Viewport controls

The 3D viewport fills the center of the embed viewer. Sidebar cards and the top HUD control what you see; mouse and keyboard control how you navigate.

Mouse navigation

Action Control
Orbit Left-drag
Pan Right-drag or middle-drag
Zoom Scroll wheel or pinch (trackpad)

Navigation is always available unless a tool (extract rubber band, clip gizmo drag) captures the pointer.

Top HUD menus

Menus sit along the top of the viewport:

Align model

  • Align model along X/Y/Z-axis — Snap to axis-aligned views
  • Rotate clockwise / counter-clockwise — Roll the camera around the view axis
  • Fit model to canvas — Frame the active mesh
  • Zoom to box — Zoom to a rubber-band region (when that tool is active)
  • Display style — Points, wireframe, surface, surface with edges

Legend color map

  • Rescale legend to data range — Fit the color bar to the field min/max
  • Rescale legend to custom — Set your own min/max
  • Change number of legend colors — Adjust discrete color steps
  • Change colormap — Pick a preset colormap for the active scalar field

Tools

  • Point probe — Click to read field value at a point
  • Cell probe — Click to read cell-centered value
  • Extract cells — Rubber-band select, then extract on server
  • Extract points — Same flow for point extraction

Extract and probe require a loaded session. Extract needs volumetric source data.

Time controls

Visible when the dataset has multiple time steps:

  • Step backward / forward
  • Play / pause animation
  • Scrub the time index

Active clip or warp across time may trigger a one-time Building animation… bake on the server.

Sidebar: Viewport card

Section Controls
Appearance Theme (dark/light), Background color and presets (including Gray #606366)
Display Grid, Bounds overlays
Lighting Preset (Studio, Studio IBL, Ambient, Dome), Debug material
Image quality Anti-aliasing (Off, FXAA, SMAA), Selection outline
Depth & tone Shadows, Exposure
Camera Projection, Zoom to cursor, Field of view, Reset view

These are client-side only — no server round trip.

Sidebar: Rendering card

Control Effect
Scalar Field Color by point or cell array
Opacity Mesh transparency
Display style Overlaps with HUD align menu

Colormap changes are instant in the browser.

Clip gizmo

When Show clip plane in viewport is enabled in Filter properties:

  • A plane handle appears in the 3D view
  • Drag to move the clip plane
  • Release to send a compile request to mesh-api

Keyboard

Keyboard shortcuts are minimal by default; most actions use the HUD and sidebar. Focus must be on the viewer canvas for navigation drags.

Performance

  • Large meshes stream as surface geometry — orbit should stay smooth after load.
  • Transparency and dense wireframe cost more GPU — switch display style if frame rate drops.
  • Probes sample cached field data; they do not recompile the mesh.

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