To customize the look and
orientation of the 3D compass, click mouse button 3 on the compass and select
an option from the menu that appears. You can perform the following
customizations:
Edit
Select Edit to display the Specify View
dialog box and numerically specify a custom view orientation. See
Numerically specifying a view,
for details on specifying custom view orientations.
Tip:
You can also double click the 3D compass to display the
Specify View dialog box.
Change the
privileged plane
The base of the compass (which contains the compass manipulation handle) is
called the privileged plane. By default, the
X–Z plane is the privileged plane in
Abaqus/CAE.
The privileged plane can be helpful in determining the “correct” orientation of
a model in the viewport. In the default isometric orientation of the compass,
the privileged plane appears at the bottom and the free rotation handle appears
at the top; the axis from the privileged plane to the free rotation handle in
effect indicates the “up” direction for the model.
If the Y-axis does not correspond to the “up” direction
in a model, you can change the privileged plane to any of the three major
planes in the compass. For example, select Make XY the Privileged
Plane to set the X–Y
plane as the privileged plane. Changing the privileged plane only reconfigures
the shape of the 3D compass, as indicated in
Figure 1;
the view orientation and the predefined views in the
Views toolbar
are not changed.
Figure 1. Changing the privileged plane from the
X–Z plane (left) to the
X–Y plane (right).
Hide
Select Hide to remove the 3D compass from the
viewport display. To resume the display of the 3D compass, you must use the
viewport annotation options (select
ViewportViewport Annotation
Options from the main menu). For information on
controlling the visibility of viewport annotations, see
Using viewport annotation options.
Help
Select Help to display a help window with
documentation on using the 3D compass.
