navigating the view

Sfere2 provides three basic commands for changing the perspective of the view.

These commands can be actived from the pulldown menu, the view-toolbar and using accellerators.

view navigation options in the menu

the view toolbar


All navigating commands act relative to the point where the mousebutton is pressed down.

  Pan     View > Pan  
Move the view perpendicular to the viewing-axis.
[default accelerator: Drag middle mousebutton]

  Rotate (a.k.a. Orbit)     View > Rotate  
The rotate view around the indicated point.
[default accelerator: Drag right mousebutton]

  Zoom     View > Zoom  
Zoom in or out on the indicated point.
[default accelerator: Drag right mousebutton + Shift pressed]

Using the accelerators is especially recommended for view navigation. By fully activating a navigation command, the previously active command will be deactivated. This can slow down the process of creating a structure. Using accelerators the active command stays active, allowing the user to continue whatever he/she was doing.



There are two special zoom commands: Zoom All and Zoom Selected.

These commands will change the viewpoint so that either all the objects or all selected objects will be framed within the view. (Selecting objects will be addressed later in this introduction.)

  Zoom All     View > Zoom All  
Frame all visible objects.
[default accelerator: keyboard "A"]

  Zoom Selected     View > Zoom Selected  
Frame all visible selected objects.
[default accelerator: keyboard "S"]

These commands will also automatically set the clipping planes.