Rotate about selection

[Joel_graff]

I was wondering, could we implement rotation about selection in the UI? Blender's rotate-about-selection feature is really intuitive and useful to me - I'd love to see it in FreeCAD.

[chrisb]

I was wondering, could we implement rotation about selection in the UI? Blender's rotate-about-selection feature is really intuitive and useful to me - I'd love to see it in FreeCAD.

I'm not familiar with Blender. Can you please elaborate how it works?

[Joel_graff]

Imagine selecting an edge on a shape. Then, clicking the mouse wheel to rotate. A Rotate-about-selection feature would put the camera's center of rotation at the midpoint of the edge, so that the edge remains centered on the screen.

The intuition is, if I'm working on something, and need a better angle on it, I should be able to pick it and rotate about it directly. It may not be everyone's favorite way of doing things, but I find it's a very intuitive feature, at least when working on mesh components (edges, faces, vertices) in Blender.

I suppose the algorithm for it would have to calculate the position of the selections' aggregate center of mass to do it...

[triplus]

There could already be something like that implemented in FreeCAD. Hover over the navigation indicator with a mouse (located at the bottom right corner in the status bar). Some clues should emerge. Blender navigation style for example mentions on how to set the rotation focus. Select one vertex of a cube and set the rotation focus. Too see if this is what you are after (or at least close enough).

[Joel_graff]

Blender navigation style for example mentions on how to set the rotation focus. Select one vertex of a cube and set the rotation focus. Too see if this is what you are after (or at least close enough).

Ok, I didn't realize that by clicking the mouse button you set the rotation focus - that does exactly what I had hoped.

In Blender, it's a selected preference, so it's either on or it's off, which has a couple of advantages, IMO. Still the FC implementation certainly works well enough.

[wmayer]

If you use a recent 0.18 development version you will find the option "Drag at cursor" in the preferences. The rotation point then doesn't need to be the center of the 3d view but can be everywhere.

[Joel_graff]

If you use a recent 0.18 development version you will find the option "Drag at cursor" in the preferences. The rotation point then doesn't need to be the center of the 3d view but can be everywhere.

Perfect! Thanks!

[triplus]

Ok, I didn't realize that by clicking the mouse button you set the rotation focus - that does exactly what I had hoped.

Good to hear that.