Editing in 3D
That Third Dimension Really Helps
Nothing quite helps you visualize your design like an accurate 3D rendering. That's why 3D is built into Design Intuition -- all of the features that work in 2D, also work in 3D.
Okay. How does it work?
Click on the 3D tab at the top of the design window. Your drawing will now render in 3D. Selecting objects and dimensions works just as in 2D, as well as double-clicking on an object or dimension to edit it directly in the drawing.
Gimbal
You can wobble the view (we call it gimballing) by holding down the control key while click-dragging in the 3D view. If your mouse has two buttons, you can do this same thing by click-dragging with the right mouse button.
Gimbal-snap
Notice while gimballing, that when your view gets close to "flat," it snaps all the way flat. By "flat," we mean that two axes are flat with respect to the viewing window. Also, see Ortho mode, below.
"Best Face"
When you click on an object, you'll notice that the resize knobs are drawn on one face only. This face is what we've affectionately been calling "the best face." It is the one which is closest in its orientation to facing you. Movement of any of the knobs is restricted to the plane of the best face. This makes working in 3D a lot like working in 2D, and is hopefully intuitive and familiar. We could have introduced a bunch of new tools for working in 3D, but this seemed to make the most sense.
Perspective slider
In the View controls, you'll notice a new slider, at the far right (see illustration at left). This slider controls the amount of perspective, all the way from none (called ortho, for orthographic, or 2D), on the left, to fisheye, on the right.
Ortho mode
The ortho end of the perspective range is special. Special enough to call it a mode. What's so special? In ortho "mode," the size of an object near the camera eye is drawn the same size as when it is far away. Thus, it makes sense to display the scaling slider's value and enable the exact checkbox. We also show the grid if you (a) press one of the View buttons -- Top, Front, etc -- or (b) gimbal-snap the view into one of these orientations.
Funny visual artifacts
If you turn X-Ray vision on, to any degree, you may notice rendering artifacts, in which some objects sometimes incorrectly "show through" others. This is due to a known characteristic of OpenGL that we plan to correct in a future release.
