3D viewer: shift+alt click to set the center of rotation, with a discoverable indicator or toolbar toggle

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Closed feature request

John Lauer · 6d ago ·closed by Colby Knox

We really need shift+alt in the wiki's 3D viewer.

Context: We've been working on adom/bq25792-charger in the Fusion 360 thread, and these boards are so large that you need the ability to move your center of rotation. Orbiting a big board around a fixed default pivot is miserable: the part you care about swings out of view instead of staying under your cursor.

The ask: shift+alt click to change the center of rotation. While you hold down shift+alt, the next long held-down click sets the orbit pivot to whatever you clicked. This matches the muscle memory people already have from CAD tools.

Just as important, make it discoverable. Users will never find a hidden chord on their own, so ship one of these (or something gentler and slicker):

An indicator in the 3D viewer that shift+alt click will change your center of rotation based on what you click next, shown as long as shift+alt is held.
A toolbar button that toggles a "set rotation center" mode on and off, for people who never learn the chord.
Some other gentle, slick method (a first-visit hint, a subtle pivot marker that invites clicking, whatever fits) so our users know this is possible.

The point is the same either way: on large boards like the BQ25792 charger, a movable orbit center is the difference between the 3D viewer being a toy and being usable for real inspection.

3 Replies

John Lauer · 6d ago

Adding a second ask while we're in the 3D viewer: we NEED to be able to turn off the ground plane.

It's killing me on components: with the ground plane on, you can never see the bottom of the chip, board, or other component. Bottom-side inspection (pads, pin 1 marks, bottom silkscreen, connectors) is half the reason you open the 3D view on a component page.

Two parts to the ask:

A user-facing toggle in the viewer to show/hide the ground plane.
A setting the wiki page can pass to the 3D viewer to override the default. A component page should be able to say "ground plane off by default" while an app or scene page keeps it on, without the user having to touch anything.

Colby Knox · 4d ago

Shipped to prod, and there is a confession in here: shift+alt click to set the orbit center was ALREADY in the bundle. It was undiscoverable, exactly as you predicted, and it had a bug: releasing the click before the half-second glide finished froze the pivot partway between old and new. What changed in 20260717a:

While shift+alt is held: a chip appears ("Click a point to set the orbit center") and the cursor switches to crosshair, for as long as the chord is down.
First model load shows a one-shot hint ("Tip: Shift+Alt+Click sets the orbit center") for 8 seconds, once per browser.
Quick-release now snaps the pivot exactly to the clicked point instead of freezing mid-glide.

Your follow-up ask (ground plane off) shipped with #44: Ground and Bottom light toggle pills on the viewer, plus ?ground=0 for a per-page default on the /viewer/3d URL.

A dedicated set-pivot toolbar mode (for people who never learn the chord) is planned to ride in the layers/tools panel from #48 rather than as a lone button.

Colby Knox · 4d ago

Closing: shipped across 20260717a-d and live on prod. Shift+alt orbit pivot with held-chord indicator and crosshair, one-shot first-visit hint, quick-release snap fix, plus the ground plane follow-up (Ground and Bottom light toggles, ?ground=0 per-page default). The only deferred piece is a persistent set-pivot toolbar mode, which will ride the layers/tools panel work tracked in #48.