29.5.2 Controlling Perspective and Camera Parameters

Perspective and other camera parameters are defined in the Camera Parameters dialog box, which you can open by clicking on the Camera... button in the Views dialog box (Figure  29.5.1).

Graphics and Animations Views...

Perspective and Orthographic Views

You may choose to display either an orthographic view or a perspective view of your graphics. To show a perspective view (the default), select Perspective in the Projection drop-down list in the Camera Parameters dialog box (Figure  29.5.2). To turn off perspective, select Orthographic in the Projection drop-down list.

Modifying Camera Parameters

Instead of translating, rotating, and zooming the display as described in Section  29.5.1, you may sometimes want to modify the "camera'' through which you are viewing the graphics display.

The camera is defined by four parameters: position, target, up vector, and field, as illustrated in Figure  29.5.5. "Position'' is the camera's location. "Target'' is the location of the point the camera is looking at, and "up vector'' indicates to the camera which way is up. "Field'' indicates the field of view (width and height) of the display.

Figure 29.5.5: Camera Definition

To modify the camera's position, select Position in the Camera drop-down list and specify the X, Y, and Z coordinates of the desired point. To modify the target location, select Target in the Camera drop-down list and specify the coordinates of the desired point. Select Up Vector to change the up direction. The up vector is the vector from (0,0,0) to the specified ( X,Y,Z) point. Finally, to change the field of view, select Field in the Camera list and enter the X (horizontal) and Y (vertical) field distances.

Click Apply after you change each camera parameter ( Position, Target, Up Vector, and Field).