Orbit pivot point

SketchUp Pro
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Orbiting.

Why is the central pivot point of the orbit NOT the center of the object being worked on? The orbiting function is absolutely the worst and sends the camera into pointless locations. It needs to be standardized that orbit only orbits around center point of the entire model and definitely the center of objects when selected. I can’t tell you how much time is wasted on absolutely every model I’ve made in the past eight or so years because of this issue. Now, it’s costing serious money and I want to know how to fix this, soon. I’m not new to SU, at all.

Sorry for being loud. This is an infuriating issue.

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I agree it isn’t ideal. It seems orbit happens about the center of the screen? One solution is to get a 3Dconnexion space mouse. It has a target camera mode which make the selected object the pivot point about which the camera rotates, much nicer.

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The place you initially click-drag changes the pivot point, so you should click-drag on the point of interest.

Click-drag on pyramid in foreground:

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Click-drag on pyramid in background:

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Notice how the pivot point changed depending on where I click-dragged.

While click-dragging, you can hold the shift key to pan.

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You can also zoom with the middle mouse wheel or by scrolling on a trackpad. The cursor location determines where you will zoom.

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Command + / to walk
Command + . to look around

SketchUp’s navigation controls work for me.

3 Likes
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Eight years and you only joined the forum a few months ago?

Have you searched the forum to see how many others feel as you do? If you are a lone voice I suspect this “issue” won’t get “fixed” at all.

Like @Forestr, it works for me just fine.

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Maybe there’s a different set up that I have? but my experience of the orbit tool is that it orbits about the center of the screen? If you move your object there it can orbit around it because it is at the center, not because of cursor placement?
In attached gif I have a cross hair on center of screen which is where the center of rotation looks to be. The items I click on with the orbit tool (cursor) do not become the center of rotation but continue to rotate about the cross hair center??

In the attached mov file using the space mouse, the item that is selected becomes the center of rotation.

orbit

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My orbit tool rotates around the center of the screen too, but the distance of the pivot point changes if you click-drag on a distant object.

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51198×840 1.89 MB

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I think we all get used to the idiosyncrasies of how things work. The native SU orbit is a little less predictable, that’s why I like the spacemouse (for other reasons too) as it does work in a more expected way such that the selected item becomes central to the orbit. I think this is the behaviour that efreeman would like to see implemented?

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It orbits around wherever you click on to start the orbit. It’s very useful once understood and allows much more intuitive navigation I find.

skup2
skup21082×642 1.21 MB

1 Like
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Rhino uses the center of the selection which I think is highly annoying. Sometimes you have a large selection that extends outside the view, sometimes a tiny object. navigation should in my view be independent from this, as it is in SketchUp.

In 98% of cases the SketchUp pivot from mouse works perfectly. There are times it doesn’t though, namely when you are very close to an object or the physical bounds of the model are very big. Orbit Tool Pivot Point When Clicking Outside Geometry

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Thanks for the judgment sandwich and I’ll check out those forums but you don’t need to focus on irrelevant information about me to give advice. Tx.

1 Like
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Spacemouse seems to be a pretty significant option, I’ll definitely give that a try. Thanks for the help, y’all :slight_smile:

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