Orbit

[Anonymous]

Hi!

I'm using inventor 2016.

I've been googling for about two hours now and I've not found a solution to a simple question:

How do I convince Inventor to orbit properly? Whenever I use orbit, I have to zoom in and out and fiddle with the orbit until I get where I want. I am sick to my teeth for Inventor assuming that I want to orbit the entire assembly even if it means that it orbits right off my screen while all I want is to actually orbit around a face to see the face connected to it. It is quite frustrating and counter productive to have to fiddle long seconds in order to find the right face for an assembly constrain and then have to fiddle again until I get back to the second face for my constrain.

I am currently using free orbit. I tried using a constrained orbit but that also has very limited applicability as it prevents me to orbit properly around the object. True, the object no longer orbits out of view, but it's still useless.

It would be very logical to tie the pivot point to the mouse cursor, wouldn't it? If the cursor is on a face, then the model is orbited around that face; to me that's proper orbit.

The point is this: imagine you have a cube in your hand and you want to see the back face, you simply turn the front face away until you get to the back face. You don't begin rotating your arms around in three directions to simply spin the **** thing around. You don't pin the cube to one finger and then move the wrist and the arm to accomplish something as simple as a a spin. You don't use a center of gravity. You don't pick a vertex or an edge, you simply look and spin?

Thankyou

[TheCADWhisperer]

What happens if you do a long left click while in the Orbit command at the location you would like to orbit around?

[Anonymous]

Hey Whisperer 🙂

thank you for your fast reply.

I cannot select a vertex while working in an assembly, which I usually have most issues with. 🙂 But you edited that out 😛

That's what I always do. I am using a roccat tyon mouse with about 16 buttons. Two of those buttons are reserved for pan and orbit. So I select the orbit tool I click in my view screen with the left mouse button and I move the cursor. And then my model orbits right off the screen.

But this is the problem, if I am zoomed out enough to have my entire model in view, then it kinds works ok, but the closer I am zoomed in to a surface, the less usable the orbit is, so I have to usually zoom out, orbit, zoom in again, which is very time consuming and, on large models, quite confusing, especially when checking hole and screw proper aligning with shaded with hidden edges visual style on.

It's like being close to the item I want to orbit around, inventor decides to spin the whole item around rather than spin me around the item.

And yes, I am grounding my first component of the assembly to origin.

[Anonymous]

On some level, it feels as if inventor fails to account for the zoom. As in, even though I am zoomed in, it orbits as if I am at no zoom. Naturally, when I am zoomed in and inventor does that, the object of my orbiting just dropps off the screen, so I have to zoom out and then back in and hope to hell I remember what I wanted to do 😛

It's disruptive 😞

[TheCADWhisperer]

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@Anonymous wrote:

... So I select the orbit tool I click in my view screen with the left mouse button and I move the cursor. ....

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Before moving the cursor - hold the left mouse button down for a longer period of time at the location you want to oribit.

The center of orbit will then move to that location.

Now move the mouse.

or

go pro and get yourself a Space Navigator.

[Anonymous]

I've tried that. It works on and off, if I have my entire model in view, then that works. If I am however zoomed in to focus on a particular area of the model, then it does not work. From where I look at things, the  orbit behaviour is incossistent as the orbit tool seems not to take zoom distance into account...

Which is especially annoying when working on the fastenings required for a carport, all those screws and nuts and bolts and the like, they all need to be constrained properly...

As for the space mouse, thank you but no thank you. It's a glorified joystick and I have an aversion to joysticks. I suppose it's all in the wrist and my wrists refuse the abuse. When I use the mouse I move my entire arm from the ellbow that's resting on the table but my wrist is mostly immobile save for when I have to pull the mouse towards myself and then the wrist points slightly downwards. On the bright side, I have never had wrist issues even though I usually work 12 to 14 hours a day on a computer. My eyes are a different issue though 😛

Thank you for your help so far 🙂

[hosford]

Kamiasahi

You should try using a 3DConnexion space mouse, all of your troubles will vanish.

http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/spacemouse.html

[mcgyvr]

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@hosford wrote:

Kamiasahi

You should try using a 3DConnexion space mouse, all of your troubles will vanish.

http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/spacemouse.html

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This ^^^ x 10000..

Its by far the best investment I have ever made for CAD..

Even the cheaper Space Navigator is well worth the cost and you will easily pay it back in no time..

I have one of the more expensive ones and frankly do not use the buttons enough to justify the extra cost..  So the cheap space navigator is plenty IMO.. 

You will be orbiting/panning/zooming in much less time than you are currently doing it.. So you will work faster

IMO Autodesk should send one with each new subscription as they are an absolute necessity for 3d CAD.. I literally cannot and will not work without one.. And I can orbit/zoom/pan circles around anyone without one.. 

[Curtis_Waguespack · Accepted solution]

Hi Kamiasahi,

Just to clarify, if you click on a point while in the Orbit tool you should see the cross hairs of the orbit re-center to that point, as shown in this video. I used a part, but the behavior should be the same for an assembly.

Note too, that you can select the components that you want to constrain, and then right click and choose Isolate, in order to turn everything else off. Then do your constraining, then right click and choose Undo Isolate , this can help a lot when working with small fasteners in large assemblies.

But also, the 3D Connexion device that everyone else mentioned is very handy. But I often work without one, because I'm not always sitting in the same place... so they're not an absolute requirement...for me at least.... but close.

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Anonymous]

Hi Hosford and McGyvr

thank you for your replies.

I understand what you are saying and I have already explained my reasons for not purchasing one of those toys. It's not about the money. It's about them not being a mouse. There are mice, trackballs, touchpads, touchscreens, and a plethora of other input devices. The only natural device for me to use with a computer is a mouse, regardless of whether or not I am gaming or drawing in a CAD program.

The issue here is about how the orbit tool spins things around, regardless of how I choose to activate the command and then choose to control the pointer that controls the orbit. For all intents and purposes, I could move the mouse cusor with the arrow keys.

The whole point is that orbit simply does not work properly.

To exemplify. Imagine a house. Now imagine a window with an exterior windowsill with a flowerpot on it. The flower pot looks interesting. You approach the house until you can touch the pot. You don't pick it up. You simply spin it about to admire its shape. That's how it works in real life. You see something, you focus on something, you grab something and then you move it, it's not a conscious process, it just happens without your knowledge. Your brain does the calculating bit automatically.

What I get in inventor: I try to spin the flower pot and instead the program spins the entire house until all of the sudden, I am looking at the house from behind and I have no idea wheere exactly the flower pot is. I have tried time and time again to suss out how the program orbits, but it seems randomly inconsisstent because, for the same type of movement, I get differnt results.

When working on something from a distance, so that my entire model is in view, orbit works properly. But when I zoom in to study a detail and I orbit, the orbit tool does not account for my distance to the object and applies the same amount of movement as if I was looking at the full object. Which in turn means that my little detail spins completely out of view.

This type of behaviour occurs in both ipt and iam files and if it were possible to orbit a drawing I am pretty sure it would work there in the same manner.

Therefore, in order to get my work done, I have to madly orbit zoom in and out and in and out and in and out (you get the idea) to position a pathetic little screw in a pathetic little hole on the underside of a pathetic little beam and make sure that all degrees of freedom are constrained, after all, a screw is supposed to stay in place not jiggle about.

Now... imagine I need to place around 50 to 100 screws. And then try to imagine what the whole zoom out, orbit, zoom in back on the item, zoom out, orbit and so on does to my eyes. And then you might understand why I am rather irritated.

And please do not suggest using a constrained orbit, that works even less because I need to orbit, not hinge around.

Thank you for your help.

[Curtis_Waguespack · Accepted solution]

Hi Kamiasahi,

Another thing to note is that if you have your "Camera Mode" set to Perspective rather than Orthographic, it can impact the way the Orbit tool behaves.

http://help.autodesk.com/view/INVNTOR/2017/ENU/?guid=GUID-E2E72E30-6557-4D34-ABC7-99CE5E324E65

I hope this helps.
Best of luck to you in all of your Inventor pursuits,
Curtis
http://inventortrenches.blogspot.com

[Anonymous]

Hi Curtis,

you have saved me a lot of irritation with your explanation and your video. You have my eternal gratitude. 🙂

Cad Whisperer had mentioned a long left click on the area where I want to spin, and I did not consider that it meant I had to release the mouse button before starting to orbit. Silly me 🙂

I will attempt to change my orbitting habbits to fit this weird approach to the orbitting business. It would however be nice if Inventor were smart enough to track the mouse cursor position (without clicking any buttons) and then to relate that to the use of orbiting: "user has cursor over screw, therefore I will orbit the screw for the user" rather than "user selected orbit, I don't care where the cursor is, if there is no mouse click event, I will orbit the entire model, just because I can!"

*sigh*

Now I'll try to work some more 🙂

Thank you again for your help Curtis 🙂

[Anonymous]

Hi again Curtis,

my camera mode is set to orthographic. In one of my previous inventor installs I had tried using perspective as that makes much more sense to me but there was an issue with it and I stopped using it. Just don't ask me what the issue was, I cannot remember 😛

Thank you heaps 🙂

[mcgyvr]

A 3d controller wasn't natural to me either at all.. (for about the first few days or so)...

I got used to it very quickly though and can't see using 3d without one.. 

But thats 100% your choice.. 

[Anonymous]

Using a 3d mouse to solve a basic mouse rotation issue that SW and others have solved for years now is like saying you need to buy a separate calculator because your computer cant do basic arithmetic.  When I see some of the responses to this saying "you need a 3d mouse", its baffling, its like Inventor guys that have been using it for years and don't know anything else are institutionalized.  Once you see Solidworks solution to this problem (circa 2004) you should slap yourself in the face and say "why, oh why, has Autodesk NOT solved this...like a decade ago".  

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Peter,

I am sorry that I am not sure I understand your comments. Do you mind sharing an example of Inventor's archaic orbiting behavior? If you are interested promoting SWX, this is the wrong place. We are focused on making Inventor better here.

Many thanks!

[Anonymous]

Didn't mean to name drop SWX, but it is no secret the complaint predominantly originates from their ex-users.

To be clear, the issue we are talking about is two fold:

1. The ability to use the middle button for rotate (quite easy to fix)

2. The function of dynamically updating the center of rotation (aka "Pivot") to be where the pointer is clicked for orbit command

The reason #2 is important is that this is the reason people get frustrated with Inventor orbit function and resort to buying a 3d mouse, because if you are not dynamically controlling the center of rotation and you zoom into a small area of a model, it becomes very difficult to control the rotation, the small zoomed in area rotates rapidly out of view because the center of rotation is far away from this area.  The only other option if a user sticks with a mouse is to manually update the center of rotation using several steps.  You have to invoke the navigation wheel, move the mouse until the "orbit" tool is highlighted, then hold down left button and while holding down the left button you can tap the ctrl button and the pivot center will snap to wherever the pointer is.  This function of moving the pivot center by tapping ctrl is only available from the navigation wheel, the standard orbit tool does not provide this behavior.  There is a way to move the center using the standard orbit tool, but it requires selecting a vertex or an edge, which can be difficult to pick on, and the model automatically pans the selected center to the middle of the screen, so if you pick wrong, the zoomed in area flies off the screen again.  This approach is both tedious and unreliable.   

The ability to simply set the center of rotation to a point on the surface directly below the mouse pointer at the time of clicking to rotate is such a simple solution to this problem, and this method is deployed by multiple cad systems.  A 3d mouse may be preferable regardless of cad system for various other reasons, but in the case of Inventor, it becomes an absolute necessity because of how frustrating it is to manually control the pivot center.  In the case of other cad systems, I see many/most people getting along just fine with nothing more than a mouse, they may get the 3d mouse as an optional feature, but don't absolutely need it.  Most people that have only a mouse with Inventor just live with the crazy center of rotation location and the model flying all over the place uncontrollably when they are zoomed in, they get mad, cuss, but ultimately just move on with their day because there is no use complaining about it.  After more than a decade of users requesting this issue be fixed, we all know it is not going to be.  

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Peter,

Many thanks for your detail description! I got better understanding now. The current Inventor orbiting behavior inherits from the Autodesk ViewCube, which has been used by most Autodesk products. Your reasoning makes total sense to me. I will need to work with the project team and see how we can improve further.

Thanks again!

[Anonymous]

No offence, but I'll believe it when I see it, this issue has been around for many years and the pat answer (buy a 3d mouse) is still being insisted upon by users in the community.  Why Inventor users are so proud of using a 3d mouse, I am sure I don't understand, I had one on Pro/E years ago, and gave it up for the mouse.  Having to switch my hand back and forth between the 3d mouse and the keyboard was annoying and I could never get fast-precise control (like I could with a mouse) no matter what look sensitivity settings I tried.  Maybe if I used a 3d mouse for 10 years my hand muscles would be trained to get the control I was used to with a mouse, but this learning curve just does not seem to hold any value when a mouse does the job better.  Doesn't seem good for carpal tunnel either.  The first time I switched to Inventor years ago, I listened to the users and bought the 3d mouse (cheap one, was $100, but still took an act of congress to get done at my company), but it was a frustrating experience, just could not get the fluid control I was used to, so I created an Autohotkey script to emulate the navigation wheel method of dynamic pivot control, then ditched the 3d mouse.  

[johnsonshiue]

Hi Peter,

Certainly, talk is cheap. But, I have to say I never made the connection between 3D mouse and the generic deficiency in Inventor orbit. There is definitely room for improvement. I cannot promise anything. But, your specific comments are very helpful.

Many thanks!