Area

Zooms in and centers the view on a smaller specified area.

The area is defined by a center point and then a corner forming a rectangle.

For the 3D view, the picked center point will become the new rotation pivot point as well, so sometimes Zoom Area can be useful to focus in on a particular spot that you want the 3D view to pivot around.

Zoom

Zooms the view in or out.

In addition to this zoom button, you can also spin the scroll wheel on a mouse to zoom in or out.

To use this zoom button, click and hold down on the button and then while still holding down, drag up to zoom in or drag down to zoom out.

By default the button is fairly sensitive so you don't need to move the mouse pointer very far to control it. Try moving only a pretty small distance up or down.

You can flip the up/down action and adjust the sensitivity under Options / View / Rotate/Pan/Zoom options.

Pan

Moves the view left, right, up or down.

In addition to this pan button, you can also click and drag inside a viewport with the middle mouse button (or also the right mouse button in the Top, Front, or Right views). If you have a mouse wheel pushing down on the wheel also acts as a middle button.

To use this pan button, click and hold down on the button and then while still holding down, drag up, down, left, or right to reposition the view towards that direction.

By default the button is fairly sensitive so you don't need to move the mouse pointer very far to control it. Try using smaller motions instead of moving by a large distance.

Panning works with a kind of accelerated motion. You can drag a small distance and then hold still, and the view will continue to move in that direction. If you move a further distance the movement will accelerate.

You can reverse the directions of the movement and adjust the sensitivity under Options / View / Rotate/Pan/Zoom options.

Rotate

Rotates the 3D view around the pivot point.

In addition to this rotate button, you can also click and drag inside the 3D view with the right mouse button as a different way to rotate.

It often helps to use the Reset button to set the pivot point to the center of the selected objects before doing a rotation. You can also use the Area zoom button to set the rotation pivot to a point directly on one specific part of an object if you want to pivot around one particular area.

To use this rotate button, click and hold down on the button and then while still holding down, drag up, down, left, or right to rotate the view towards that direction.

By default the button is somewhat sensitive so you don't need to move the mouse pointer too far to control it. Try using smaller motions instead of moving by a large distance.

Rotation using the button works with a kind of accelerated motion. You can drag a small distance and then hold still, and the view will continue to rotate in that direction. If you move a further distance the rotation will accelerate in speed.

You can reverse the directions of the movement and adjust the sensitivity under Options / View / Rotate/Pan/Zoom options.

Reset

Fills the view with either the selected objects or all objects.

On the first click Reset will target just the selected objects and adjust the view so the selected objects fill up the viewport.

If you click the button a second time, Reset will target all objects in the model regardless of selection, zooming to fit everything within the view.

Reset also places the pivot point for rotating the 3D view at the center of what it zoomed to.

If you right-click on the Reset button, the reset will be applied to all viewports.

If there are no objects visible, Reset will restore the view to the initial startup default view.