How do I turn off orthographic view?

carl_mcdaniel

How do I turn off orthographic view?

NeilCooke

NeilCooke

carl_mcdaniel

Now how do we retain orthogonal views for the orthogonal views (top, right, left, etc.)? Perspective for 3D view and Ortho for the orthographic as it should be....

tim_hess427

I don't think there's a way to automatically switch between orthographic and perspective depending on whether you're looking directly at one of the default planes or not. 

Personally, for me and the stuff I work on, this is "as it should be". 

carl_mcdaniel

I've been asking this question for many years to no avail. "What use is 3D orthographic view"?  What use is it and why would you need it while using modern CAD systems? All it does is confuse my my brain as to which way the part is facing especially while using a 3D mouse in wireframe mode and even shaded with hidden lines removed. I just don't get it and never "wished" the cad package had this functionality ever. Thanks 

carl_mcdaniel

Any way to adjust the focal length of the perspective view? i have a 1" x 3" cylinder and i feel like a tiny ant viewing a massive object?

john_mcclary

carl_mcdaniel said:

I've been asking this question for many years to no avail. "What use is 3D orthographic view"?  What use is it and why would you need it while using modern CAD systems? All it does is confuse my my brain as to which way the part is facing especially while using a 3D mouse in wireframe mode and even shaded with hidden lines removed. I just don't get it and never "wished" the cad package had this functionality ever. Thanks 

Carl,

Orthographic projection in 3D is the MOST useful way to view a model when designing machines and equipment.
Perspective views are for customer presentations and artistic concepts. There is no real value to perspective projection in machine design. I've always treated it as a fancy tool to cure boredom for a few minutes before turning it back off and getting back to work.

One simple reason ortho is so useful is because when you want to check for alignment down the side of a system, all you need to do is change to a side view and glance. Which is impossible to do in perspective views.

For example: see this foot, from an ortho view you can see it is out of alignment from a glance.

Here is the same view in perspective. Even when you know the front foot is off by A LOT, it is still very hard to see from this view.

More examples would be while editing parts, you want to create relations to other features or parts. It is good to know when the faces are parallel and square. Something that is nearly impossible to tell from a perspective projection.

There are a few more reasons like: graphical glitches, camera panning and rotating clunkyness, etc. When it comes down to getting to work and being productive, prettiness is the last thing on my mind.

I'm sorry it is difficult for some people to understand an ortho model in 3D, but after a while your brain begins to ignore the fact it's ortho and what you see in your mind is a perspective view anyway. At least that is my experience.

To me, this looks natural:


This looks like someone knocked it over with a robot arm

S1mon

I can definitely see both sides of this issue. In reality, people perceive everything in perspective, so modeling it orthogonally is weird. That said, it's difficult to see if things are straight or aligned when they're in perspective. I even used to turn off aliasing of the lines so I could see if curves were going up or down based on the stair-steps of the pixels.

For years, the mechanical CAD systems I've used (Pro/E->Creo, Solidworks) have had terrible implementations of perspective that are basically view only. You can kinda sorta do some work, but things are buggy, dimensions fly off into space and the UX is generally third rate, because the product testing team and engineering team never live in perspective mode. They just turn it on, see that it looks different, and turn it off. As users, we felt lucky when there where half-baked camera options to adjust the perspective.

On the other side of the CAD world, people who use Alias, Rhino, or any rendering or even architectural CAD (3D, not 2D) have lived in perspective their whole life. It hurts their eyes to see anything else.

Onshape needs to have perspective controls, but at least it works a little better with perspective turned on than Solidworks or Creo.

john_mcclary

S1mon said:

For years, the mechanical CAD systems I've used (Pro/E->Creo, Solidworks) have had terrible implementations of perspective that are basically view only. You can kinda sorta do some work, but things are buggy, dimensions fly off into space and the UX is generally third rate, because the product testing team and engineering team never live in perspective mode. They just turn it on, see that it looks different, and turn it off. As users, we felt lucky when there where half-baked camera options to adjust the perspective.

Pretty much how i experience it it mcad