Hello,

I have an issue with the camera zoom it 3D view using my SpacePilot on Mac -- I can't remember if it works the same on windows.

When the camera is very close (less than 10 units) to world centre, the zoom is extremely sensitive.
When the camera is at a moderate distance (100 - 1000 units) the zoom is about as sensitive as panning and rotation is.
When the camera is very far from world centre, the camera zoom is extremely slow, far below rotations and panning.

This seems to be completely independent from the point the camera is looking at, just overall camera distance.

I suspect that the camera translation internally has a fixed maximum speed independent from the scene scale and distance from it's focus point.


Is it possible to control zoom speed via macros/javascript?

Hi Jacob, so unfortunately what you're describing is a side effect from how perspective works in general. If you travel forward by say 10 units, it will only have a very small effect on objects that are really far away from you, but for objects that you are close to the same 10 unit travel distance will have a much more magnified effect.

If that's bothering you a lot, you can set the 3D view into parallel projection mode rather than the default perspective mode. To do that, go to Options > View > "3D view projection" and set it to Parallel. In parallel mode zooming in and out works by a zoom scale factor being changed. In perspective mode a zoom involves moving the eye point around instead.

If you want to have a parallel projection for your default setup, you can save a 3DM file that has been set to parallel projection and then set that file as the startup template under General > "Template file".

re:
> Is it possible to control zoom speed via macros/javascript?

Yes, try something like this:

For faster zoom:

script: moi.view.zoomSpeed3dx = 3.0;


For slower zoom:

script: moi.view.zoomSpeed3dx = 0.3;




There is also an option you can change in the moi.ini file to use a different type of zoom behavior, where instead of moving by a fixed amount it's some fraction of the distance of the camera point to the rotation pivot point, to try that go to Options > General > "Edit .ini file" and inside there find the [3Dconnexion] section and set ZoomApproachTarget=y like this:

[3Dconnexion]
<...>
ZoomApproachTarget=y


- Michael