Viewport controls
The 3D view fills the center. The sidebar and the menus along the top decide what you see. The mouse and the axis widget decide how you move.
Mouse
Navigation follows the trackball used in VTK and ParaView, for both WebGL and WebGPU:
| Action | Control |
|---|---|
| Rotate | Left-drag |
| Pan | Middle-drag (click the wheel) |
| Zoom | Scroll wheel, pinch, or right-drag |
Zoom to cursor (Viewport → Camera) keeps scroll zoom centered on the pointer.
Trackball rings are optional colored circles at the orbit center. They are off until you turn them on under Viewport → Camera.
Dragging the model pauses while a tool has the pointer, such as the extract rectangle or the clip plane. Clicks on the Axis widget at the bottom left (±X, ±Y, ±Z) turn the view to that axis. They do not start a rotate.
Fit the model
Fit model to canvas (Align model) places the orbit center on the selected mesh and scales the view so the mesh fits, keeping your current angle while the mesh is still on screen. If you have zoomed past it, or it has left the view, fit aims at the mesh so it comes back.
Menus along the top
Align model
- Rotate clockwise / counter-clockwise — roll the camera around the direction you are looking
- Fit model to canvas — frame the selected mesh
- Zoom to box — zoom to a rectangle, when that tool is on
- Display style — points, wireframe, surface, or surface with edges
VTK dataset info (ℹ️)
The ℹ️ button, beside those menus, opens dataset information for the selected scene-tree row: source, clip, warp, or an extract.
The panel includes:
- Point and cell counts, bounds, and dataset type
- Point and cell fields — name, number of components, and how many values
- A breakdown of cell types
- The current frame and time, when the dataset has time steps
- Labels for Transient, Deforming, and a result such as Clip, Warp, or extract
It needs a volume on the server. On the cloud preview, dataset info is part of the full tool set on on-prem, together with Open, Filters, and Python session. Hosted cloud gains it after feedback from that use. See Cloud connection.
Legend
- Rescale legend to data range — fit the color bar to the field’s minimum and maximum
- Rescale legend to custom — set your own minimum and maximum
- Change number of legend colors — how many color steps. The default is 256. Fewer steps give a banded look
- Change colormap — a preset for the active scalar field
Tools
- Point probe — click to read the field at a point
- Cell probe — click to read a cell value
- Extract cells — draw a region, then keep those cells on the server
- Extract points — the same, for points
Probes and extract need something loaded. Extract needs a volume.
Time controls
Shown when there is more than one time step:
- Step backward and forward
- Play and pause
- Scrub the time index
- ? — opens Time animation
With a clip or warp in the scene tree, Play may show Building animation… once, while every step is prepared. That is separate from Applying warp filter when you scrub a single frame. See Time animation.
Viewport card
These change the picture only. They do not call the server.
| Section | What you can set |
|---|---|
| Appearance | Theme (dark or light), Background color and presets, including Gray #606366 |
| Display | Grid, Bounds, Axis (bottom left; click ±X, ±Y, or ±Z to turn to that view) |
| Lighting | Preset and Debug material |
| Image quality | Anti-aliasing and Selection outline |
| Depth & tone | Shadows and Exposure |
| Camera | Projection, Zoom to cursor, Trackball rings, Field of view, Reset view |
Lighting presets change the shading. Studio is the everyday key light. Studio IBL adds image-based lighting. Ambient is flatter, with little directional light. Dome wraps the model in a broader surrounding light.
Debug material changes the surface itself:
| Option | What you see |
|---|---|
| Standard PBR | The normal shaded surface |
| Basic unlit | Color without lighting, useful when you want the field color alone |
| Normal diagnostic | Color by the direction the surface faces, to check the shape |
Anti-aliasing smooths jagged edges. Off leaves them raw. FXAA is a fast smooth. SMAA is a higher-quality smooth. Selection outline draws an outline on the selected mesh.
When the Viewport card shows Renderer, WebGL is the default on every visit and WebGPU is the newer graphics path. Lighting, edges, and points can look slightly different after a switch. Playback pauses while the view rebuilds. See WebGL & WebGPU. That topic appears in the help list only when Scenaven has enabled WebGPU for your viewer.
Rendering card
| Control | Effect |
|---|---|
| Scalar Field | Color by a point or cell array, or use a solid color |
| Opacity | How transparent the mesh is |
| Display style | The same styles as Align model |
Colormap and opacity update immediately in the browser.
Clip plane
When Show clip plane in viewport is on in Filter properties:
- A plane appears in the view
- Drag it to move the cut
- Release, and the server rebuilds the clipped surface
Keyboard
Most actions are in the menus and the sidebar. Drag navigation applies when the pointer is on the view.
If the view feels slow
- After the surface has loaded, orbit should stay smooth. The full volume stays on the server.
- Transparency and a dense wireframe cost more. Switch display style if the frame rate drops.
- Probes read field values already loaded. They do not rebuild the mesh.