Improve 3D navigation

I like that one too, nice and simple but has all you need.

Along the same thought…
In every CAD package I have used, left click is reserved for operations (usually selecting). Designating the left click to rotate the part feels very odd. I keep trying to window - select objects, and keep rotating the view. In OnShape (and some other CAD programs), if you Window - Select from the top left corner, you only select objects that are completely contained in the window. If you Window - Select from the bottom right corner, anything that crosses or is contained within the window is selected.
Holding down the middle mouse button will rotate the model. A Shift - Middle Mouse Button Pans the view (some CAD programs use CTRL + MMB). And Right clicking shows a menu of common commands (SimScale provides selection commands).
I’m just suggesting that if you clean up the interface with a view cube, you should also be consistent with mouse operations.

I also agree that all viewing tools should be consistent throughout all interfaces. Right now, even the icons are different.

Well designed software allows the users to focus on the task, and not be distracted by the interface.

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Hi @JKuyper,

nice and detailed feedback! The easiest way in my opinion would be to do it like ABAQUS. Let the user decide if he/she wants the same settings as in Pro/E, Catia etc. That approach guarentees that almost every user can personalize his/her navigation style. What do you think about that?

Best,

Jousef

Not a bad idea. Onshape has a similar setting. It only effects the rotate / pan / zoom view. I would keep the view cube consistent, regardless of the CAD package chosen.

Another thought:
Please include other view related operations: View Mode (Shaded, Shaded with visible lines, Shaded with hidden lines, Hidden Lines Removed, translucent / transparent, & Wireframe), Section Views, and Isometric Views. These should be consistent throughout all interfaces as well.

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Compatibility with a 3D mouse would be a nice feature too but I am sure that is way more complex. :frowning:

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+1 on the 3D mouse, I was contemplating getting one to use in OnShape but then I thought I spend 90% of the time in SimScale it wasn’t worth the cost.

@oscarcorripio, @1318980 - not too complex but it hasn’t made it to the top priority yet. The feature request is over here: Support for 3D Mice as input device Give it your votes. That helps to understand demand for certain features.

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+1

By the way when you turn on the Bounding box preview and you rotate it then the corners seem to be cut. I hope it is clear what I mean. So that is also something that could be fixed although it is not prio 1.

Best regards,
János

@jhorv_th - the clipping issue your describing is filed as a bug (rather than an improvement) and a fix is underway! But the improvements are also in progress! Keep up the voting!

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First improvements suggested in this Thread are shipped: Box selection (see Details here: Platform Update 06/2017). More are in Development.

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More 3D navigation improvements (not all yet) have been released in another update: Platform Update 08/2017

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I have been using the new update a lot today, I am very pleased. That said I can’t quite get the ease of use I want and ill explain why.

As you might know, my main CAD application is OnShape and I am quite used to creating my geometry in the vertical z orientation:

However, ​in SimScale the orientation changes to vertical y orientation:

And if I try and change to the correct orientation I am stuck between two angles of rotation:

It would be handy if I could right click the orientation box and select default vertical direction? or maybe there is a cleverer solution?

Many thanks,
Darren

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Hi Darren,

good point!
I can imagine an additional geometry operation besides scaling and surface splitting to align the model in the direction of your preferences.

What about that? :slight_smile:

Best,
Jani

Yes, actually that seems like it could work well. I think when you Import into OnShape there is a tick box to orientate the ‘y’ vertically. This would make it super easy, however maybe restrict the use case?

Cheers,
Darren

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z is up in my world too!

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I love how this cube has been implemented, and if only I could just right click on the face name to change the name to how I think of the geometries orientation. My airplane points in the -x direction so Right needs to become Rear etc… :slight_smile:

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Interesting to see how the view navigation has already evolved. I’m very comfortable in Onshape and Inventor (like the member above who first suggested this) and slowly getting the hang of SolidWorks.

A suggestion that I would like to add is that the zoom level of the view is not easy to control. Lag while zooming with click-drag is a small issue, but an ability to save the view at a particular zoom/crop would make it much easier to navigate back to the same place when I come back later.

I am also having difficulty dealing with the switch from isometric projection in Meshing to Perspective projection in Post-Processing. Can you explain why you do that? It almost seems to be the opposite to what one would want, since post-processing frequently uses cross-sections - to which perspective is irrelevant.

The perspective view in Post also causes streamlines to appear outside the medium, which is confusing to the user. It takes some time to figure out that the streamlines are still projected in perspective, and the streamlines above and below the slice plane are being shown wherever the depth parallax puts them. It becomes a mess if the 3D model has much depth out of the plane of the slice being viewed.

Is it possible to provide a button to change between Perspective/Isometric projection?

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AFAIK, Simscale miss a Y-Up transformation, which is necessary when importing models.
Would be nice to have a toggle button to switch back and forth from Z-Up and Y-Up

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Thanks a lot for your feedback @aborges!

Will forward your suggestion to our engineers :slight_smile: If you have more feedback or feature ideas that you would like to see on our platform make sure to post them in the “Vote For Features” section - we are always open for feedback and constantly improve our platform so do not be reluctant.

Best,

Jousef