Rotate/orbit screen in single plane

[SonicFlow]

I'm new to F360, and I have my mouse orbit controls set to SolidWorks default.

In SolidWorks holding Alt+midde mouse allowed one to rotate/orbit, but kept the normal plane constant (even if view is not actually normal to any CAD plane). Alt apparently has no effect over the orbit behavior.

In other words you could change the angle of a sketch, and the view would remain normal to the sketch plane.   I think the rotation point was wherever you had your pointer.

Is there another way to control this motion in Fusion? (I do see that by the view cube there are curvy rotation arrows you can use to change angle, but they jump by 90 deg. And they only appear when view is normal to one of the standard orienations.)

[TannerReid · Accepted solution]

Hi, SonicFlow,

While I don't know of any keyboard shortcuts to control this (if anyone else does, please chime in!), there is navigational tool that lets you.

If you click on the orbit tool in the navigation bar (screenshot attached), it brings up a circle on your screen.  if you click and drag within that circle, you'll free-orbit.  If you click once anyone, it'll center about that point.  

But if you click and drag on one of the four lines coming off of it, you can rotate along those planes.  If you click outside the circle and between two of those four lines (one of the outer quandrants) it'll rotate along that normal plane. Screencast attached.

Also, you can click this tool in the middle of using any tool (like extruding or lofting, but also if you're in the middle of sketching a spline or something) - it'll just pause what's happening so you can navigate, and then clicking it again or hitting escape will exit the orbit tool and you'll be back to what you were working on.

Does this answer your question?  If not, feel free to follow up!

Thanks,
Tanner

[SonicFlow]

Thanks Tanner. That is the tool I was missing. 

[TannerReid]

Awesome.

Enjoy yourself!
Tanner

[Anonymous]

Hi Tanner,

I am also missing this option of rotating my view around axis perpendicular to screen while in Free Orbit. What you showed is only a bandage. It does work but boy... isn't it cumbersome, next to unusable?

When I design in other CADs I fly. I spin and move my parts any which way I want to and do it with precision. I'm two months with the Fusion 360 and I still feel like a drunken sailor. I simply have no time or desire to interrupt whatever I am doing and hit that orbit icon. To do this I need to take my eyes off of the object, look at the Orbit icon, drive my pointer there and click on it. For me it is insanely cumbersome.

There should be just a large area on the screen (logically - any area further from center, or one of the corners/quadrants) that I grab and spin the part around. At least there should be a key like Alt that will do this.

I hope it's possible and one day I'll find how it should be done but so far I struggle...

Oh, and one more thing: there should be a key that squares the current view to the nearest standard view. Not an icon, not a cube in the top-right corner but a key. Those are nice, especially for the novice, but I have no time to drop whatever I'm doing and go to does icons. The way it's done in some CADs is - you move your part close enough the the view you need and without moving the cursor you hit that magic key that will square your view to the nearest standard or defined view. So far haven't found this option either.

[richsp51]

Thanks! I'm new to Fusion 360 and was struggling with this issue as the OP described. This tip helped me a a lot.