Straus7 Interface: Dynamic View Manipulation

Description

The view can be manipulated dynamically in real time by using the mouse to rotate, zoom and pan the model, or to change the displacement scale when results are open.

There are three ways to visualise the model during dynamic view manipulation:

Wireframe - an outline representing the model is displayed. Features of the model are captured based on the Min facet angle setting.
Box - the bounding box of the model is displayed with one or more boxes, depending on the Number of boxes setting.
Solid - the fully rendered model is displayed.

These options can be set on the Rotation tab of the View Options dialog:

Accessing the Dynamic View

When there are no dialogs open, and you are not in the middle of executing some function or tool (e.g., selecting), you can use the mouse immediately as outlined in the following section to dynamically change the model view.
When you are part way through some function (this is always obvious in Straus7 because the mouse cursor changes from the standard Windows mouse pointer to some other symbol, see Straus7 Interface: Context Specific Mouse Cursor) you can hold down the Ctrl key to temporarily pause the current function; this allows you to use the mouse as outlined in the following section to dynamically change the model view.

View Manipulation with the Mouse

The following mouse actions are used to rotate, zoom and pan the model, and to change the displacement scale when results are open.

Rotate

Hold down the left mouse button and drag the mouse (left-right or up-down). As this function is very intuitive, the best way to get a feel for it is to practice. Where you click on the screen, and the drag direction, will affect the axes about which rotation is performed.

Drag vertically near the centre of the model window to rotate about the horizontal axis of the screen.

Drag horizontally near the centre of the model window to rotate about the vertical axis of the screen.

Drag near the edges of the model window to roll the model about an axis out of the screen.

When the mouse is located between the centre and the edges of the model window, the rotation will include components from all of the above actions, depending on how the mouse is moved.

Rotation Origin

The default location of the rotation origin is the centre of the model’s bounding box. To set the rotation origin in the model view to an arbitrary location on the model, double left-click at the desired location. To reset the rotation origin, either click Reorigin in View: View Manipulation or press F5 on the keyboard.
Zoom

Hold down the right mouse button and drag the mouse up to zoom in, or down to zoom out. Alternatively, the scroll wheel on the mouse can be used for zooming. Note that if the option Right-click in model window shows popup menu has been set in Preferences: 2D Mouse in VISUAL Tab, the right-click by itself cannot be used for zooming. In that case, the Ctrl key can be used to enable right-click zooming.
Pan

Hold down both the left and right mouse buttons, and drag the mouse (left-right, up-down) to pan.
Scale

With the Results open, hold down the middle mouse button. Drag the mouse up to increase the displacement scale, or down to decrease the displacement scale.

Additional Functions

The scroll wheel on the mouse can be used to zoom in and out. Hold down the Ctrl key while rotating the scroll wheel to zoom more quickly. Hold down the Alt key while rotating the scroll wheel to zoom more slowly.
To rotate the model about the global X, Y or Z axes shown in the display, instead of the screen axes, hold down the 1, 2 or 3 keys on the keyboard while performing a left-click drag action.
To rotate the model about the screen's axes, hold down the 4, 5 or 6 keys on the keyboard while performing a left-click drag action.

View Manipulation with the Keyboard

Reframe Current View	F3
Reframe All Views	F4	In Multiview mode
Reset Rotation Origin	F5
Zoom In Window	F6
Zoom Out Window	F7
Last View	F8
Pan	F10
Zoom Plus	+
Zoom Minus	-
Rotate About Screen +x	Down Arrow	Hold Alt for fine adjustment
Rotate About Screen -x	Up Arrow	Hold Alt for fine adjustment
Rotate About Screen +y	Right Arrow	Hold Alt for fine adjustment
Rotate About Screen -y	Left Arrow	Hold Alt for fine adjustment
Rotate About Screen +z	Page Down	Hold Alt for fine adjustment
Rotate About Screen -z	Page Up	Hold Alt for fine adjustment
Rotate About Model +X	Down Arrow or Right Arrow or Page Down	Hold 1 key
Rotate About Model +Y	Down Arrow or Right Arrow or Page Down	Hold 2 key
Rotate About Model +Z	Down Arrow or Right Arrow or Page Down	Hold 3 key
Rotate About Model -X	Up Arrow or Left Arrow or Page Up	Hold 1 key
Rotate About Model -Y	Up Arrow or Left Arrow or Page Up	Hold 2 key
Rotate About Model -Z	Up Arrow or Left Arrow or Page Up	Hold 3 key
Pan Up	Ctrl+Up Arrow
Pan Down	Ctrl+Down Arrow
Pan Left	Ctrl+Left Arrow
Pan Right	Ctrl+Right Arrow
Zoom Out	Home	Hold Alt for Fine Adjustment
Zoom In	End	Hold Alt for Fine Adjustment

Touchscreen

The 2D mouse functionality can be duplicated on a touchscreen such that virtually all of the view manipulation actions can be performed by touch. The complete set of gestures supported is tabulated below.

Gesture		Results
One-finger drag		Rotates the model as with the left mouse button.
Two-finger drag		Pans the model horizontally and vertically as with the left+right mouse buttons.
Two-finger rotate		Rotates the model about the axis out of the screen by relative rotation of fingers.
Two-finger pinch		Zooms the model in and out as with the right mouse button.
One-finger long tap		Tap-and-hold for one second before releasing to open right-click popup menus.
Two-finger tap		Shows the Entity Inspector; equivalent to Shift+Hover mouse.
Press and tap		Tap-and-hold one finger while tapping another finger to retrieve attribute values from the entity at the held-down finger; equivalent to Shift+Ctrl+Click.

3D Mouse

3D mice such as SpaceMouse are directly supported by Straus7. These devices can provide an intuitive way of interacting with Straus7 models.

Options for these devices, including the option to manipulate a single axis at the time, can be set under Preferences: 3D Mouse in VISUAL Tab. Single axis mode may be easier for first time 3D mouse users.