The components of the scene are represented by icons in these views
as follows:
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 |
The operations performed by the mouse buttons differ according to the
selected mode, as described by the following table:
Mouse Position | Action of mouse button M1 | Action of mouse button M3 | ||
Select mode | Other mode | Select mode | Other mode | |
Background. | Rubber-band selection. Dragging the mouse extends a rectangle, and on release, all fully enclosed items are added to the selection. | Create an item of type defined by the current mode, and re-size by dragging the mouse. | Drag selected items with the mouse. | |
Selected item. | Deselect all items and then select this item alone. | Deselect this item. | Drag selected items with the mouse. | |
Unselected item. | Select this item, leaving any items already selected in the selection. | |||
Handle on Cuboid, Cylinder or Cone. | Adjust the dimensions of the object by dragging the mouse. | Rotate items by dragging the handle with the mouse. | ||
Handle on Ellipsoid. | Drag selected items with the mouse. | |||
Handle on StdCamera or Spotlight at the object. | Adjust the position and orientation of the object by dragging the mouse. | |||
Handle on StdCamera or Spotlight opposite the object. | Adjust the orientation and icon size by dragging the mouse - although the icon becomes larger, this has no effect on the rendered image. | |||
Handle on StdCamera or Spotlight at one of the other vertices. | Adjust the divergence (opening for SpotLights, focal for StdCamera) by dragging the mouse. |
Whenever an item is modified in one view, the other views are updated
in sympathy so that they always remain consistent.
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.