topic Re: 3d Orbit in AutoCAD LT Forum

3d Orbit

lhenderson9L642 — Fri, 30 Aug 2019 15:59:41 GMT

Does anyone know what/all version(s) of AutoCAD the 3dOrbit command is available in?

Re: 3d Orbit

DarrenP — Fri, 30 Aug 2019 16:10:45 GMT

LT doesn't do 3d Orbit

Re: 3d Orbit

lhenderson9L642 — Fri, 30 Aug 2019 16:13:00 GMT

In saying that, do ALL other Full AutoCAD versions have the 3d Orbit command then?

Re: 3d Orbit

DarrenP — Fri, 30 Aug 2019 16:15:02 GMT

yes this is a base Autocad command

https://help.autodesk.com/view/ACD/2020/ENU/?guid=GUID-85CE824C-0AF4-4890-8487-ADBC92BF08F1

Re: 3d Orbit

lhenderson9L642 — Fri, 30 Aug 2019 16:16:46 GMT

Thank You! We were just trying to decide whether to bump up to the Full AutoCAD from the LT version. Thank You for your help with this 🙂

Re: 3d Orbit

steven-g — Fri, 30 Aug 2019 20:06:23 GMT

LT has the -vpoint command for getting around in modelspace, but you have to fill everything in manually so a lot slower.

Re: 3d Orbit

AutoMarcus — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 06:42:18 GMT

LT doesn't have much 3d at all, unless you count delta z line geometry

Re: 3d Orbit

tramber — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 06:49:02 GMT

@AutoMarcus , it sounds like you never used the UCS utility at all 😀

Re: 3d Orbit

AutoMarcus — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 04:37:57 GMT

ha 🤔😄

yes i use it quite a bit, especially in full version 3d

or in LT if aligning a skewed building site plan for convenience

i'm confused now, in LT the ucs just has x and y no?

Re: 3d Orbit

steven-g — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 06:17:09 GMT

No the ucs has all 3 axis, type 'ucs' followed by enter and look at the prompt, you can rotate the ucs around all 3 axis. You can also highlight the ucs and move it (is that the 4th dimension lol!).

Re: 3d Orbit

AutoMarcus — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 23:20:57 GMT

well there you go, i should pay more attention to the command line

Thanks Steven

Re: 3d Orbit

idesignla — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 19:50:31 GMT

yes... SHADEMODE > Hidden .. then go to View Tab > Steering Wheels > hold middle button for Pan, then hold Shift Key.... Orbit in LT

Re: 3d Orbit

blake.farrow — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 09:32:50 GMT

This is the correct answer.

Very good.

Re: 3d Orbit

ammaron_mcquivey — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 00:08:45 GMT

I am aware this thread is old, but I've been using this method of the steering wheels in shademode > hidden, and it seems to break after a while and I was hoping maybe someone could help. Basically after a while it starts to become worse and worse, and the following situations occur one after the other. 1: Selecting an object will no longer center the orbit point and it will orbit a random location nearby. 2: The orbit will eventually seemingly choose a point way outside of the area of the drawing and will cause the drawing to become super far away and disappear immediately. double clicking the scroll wheel will bring the drawing back into view, but will not reset the orbit location. and finally 3: The previous still occurs, but in addition the UCS icon will start to shake erratically and flash between center of screen and bottom left corner. and double clicking the scroll wheel will only bring the drawing back into view after repeated attempts.

Any help with this would be much appreciated, I have tried creating a new view to sort of reset the drawing, but the issues still persist

Re: 3d Orbit

RSomppi — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 12:40:49 GMT

If you are doing that much 3D work, shouldn't you be using the full version?

Re: 3d Orbit

ammaron_mcquivey — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 15:32:52 GMT

Ideally yes. Unfortunately though while I am currently working a lot with 3D, it's mostly just testing the capability, and trying to develop blocks and tools to help when we do use it sort of thing. We typically don't deal with it very often at the job, and so the company will only pay for the LT version, as that's all we really need. It's only myself and another co-worker who have been pushing the 3D side of things where we can.

Re: 3d Orbit

pendean — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 14:29:50 GMT

@ammaron_mcquivey LT really doesn't do 3D well at all, just the very hard long and tiresome ways. You are just wasting so much billable time.

Why not invest in SKETCHUP instead if this is a dire business need if full AutoCAD is too expensive for your operation?