Front, Plan and Side Views

These views correspond to a projection of a block within the scene onto three orthogonal planes. The position of the block can be varied by means of the scrollbars located between the views. Each scrollbar affects two of the views, and the depth scrollbar of the plan view is coupled to the depth scrollbar on the side view. The scrollbar limits are automatically extended as objects within the scene are moved, so that any part of an object can be seen in all three views.

The components of the scene are represented by icons in these views as follows:

**Description of Icons used to Represent Objects of Different Types**
Component	Description of Icon	Color when not Selected	Color when Selected
STD_CAMERA	Solid triangle in Plan and Side views only	blue	red edge with handles
Spotlight	Unfilled triangle in Plan and Side views only	yellow	red edge with handles
PointLight	Unfilled radiating star	orange	red
Cuboid/Cylinder/Cone	Unfilled rectangle	black	red edge with handles
Ellipsoid	Unfilled ellipse	black	red edge with handles
Freehand	Unfilled rectangle containing a network of polygons	black	rectangle has red edge and handles; network of polygons is also shown in red

The left and right mouse buttons (not the middle) are used for editing. The identity of these switches if you configure your computer for left- or right-handed operation. For this reason, the mouse buttons are always referred to as M1 and M3, which are mapped as follows:

	Right-handed Operation (normally the default)	Left-handed Operation
M1	left-mouse button	right-mouse button
M3	right-mouse button	left-mouse button

The operations performed by M1 differs according to the selected mode, as described by the following table:

**Behavior of the M1 mouse button (left-mouse by default)**
Mouse Operation		Editing Mode
Modifiers	Location of Pointer	Select	Zoom	Create	Model
M1	background	Rubber-band selection. Dragging the mouse extends a rectangle, and on release, all fully enclosed items are added to the selection.	Zoom in	Create an item of type defined by the current mode, and re-size by dragging the mouse.	There must be only one Freehand object selected. In this case, a Freehand modelling tool is defined.
shift-M1	background	Rubber-band selection. Dragging the mouse extends a rectangle, and on release, all fully enclosed items are subtracted from the selection.	Zoom out
M1	item	Deselect all items and then select this item alone.
M1	handle	Adjust the dimensions of the object by dragging the mouse. This depends on the type of object. Pointlights have no handles. The handles on Cuboids, Cylinders, Cones and Freehand objects adjust the dimensions while keeping the shape of the object, or the envelope of the object as a Cuboid. For Spotlights and StdCamera, the handles work differently as described in Handles of the Spotlight and STD_CAMERA
M1	rotation centre	Move all centres of rotation located at the pointer location.
M1	modelling handle	Move the modelling handle

The operations performed by M3 are independent of the mode, as described by the following table:

**Behavior of the M3 mouse button (right-mouse by default)**
Mouse Operation		Behavior
Modifiers	Location of Pointer
M3	item	Toggle the selection of the item - select it if deselected; deselect it if selected.
	background	Drag selected objects with the mouse
shift-M3	item	Copy selected objects found in any MultiView window except this one, to this one. See Copying Components
	background
M3	Handle on Cuboid, Cylinder or Cone or Freehand	Rotate the objects by dragging the handle with the mouse
	Handle on Ellipsoid, StdCamera, Spotlight or Pointlight	Drag selected objects with the mouse

Whenever an item is modified in one view, the other views are updated in sympathy so that they always remain consistent.

Copying Components

It is possible to copy components between MultiViews. Select them in one MultiView, and then (in Select mode), use Shift-M3 in another MultiView to copy them. Notes:

Components are never copied within a MultiView. If you wish to do this, create a MultiView (with "New Picture") as a scratch-pad, copy the items to there, and then copy them back.
Components are copied to the same position.
Shaders are copied as necessary. If multiple components that use a single shader are copied in one operation, only one copy of the shader will be made in the destination MultiView. If copied on separate operations, the shader will be duplicated. Use the "Assign" Button to consolidate them if necessary.

Handles of the Spotlight and STD_CAMERA

The icons for both of these objects are triangular. When selected, a handle is added to each vertex, and an additional fourth handle at the mid-point of one of the sides. The object is located at the vertex opposite the side with this extra handle at its mid-point. The only significant parameters of a spotlight or a camera is its location, direction and divergence (which is the width of the beam in the case of the spotlight, and the focal length in the case of the camera). Thus the location of the vertex representing the object is significant, as is the direction in which the object points, which is directly towards the fourth handle, but the distance to that fourth handle is not important and can be set to any convenient distance. Similarly, only the angle of the sides leading from the vertex representing the object is significant, and therefore the other the two vertices are constrained to maintain symmetry about the line of sight of the object, and to lie on a line passing through the fourth handle and perpendicular to the line of sight.

Thus the behavior on dragging the handles differs from that of dragging handles on the cuboid and ellipsoid objects. The handle at the vertex representing the object, and the handle at the point at which the object points allow the object to be rotated about the other such handle. The other two handles are linked and can be moved in one direction only; at right angles to the line of sight of the object.

The icons of the objects in the Plan and Side views remain in sympathy. For STD_CAMERA, this means that the ratio of the divergence in these two views remains equal to the aspect ratio of the perspective view. For a spotlight, this means that the ratio of the divergence remains at unity.

Freehand Objects

Freehand objects are arbitrary shapes that can be modelled. See Editing Freehand objects.