Can you make the view center be at the camera using a 3D Connexion device?

[RonnyM82]

Just got a Space Navigator the other day, pulled it out of the box all excited that i would be able to rotate models about the center of the camera, which would allow me to get into really tight spots, rotate the model and not have other parts of the model move in front of the camera, therefore blocking my view of what i was trying to see. So out it comes, all software loaded, inventor is open with a tidy structural assembly sittign there waiting to be manipulated by my new shiny toy, and uh no. CAN'T ROTATE ABOUT THE CAMERA! AARRGGGH. right bummer.

So does anyone have any ideas? I'm pretty sure its an Inventor problem since i know for a fact that you can rotate about the center of the camera usign this device in 3ds max. The 3D navigation tools in inventor are crap anyway, the feature of being able to rotate about camera center should be native in inventor. Maybe someone in the Autodesk Hierarchy could get labs to knock up something fancy/simple!!!??

Is there anyone on this forum using any of 3D connexions devices in Inventor and maybe they have a work around for this. I'm pretty sure i read somewhere that with practice people have been able to 'fly' down pipes in Inventor. But my experience so far would mean that once you get to a bend in the pipe and you rotate the view, you would just rotate yourself straight out of the pipe.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Cheers in advance.

Scott

[RonnyM82]

Ok so it seems by putting the view into perspective you can make the view rotate around the camera. But frustratingly you can only pan/zoom fwd to a certain point. like the zoom maxs out. is there anyway of making the camera continually zoom/move forwards through the model?

Surely someone can help me here? I'm likeing this device and Inventor for that matter more and more, but this viewing thing is startign to bug me somewhat!

cheers

[toma_pera]

Hi,

To handle this, I assigned the 'Orbit' command to one of the 3D Connexion device button and when needed, I click with the mouse to set a new view center.

I hope it will help...

Thomas

[RonnyM82]

cheers for that, will think about it if it really starts to annoy me, but since i only have two buttons on my navigator i have them set for other more commonly used commands at this stage. Maybe i could have it set on one of the buttons for when i'm in an assembly. Apparently there is better support for the zoom maxing out issue in 2010. anyone know anything about this?

[kellings]

What version of Inventor are you using?

If it is 2010 I believe I have something that you can try that will autoreset the center of the view each time you use the 3DConnexion device.

Kevin

[dick_upton]

Isn't that what Tools --> Application Options --> Display, 3D Navigation radio button "Constrained" does?

[RonnyM82]

I will be using 2010 fulltime shortly. Only playing with it at the mo sussing out the bugs etc.. so if you can sort me out with your lil tool woudl be much appreciated!!!??? Will try the constrain thing as well though.

[RonnyM82]

Tried it in INV2009 and i can't tell the diff between constrained orbit and free orbit? constrained orbit to me is using the lines on the quadrants on the orbit circle. To be fair i didn't use it in perspective view, but i don't think it will make any difference. My biggest issue with it now is really that the zoom maxs out and then i can't pan up/down/left/right. I can only rotate in any of the 3 axis and zoom out, although i can pan left and right if i hold down the middle mouse button and mouse the mouse about. which i think is weird since i figured the SN panned when you moved it up/down/left/right, obviously it must be calling some other command like a sideways zoom or something. Can anyone else confirm that it behaves this way?

[RonnyM82]

yes please kevin.

[MercoINC]

"...not have other parts of the model move in front of the camera, therefore blocking my view..." why not use "slice graphics"? F7?

[mark.young]

If you turn off perspective you won't get this problem-obviously that may not be ideal.
I have left button=zoom all / right button=zoom selected. Works well for me.
I don't understand why you can't achieve what you want by just manipulating the spacemouse?

[kellings]

I am a little hesitant to give you the method to change this because I don't know if it works or not in the final product. There was a registry setting that would reevaluate the spin center everytime the 3D mouse was used. Let me contact the people that made me aware of these settings to see if they will work or not.

Hopefully I will have an answer for you in the next 2 days.

Kevin

[dick_upton]

Ronny,

I may be able to help - email me at dZiZck_upton@hotmail.com

remove the capital Z's Edited by: dick_upton on May 13, 2009 3:07 PM

[RonnyM82]

did you get anywhere with contacting your mate?

[RonnyM82]

Mark,

I repeat:

"My biggest issue with it now is really that the zoom maxs out and then i can't pan up/down/left/right. I can only rotate in any of the 3 axis and zoom out, although i can pan left and right if i hold down the middle mouse button and mouse the mouse about. which i think is weird since i figured the SN panned when you moved it up/down/left/right, obviously it must be calling some other command like a sideways zoom or something. Can anyone else confirm that it behaves this way?"

to respond to your comments:

If i turn off perspective then i can't rotate about camera center. Yes you might be able to zoom continuously in orthographic view, so say for example you use perspective to get inside a box or tube, then you try and move fwds down it, at some point it fwd zoom will max out, so based on your suggestion you would then switch to ortho, which would straight away take you out of the tube/box and sure you could carry on zooming but where to? you can't see inside the thing anymore and you are just zooming against the external face of the thing. And yes you could use the slice command but that only 2D and would only slice at a point, that's not why i bought this device i could have done that without it.

why set left button to zoom all when double clicking the middle mouse button does that, and why set the right button to zoom selected when pointing the mouse at something and scrolling does that as well. Seems like a shocking waste of two context sensitive buttons.

If you try to move through a box or a tube/pipe in INV using ure navigator you will understand my problem.

cheers for all your responses guys please keep them coming i'm sure this won't just benefit me. I'm also trying to get this thing workign in AlphaCAM if any of you know wots up there then please let me know. I have seen the post in teh VBA forum on the Acam support website but i can't get it to work i think there is a good chunk of code missing.

cheers

again.

[scottmoyse · Accepted solution]

Check out this blog post to show how to use the registry hack for enabling the functionality required in the OP:

http://designandmotion.net/autodesk/autodesk-inventor-3d-connexion-registry-hack/