The camera position, orientation, and zoom factor combine to define the view of an object in the viewport. Your view of the assembly, as well as each of your parts, is positioned relative to a default Cartesian coordinate system, and the orientation of this default coordinate system within a viewport is indicated by the view triad. By default, an isometric view is used when a module first displays a three-dimensional part or assembly.
You can manipulate the view using the pan, rotate, magnify, box zoom, and auto-fit tools on the View Manipulation toolbar to control the relative positions of the camera, the camera target, and the model or results that you are viewing. For example, you might want to pan and zoom a contour plot to view an area of stress concentration. The view manipulation tools allow you to perform the following operations:
Move the view horizontally and vertically; that is, pan the view.
Rotate the view.
Magnify or reduce the view.
Zoom in to a selected area of the view.
Rescale the view to fill the viewport; that is, auto-fit the view.
Cycle through previous views.
You can click mouse button 3 to access the following view manipulation tools:
Set As Rotation Center: Set the center of rotation at the position of the mouse click, which can be at any location in the viewport.
Use Default Rotation Center: Clear a previously set center of rotation.
Center View: Center the view at the position of the mouse click.
When an X–Y plot is displayed in the viewport, you can use the view manipulation tools to change the view of the X–Y curves. Because X–Y plots are two-dimensional, the rotate tool is disabled when the current viewport displays an X–Y plot.
Clicking a view manipulation tool puts you into the corresponding view manipulation mode. You then manipulate the view in a particular viewport by moving the cursor to that viewport and dragging or clicking as necessary. In addition, the pan, rotate, and magnify tools have alternate modes that you can access by holding the [Shift] key in conjunction with the normal use of these tools. The alternate modes of these tools are intended for use in the movie camera mode, but they can also be used in the default mode. For more information about camera terminology and the view modes, see “Understanding camera modes and view options,” Section 5.1. To exit a view manipulation mode, do one of the following:
Click mouse button 2.
Click the cancel button 
in the prompt area.
Click the view manipulation tool again.
Click any other view manipulation tool.
You can use the view manipulation tools as many times as necessary to reach the desired view, and you can perform the view manipulation in any viewport, regardless of what is being displayed. Abaqus/CAE stores the eight most recent views from each viewport, and you can use the cycle view manipulation tool to cycle backward and forward through these views.
When you use the move, rotate, magnify, zoom, or rescale tools in a viewport that is linked to other viewports, Abaqus/CAE manipulates the view of objects in the linked viewports as well. For more information, see “Linking viewports for view manipulation,” Section 4.6.
By default, Abaqus/CAE displays the image using the current render style (wireframe, filled, hidden line, or shaded) while you manipulate the view of an object. Alternatively, you can change the Drag mode in the Graphics Options dialog box to display the image as a simple wireframe while you manipulate the view; this mode allows faster manipulation of very large models in the shaded render style. The view reverts to the original render style when you complete a manipulation.
If you prefer to use menus rather than the tools on the View Manipulation toolbar, you can access all of the view manipulation tools through the View menu on the main menu bar. In addition, you can apply predefined and user-defined views using the Views toolbar, and you can numerically specify a precise view using the dialog box that appears when you select View
Specify from the main menu bar. For more information on custom and numerically specified views, see “Custom views,” Section 5.2.8, and “Numerically specifying a view,” Section 5.2.9, respectively.
Alternatively, you can enter three of the view manipulation modes by using a combination of keyboard and mouse actions.
To rotate the view, press [Ctrl] + [Alt], and hold down mouse button 1.
To pan the view, press [Ctrl] + [Alt], and hold down mouse button 2.
To magnify or reduce the view, press [Ctrl] + [Alt], and hold down mouse button 3.
You can reconfigure these keyboard and mouse combinations to mimic the view manipulation interfaces used by five other common CAD applications by selecting ToolsOptions from the main menu bar. See “Using view manipulation shortcuts,” Section 68.2, for more information.
