Zooming in or out at 'Warp speed'
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Barry, is it possible that in models where this strange zoom behavior occurs that you've got some entities at a great distance from the origin? By "great" I mean a distance greater than the size of the main part of your model. What happens when you hit Zoom Extents? Does the camera zoom out making the thing you were looking at rather small?
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Good point. I've had stray edges, or even guide points (not necessarily visible due to Style settings) that caused weird things to happen.
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@dave r said:
Barry, is it possible that in models where this strange zoom behavior occurs that you've got some entities at a great distance from the origin? By "great" I mean a distance greater than the size of the main part of your model. What happens when you hit Zoom Extents? Does the camera zoom out making the thing you were looking at rather small?
Bingo! That is it.
In my example I did have entities scattered all over, (but they were hidden). I deleted them and zoom returned to normal. So the 'focus' of zoom is centered on geometry whether hidden or not. (Now that is almost a bug).
Strange that this seemed to be new behaviour. But I have several rushed projects on the go at the moment with lots of alternatives and alterations and my drawings are getting messy. In my haste I've been simply hiding things rather than organizing or deleting them.
Thanks both, for sticking with this,I get to give a message the green tick for the first time!
Cheers,
Baz -
Hi Barry,
I'm glad you got that sorted out. The zooming speed is sort of proportional with the distance between entities or how far apart they are spread out. If you are trying to zoom in on something in the distance that should really be there, you don't want to take a week to do it so zooming goes very rapidly.
There are other issues associated with having geometry located at long distances (remember, long distances are relative) from the axis and from other geometry. The dreaded, evil, clipping plane is one of those things. Having even a single tiny line segment left hanging out in space can cause these problems. It can also make Zoom Extents sort of uselss. Here's an example.
Here's a simple model. Everything would seem fine orbiting around and drawing and whatever.
Hit Zoom Extents and it looks like this. I inserted an arrow to show the model. It is still selected but if it weren't it would be very difficult to see. Many people would be convinced their model had been deleted because they don't see anything. There's actually a tiny line segment somewhere in the upper right corner of the drawing window but it isn't visible. I placed it there intentionally but you can see that an errant line or one left behind rather than cleaned up could cause some hair pulling.I was finally able to duplicate the zooming problem you were having too because of that short line.
Using Zoom Extents could be a tool to help you get your model cleaned up. If you keep your model close to the axes and you get something like my second image after a Zoom Extents operation, you know that you've got something hanging out there that probably shouldn't be there. Drag a selection box around the area you know the model shouldn't be in and hit Delete. Run Zoom Extents again. If it zooms in on your model, you've cleaned up the little bits. If it doesn't, you've still got stuff out there.
Sorry to get long winded but maybe there's something useful here.
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I never work in the perspective mode, I always use ISO/non perspective. I have the 'U' key set to switch perspective on/off (old 3DS shortcut).
To switch perspective on/off select Perspective from the Camera menu, it'll have a tick against it when its on.
You may have to zoom extents after you switch as you'll probably encounter the clipping plane issue common to most 3D software.It seems to me that in perspective the zoom in/out distance is a percentage of the distance between the eye and the pointer, in one of the images posted above there's a yellow box, with the pointer over the box the distance is, lets say 100mm and 1% is 1mm but with the pointer just to the left of the box (in free space) the distance is, lets say 1km and 1% of that is 1000mm. Very different results when zooming with the mouse wheel.
In the non perspective view the zoom distance is always the same irrespective of the eye/pointer positions.
I normally set up a scene called Working that has no shadows, non perspective view etc etc. so that I can quickly switch between my pretty views of the model and the mode in which I like to work.
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I need to revisit this topic because the warp speed issue is driving me nuts and seriously taking the fun out of modelling.
Taking into account all the excellent replies above, have a look at this simple model.
In standard ISO view zoom works as I have come to expect, but turn to the back of the cube and the zoom factor increases hugely.
Baz
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Normal behaviour with all three scenes here...
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You have a piece of hidden geometry positioned right through the hole.
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@box said:
You have a piece of hidden geometry positioned right through the hole.
You are messing wit' my head, pic shows 'zoom extents'. No extra geom.
Also copy has moved?
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@cotty said:
Normal behaviour with all three scenes here...
When you say 'normal' you mean both my scenes orbit and zoom the same for you?
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Outliner shows it as a group. You may have hit hide not erase when you tried to delete it.
Zoom extents doesn't show hidden geometry unless you have hidden turned on.
Turn on hidden geometry and zoom out .
I have moved nothing.Is it possible you have this hidden group saved in your template file which means it comes back every time.
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Duh!
Thank you Box, spot on, sorry I doubted you. Even after 10 years of using SU I still get caught out.
Cheers,
Baz -
I've had similar experiences with 'warp speed' zooming wen I'm close to objects and would like to get a little closer. One mouse click is too much.
I've been blaming this on the mouse and have been looking for one that will zoom smoothly, without clicks. I've had no luck so far.
A related but different problem occurs when I zoom out and back into a wall or other object. The cursor gets 'lost in space'. I have to zoom extents, then try again to get where I want to go.
Yes, one could turn an object off to allow zooming but that becomes a pain in a scene with a lot of objects, unless you are being paid by the hour, of course.
It would be great if I could just move forward again to get out of the object that I collided with.
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Hi RTD, I don't think a 'smoother' mouse is going to help, it seems the zoom thing is what it is. I will often copy components off a ways to work on them, then hide them, which causes the zoom prob. From now on, I will separate the model into different files and bring them together at the end.
As for 'lost in space', I use the 'Previous' function (just below 'Zoom extents'), which will step you back five views. I use it so often I have a shortcut for it.
Baz
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