The 3D View

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At the heart of L3DD is the 3D View that you see when L3DD is first run. The initial screen is always a pastel-blue house on a dark-blue background. The simplicity of this scene reflects L3DD’s philosophy of being as easy as possible for the user to learn, yet with tremendous responsiveness and power on tap. The steep learning curve of most CAD programs is in stark contrast.

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To invoke the 3D View when in the Plan View or Data View, just click on the 3D View button in the Standard Toolbar.

The Show Keys button, at the top of the 3D Edit Toolbar down the left side of the screen, displays information on the special keys used in the 3D View.

L3DD’s 3D screen view can be thought of as a video-camera view of a 3D object that users manipulate in front of them. The user can smoothly rotate the object and move it up and down, left and right or closer of further away. The ease and rapidity with which this can be done obviates all need for multiple views and cramped screen space. Most business is done in the perspective view.

If traditional elevations and plans are required, Orthographic Projection can be used with the standard orientations (top, front, left, etc.). In addition, Wireframe Mode can be used for for a skeletal line-frame representation of the project. This is sometimes useful for better visualization of complex interior detail.

An important command to remember in the 3D view is the Center Object command. If you are presented with an empty dark blue screen, or are lost inside an object, use this command to center the current object in the middle of the screen and at an average distance from the user.

In the 3D View a single click of the right mouse button invokes one of four available Context Menus with some of the more commonly used commenads.

The 3D View has five special editing modes described in the section on Special Cursorss

There are two sources of light in the 3D view, the main one being behind the users left shoulder and a less bright one to the object’s right rear. This combination is suitable for most objects. From empirical observation, the combination of a dark-blue background and a pale blue object with surface sheen appears to be optimal for 3D visualization. You can change this color scheme by resetting the object and background colors in the Décor Menu.