CaWE camera navigation - compared to SketchUp

[Carsten]

Hi all,

while working on the new "Model Editor" component of CaWE (I'll post more information about this very interesting highlight later!), I was watching the New to SketchUp movies for some inspiration regarding camera movement, especially this one:



SketchUp is a great reference, because its user interface ideas are both powerful and simple, and I hope to be able to use the ideas for improving the 3D views of CaWE, too, both in the map editor as well as the new model editor.

In summary, the above video presents the following essential ideas for 3D camera navigation:

• Rolling the mouse wheel zooms in and out.
  This functionality is also available in CaWE already, but SketchUp extends this by
  • being sensitive to the mouse cursor position (zooms towards the object under the cursor, in CaWE this exists today only in the 2D views), and
  • taking the distance to the object under the mouse cursor into account for zoom speed.
• Pressing and holding the mouse wheel (MMB, the "middle" mouse button) temporarily activates "Orbit" tool.
• Holding the MMB, then holding either Shift or the LMB (left mouse button) as well temporarily activates the "Pan" tool.

In summary, while CaWE is similar to SketchUp in the 2D views already, SketchUp beautifully extends the same ideas to the 3D views as well, and continuing topic http://www.cafu.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=537, I plan to adjust the 3D views in CaWE (map editor and the new model editor) appropriately, in order to improve the existing user interface by making it simpler and more consistent.

Please let me know if you have additional ideas or suggestions in this regard - this is a great time for building them into CaWE!