Skip to main content

Zooming and panning

Zooming and panning affect the structure scale and the mid-point. These parameters may be adjusted explicitly via the Orientation settings dialog box. More commonly, though, higher level operations may be used to zoom or pan.

Zoom cursor mode

When in the zoom cursor mode:

Dragging a rectangle

  • Zooms and pans the rectangle to fill the Graphic window.
  • This is only exact when the aspect ratios of the rectangle and window are identical. Otherwise the scale is such that at least all of the rectangle remains visible.

Click

  • Pans and zooms in. The image is panned and the point clicked on is the mid-point of the view.
  • The structure scale is multiplied by the zoom factor, see: Graphics preferences.

Ctrl+Click

  • Pans and zooms out. The image is panned and the point clicked on is the mid-point of the view.
  • The structure scale is multiplied by 1 / zoom factor, see: Graphics Preferences.

Shft+Click

  • Pans. The image is panned and the point clicked on is the mid-point of the view.

Rotate cursor mode

Ctrl+Drag

  • Zooms up / down and in / out.
  • Sensitivity is governed by the zoom increment mouse sensitivity Graphics preferences.

Shft+Drag

  • Pans the image.
  • Sensitivity is governed by the pan increment mouse sensitivity Graphics preferences.

Intellimouse wheel: In any cursor mode

Rolling the mouse wheel

  • Moves forwards / backwards and zooms in / out. Each notch on the mouse wheel is equivalent to one Zoom In or Zoom Out command.
  • When rolling the mouse wheel while the cursor is over the Graphic view then the zoom is pinned at the cursor position.

Drag with the mouse wheel

  • Or middle button held down pans the image. The sensitivity is as for Shift+Drag, under dragging above.

Ctrl+Drag with the mouse wheel

  • Or middle button held down operates as Ctrl+Drag in the rotate cursor mode.

The following commands (and their associated accelerator keys) are available from the Graphics > Orientation and allow zooming and panning.

  • Zoom in (Ctrl+Up): Multiplies the structure scale by (zoom factor), see: Graphics preferences.
  • Zoom out (Ctrl+Dn): Multiplies the structure scale by (1 / zoom factor).
  • Reset pan (Shift+Home): Sets the mid-point to (0, 0, 0).
  • Pan right (Shift+Rt): Adjusts the mid-point to result in the picture shifting left by 1⁄16 of the picture width.
  • Pan left (Shift+Lft): Adjusts the mid-point to result in the picture shifting right by 1⁄16 of the picture width.
  • Pan up (Shift+Up): Adjusts the mid-point to result in the picture shifting down by 1⁄16 of the picture height.
  • Pan down (Shift+Down): Adjusts the mid-point to result in the picture shifting up by 1⁄16 of the picture height.

Note that scaling to fit effectively resets any zooming and panning.

These operations do not affect the object point so, for example, rotations that occur after a zoom or pan may not have the desired affect unless the object point is adjusted.