Education_008 – Viewing

Viewing
There are several viewing tools. Some of the tools are located in the Tool palette, and some are on the View bar at the top of the drawing window. We will look at the most useful tools and techniques later in this manual.

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Zooming
The quickest way to zoom in and out of the drawing is to use the scroll wheel on your mouse. You can use this technique regardless of the tool you are currently using.

• Move the mouse over the object you want to zoom in to.

• Roll the mouse wheel forward to zoom in (depending on the Scroll setting on a Macintosh), or roll the mouse wheel backwards to zoom out.

Zoom Tool
The Zoom In tool on the Basic Tool Palette allows you to zoom in or out of your design by  drawing a marquee around the area that you want to see, or by dragging your mouse if you use the interactive mode. You can also zoom into the center of the screen by double clicking on the zoom in tool.

If you want to zoom in quickly to a specific area then use this tool. It allows you to zoom in to just the area that you want to, if you use the Marquee mode.

The Zoom In button on the View bar works by zooming into the centre of the screen or the centre of a selected object. Click once on the Zoom In button and you zoom in immediately. Use the Option or ALT key to zoom out.

Fit to Page Area

Use the Fit to Page Area button to show the current printable area of the design. Use this tool to show you the whole drawing within the printable area. Whenever you get lost in the drawing use the Fit to Window button to get you back to see the whole drawing.
Fit To Objects 

If nothing is selected, the Fit to Object button will fit the view to display all the objects in the design including objects outside the printable area. If any objects are selected then the view will fit only the selected objects.
Previous View, Next View
At the top-left corner of the drawing window, on the View bar are two arrows. These are the previous view (sometimes called zoom previous) and next view buttons.

• Clicking on the left arrow will display the last view of your design.

• Clicking on the right arrow will display the next view, after you have used the previous view.

X-Ray Mode
Let’s say that you have drawn several objects that are on top of each other, i.e. some are hidden behind others. In the past you had to change the order or had to turn off classes to access the hidden objects. Now you have the X-Ray Mode.

When you hold down the B key, Vectorworks makes all of your planar objects and partly see-through, so you can easily see the objects underneath. This allows you to see through the top objects and select the objects underneath.

Snap Loupe
This is a hot-key that temporally zooms into the cursor. This is extremely useful for zooming in when you are modelling, drawing, and dimensioning.

Hit the Z key once to invoke the Snap Loupe.

Click once to use the snap loupe, or hit the <esc> key once to cancel.
Panning
The Pan tool on the Basic Tool Palette allows you to move the view of your design by clicking and dragging your mouse.

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©Jonathan Pickup 2013