Change between 2D and 3D

 From:  Michael Gibson
4497.5 In reply to 4497.4 
Hi Rudl,

> It should not be possible in splited window.

The problem is that when you're in the maximized Top view, you are actually in the same Top view that you see in the 1/4 of the screen when in Split view.

Those are the same viewports - I don't think it would be good for the top view to behave differently depending on whether you were in split view or whether you had that particular view maximized - it's much easier in operation if one viewport behaves the same whether it is maximized or showing in split mode.

In Rhino I had things set up where you could rotate a 2D viewport around, and it tended to cause a lot of problems because it was fairly easy to do something like rotate the top view by a few degrees accidentally and then you have a view which is labeled "Top" but actually has some other skewed view in it. I wanted to avoid that problem in MoI, so in MoI the 2D views are restricted to always be a plan view (although they can be a plan view of a custom cplane if you set a cplane) so that you know for sure that the view that says "Top" is really what it says it is.


If you want to have more of a single window behavior then staying always in the 3D view should give you that kind of behavior.

If you do that then you may want to set the view to a parallel projection instead of perspective so that when you view from the top it will be like the 2D views. To do that go to Options > View > 3D view projection, and set "3D view projection: Parallel". You'll probably want to save off a 3DM file that has the 3D view set that way and then set that 3DM file as the startup template under Options > General, so that you'll then get a parallel view by default when you first launch MoI. If you have a startup template specified then MoI will read the viewports and styles from that file when it first launches or when you do File > New.

Then see this discussion thread for how to set up some keyboard shortcuts that change the 3D view direction to specific locations like same as the Top view:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=2104.3

- Michael