Manual:Navigating in the 3D view

• Introduction
• Discovering FreeCAD
  • What is FreeCAD?
  • Installing
    • Installing on Windows
    • Installing on Linux
    • Installing on Mac OS
    • Uninstalling
    • Setting basic preferences
    • Installing additional content
  • The FreeCAD interface
    • Workbenches
    • The interface
    • Customizing the interface
  • Navigating in the 3D view
    • A word about the 3D space
    • The FreeCAD 3D view
    • Selecting objects
  • The FreeCAD document
  • Parametric objects
  • Import and export to other filetypes
• Working with FreeCAD
  • All workbenches at a glance
  • Traditional modeling, the CSG way
  • Traditional 2D drafting
  • Modeling for product design
  • Preparing models for 3D printing
    • Exporting to slicers
    • Converting objects to meshes
    • Using Slic3r
    • Using the Cura addon
    • Generating G-code
  • Generating 2D drawings
  • BIM modeling
  • Using spreadsheets
    • Reading properties
    • Writing properties
  • Creating FEM analyses
  • Creating renderings
• Python scripting
  • A gentle introduction
    • Writing Python code
    • Manipulating FreeCAD objects
    • Vectors and Placements
  • Creating and manipulating geometry
  • Creating parametric objects
  • Creating interface tools
• The community

A word about the 3D space

If this is your first contact with a 3D application, you will need to become familiar with some concepts first. If not, you can safely skip this section.

The FreeCAD 3D space is a Euclidean space. It has an origin point and three axes: X, Y and Z. If you look at your scene from above, conventionally, the X axis points to the right, the Y axis to the back, and the Z axis upwards. In the lower right corner of the FreeCAD view, you can always see from where you are viewing the scene:

The point where the three axes meet is the origin. It is the point where the value of all coordinates is zero. For any given axis, moving in one direction will increase the coordinate value and moving in the opposite direction will decrease the coordinate value. Every point of every object that exists in the 3D space can be located by its (x,y,z) coordinates. For example, a point with coordinates (2,3,1) will lie at +2 units on the X axis, +3 units on the Y axis, and +1 unit on the Z axis:

You can look at that scene from any angle, as if you were holding a camera. That camera can be moved left, right, up and down (pan), rotated around what it is pointing at (rotate) and brought closer to or further from the scene (zoom).

The FreeCAD 3D view

Navigating in the FreeCAD 3D view can be done with a mouse, a Space Navigator device, the keyboard, a touchpad, or a combination of those. FreeCAD implements several navigation modes, which determine how the three basic view manipulation operations (pan, rotate and zoom) are done, as well as how selection of objects on the screen is performed. Navigation modes are accessed from the Preferences screen, or directly by right-clicking anywhere on the 3D view:

Each of these modes allocates different mouse buttons, or mouse + keyboard combinations, or mouse gestures, to these four operations. The following table shows the principal available modes:

Mode	Pan	Rotate	Zoom	Select
OpenInventor				hold CTRL + drag
CAD (default)	or	or	or
Blender	hold SHIFT + drag or drag
Touchpad	hold SHIFT + drag	ALT +	PGUP / PGDOWN
Gesture	drag	drag
OpenCascade

Alternatively, some keyboard controls are always available, no matter the navigation mode:

• CTRL + and CTRL - to zoom in and zoom out
• The arrow keys to shift the view left/right and up/down
• SHIFT + left arrow and SHIFT + right arrow to rotate the view by 90 degrees
• the numeric keys, 1 to 6, for the six standard views: front, top, right, rear, bottom, and left
• O will set the camera in orthographic mode,
• while P sets it in perspective mode.
• CTRL will allow you to select more than one object or element

These controls are also available from the View menu and some from the View toolbar.

Selecting objects

Objects in the 3D view can be selected by clicking them with the corresponding mouse button, depending on the navigation mode (described above). A single click will select the object and one of its subcomponents (edge, face, vertex). Double-clicking will select the object and all its subcomponents. You can select more than one subcomponent, or even different subcomponents from different objects, by pressing the CTRL key. Clicking with the selection button on an empty portion of the 3D view will deselect everything.

A panel called "Selection view", available from the View menu, can also be turned on, which shows you what is currently selected:

You can also use the Selection View to select objects by searching for a particular object.

Read more

• The FreeCAD navigation modes