

You can type the yaw and pitch angles from the keyboard when the system prompts:

Enter yaw and pitch angles (REL):

Type the angles separated by a space or comma, and press Enter.

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 also takes a decimal number which defines the extent of the camera’s field of view. Values must be positive in the range of 0.2 to 179 degrees.