The Viewpoints Control Bar
Viewpoints allow you to keep a record of all the different views of a model so that you can jump to preset viewpoints without having to navigate each time to reach an item. Animations are also saved with the viewpoints, as they are simply a list of viewpoints treated as key frames of the animation. In fact, animations can be made by simply dragging preset viewpoints onto an empty animation. See for more information on animations. You can also organize your animations and viewpoints using folders.
The Viewpoints control bar is shown above. To open it,
Go to View, Control Bars, Viewpoints
or
Click Viewpoints
on the Workspace
toolbar.
Icons are used to represent different elements:
represents a folder which may contain all other elements (including other folders).
represents a viewpoint saved in orthographic mode.
represents a viewpoint saved in perspective mode.
represents an animation clip.
represents a cut inserted into an animation clip.
You can select more than one viewpoint by either holding down the Control key and left clicking, or by left clicking on the first item, and then clicking on the last item while holding down the Shift key. You can drag viewpoints around the viewpoints control bar, and reorganize into folders or animations.
There are no buttons on this control bar, and commands are actioned through context menus. Through these menus, you can save and update viewpoints, create and manage animations and create folders to organize these viewpoints and animations. You can also drag and drop viewpoints or animations onto animations or folders, and holding down the Control key during this operation will copy the element being dragged. This allows fairly complex hierarchies of animations and folders to be easily composed.
Viewpoints, folders and animations can all be renamed by slow clicking (clicking and pausing without moving the mouse) on the element, or clicking on it and hitting F2 . Right clicking on an element in the Viewpoints control bar gives you a different context menu, depending on the element, or if you've right clicked in a blank space. The following section explains the different context menus.