Rotation point

[ungarata]

When rotating, make wherever the cursor is located be the center point of rotation.  From what I know, I can select the rotation center by pressing F4, then clicking on an entity, and that will be the rotation point from that point forward.

Just make it so wherever the cursor is at becomes the rotation point.  For reference, go drive a seat of Pro/E (now called Creo).  It is so easy to rotate with.

Here's why this is a big deal:  Open a large assembly, then zoom way, way in to look at something.  Now try to rotate - oops!  You've just rotated away from what you were looking at.  Now repeat the process; zoom way in, okay now remember to go F4 -> click on something -> okay, I'm good to go now.  Now, pan over a little bit, forget to reset the rotation center, go ahead and rotate and OOPS!  Whatever you're zoomed in looking at has rotated off your screen.  Every time to move, you have to reset your rotation point manually.  This is frustrating and wasteful.

See the issue?  If it would just rotate about the cursor, then you don't have to go through a thousand extra clicks, constantly resetting the rotation center; it would just work, without thought and having to plan ahead, etc.  You could focus on designing your product, instead of driving your CAD program.

[cwhetten]

But, unless you have a 3D mouse, you have to move the cursor to rotate the view.  So the center of rotation would move as you rotate?  I guess you mean that the center is wherever you click the mouse to start the rotate command?  If so, then I agree that would be better.

[cadull_rb]

At least while holding F4, allow us to select a rotation center that is located away from the center circle - I'm not trying to exit the command!

Regards,

cadull

[ungarata]

cwhetten;

Yes, you have to move the mouse cursor to rotate; no, the center of rotation does not move.  You got it right on the next sentence:  Wherever you click the mouse to start the rotation, that's where the model rotates around.  It does not rotate around the model center of mass or wherever it normally does.

The advantage is that you can zoomed way in to a large assembly, looking at something you need to see, then when you click on the screen (in the area you're zoomed in to and looking at), that point is where the assembly rotates around, and the area you're zoomed in to stays on your screen; it does not rotate off the screen as it does when the model rotates about some point far away.

All of this happens automatically and seamlessly; wherever your cursor is, that's where the rotation point is.  You don't have to keep re-specifying where to rotate with extra clicks, you don't have to remember to set the rotation point each time, etc.

PTC got this 1000% right with Pro/E (Creo); Autodesk blew it (as did Siemens with Solid Edge).  Drive a seat of Pro if you ever get a chance; you'll be immediately ticked off at what you've had to put up with when it comes to the rotation behavior in Inventor.

[robin_mcg]

I totally agree. You want to rotate around the Place you are looking, not some place outside the screen.

I have posted on the same issue "rotate around mouse pointer". I have also added that there should be a way to set the middle button to rotate and ctrl + middle button to pan (as other CAD programs)

[l.taylor]

I also totally agree with the OP on this, probably the thing I find the most annoying/time consuming in Inventor. Why on earth would I want to, by default, rotate around a point that is way off screen? It makes aligning small parts in a large assembly a major PITA. It would make far more sense to have the center of rotation around the mouse cursor (at beginning of the orbit command) by default and keep the F4 functionality for the exceptional times when we want to orbit around some other point.

Levi

[josgie]

Middle click to set rotation point. Please!

Even if its just an option, in case someone out there uses middle click to pan...

After playing with hit just now I would do this.

Click in hold still pans. (same as now)

Click and release within .25 sec or so centers rotation point. (additional function I would use 1000 times a day)

Click and release twice centers model as it currently does.(same as now)

Thanks

[inv.ideareview]

Thanks for sharing your Idea. We use this forum to guide product development and help users in the best way we can based on voting. We occasionally merge Ideas or archive old ones to keep the forum working properly - it ensures there is room for people to review new Ideas and that the most relevant and meaningful ones can gain votes. We’re archiving this Idea because it's been on the board for well over a year and hasn't received many votes from the community. If you want to raise it again and try to gain more support, you're welcome to do so. We’ve found that pictures and mock-ups can help get concepts across and win more votes from other users. If you have questions or see a connection between this Idea and others, let us know. - Inventor product team (Inv.idea review)

[Ufo_Riky]

LOL

This idea hasn't received many votes because all INV users don't know how much these kind of functions are usefull.

Only users that came from other cad can understand this.

As the same for SHOW/NOSHOW feature. INV users don't know what it is...for them is natural to lost minutes and minutes, click and click to navigate in the parts tree to find the "invisible" parts and set them "visible" again. LOL really no comment

[jdg072]

I agree Hiding parts in an assembly should be as simple to right click them and select "hide". Zooming to or orbitting around an object should be as simple as move your pointer near it and zoom or orbit.

If you have never used anything else than Inventor, you wouldn't know al these nice features.

[dszego]

Bump. Rotating something as if my screen were 200" is not helpful. I know there's something in the config to let me rotate from the centre of the screen / mouse location, I just can't seem to find it again!

[jason.dupree]

I work with a reseller so I don't bother with a 3D Mouse (since I travel a lot) so I definitely know how helpful this would be. I'm tired of having to teach people the F4 method.

[jnewon]

Inventor 2020

This would still be a good feature. At lease give us a check box in setting to rotate around the mouse point. I currently and constantly use a Auto-hotkey script to use ctl+mmb to center on mouse location. 

vote yes

[jfricher]

Dear friends,

Coming from a background of 25 years of experience on Pro/ENGINEER, now CREO, this lack of functionality hurt me a lot when trying to be proficient using Inventor. In CREO, there is a configuration option allowing the user to decide whether or not to spin around what he is aiming at. (spin_center_display NO). Since this function directly impact the user's productivity a few thousand times per day, it is one of the first configuration option any CREO user learn to remember by heart. I vote to make this an urgent and important enhancement to Inventor.

all the best friends 🙂

Jean-Francois Richer | CAD/CAM Automation Specialist | Lincora
Division de 9394-5202 Québec Inc. 6265, Notre-Dame E. Montréal, Qc. H1N 2E9
Whatsapp 1.809.905.4242 Mobile 1.438.725.5079 jfricher@lincora.com

[charlie_slh]

This is such a frustrating way of doing things. Please rotate about mouse center!!! Such a little thing that is a continuous source of annoyance!!

[SER4]

Here's a new idea link:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-ideas/clicking-the-orbit-hotkey-shift-scroll-wheel-should-se...

[fredrik.overasen]

BUMP!

I just want to make sure the development team puts this as a high priority. 

Inventor is the first program that I use that acutally recuire a 3D mouse to do my work. 

[bperesPX6BQ]

I came from SolidWorks and I am sorely missing this function on large assemblies.

[cxyP7V53]

Bump!

I have finally just started to get used to the F4 method coming from SolidWorks, i.e. I have both begun to do this intuitively, as well as come to accept the lost seconds of productivity each time I happen to feel like viewing the backside of my model.

But I have upgraded my monitor to an ultrawide. Now I have two choices: panning the entire model to the centre of the orbit circle that appears when you hold F4 (because heavens to Murgatroyd I click outside the almighty circle), or only use 2/3 of my monitor by resizing the Inventor window to allow the last 1/3 to be used to watch videos while I work of how Inventor 2023 has never-before-seen functionalities such as creating Flanges to a reference plane instead of guessing angles while I'm stuck on 2019 because I'm not allowed to upgrade yet until everyone else does.

A solution which was already briefly mentioned above could be to change this procedure of:

[wipe-left-hand-of-salty-chips] > [hold F4] > [click-on-model-to-reposition-pivot-point] > [profit]

to

[continue-eating-salty-chips-with-left-hand] > [click-on-model-to-reposition-pivot-point-with-a-mouse-button-of-my-choice-as-I-have-like-7-unused-mouse-buttons-that-I-have-easily-mapped-using-the-intuitive-options-window-that-is-NOT-found-in-the-"Tools"-ribbon-as-settings-and-options-that-change-how-a-software-works-are-not-at-all-tools-like-Measure-or-Copy-and-Paste-are] > [profit]

Or simply package all Inventor licenses with a CAD mouse as a hotfix to this issue.

Thanks! Keep up the great work!

[NOEL_GETTINGBYCZTUC]

New poster here +1 for automatically rotating around the cursor location.

It's not like the functionality isn't there already, just that it requires manually setting the spin centre each time.

Give users the option to make that the default behaviour when the cursor is over any geometry.