Work in a 3D View

When working in a 3D orthographic or perspective view, you can add and modify building elements to develop and refine the design.

You can add and modify most types of elements in 3D views. Some elements are not supported, such as those that are not normally visible in 3D views: grids, levels, reference planes, rooms, areas, and so on. When working in a 3D view, check the ribbon tabs. Disabled tools display as gray in the ribbon.

In a perspective view, you cannot add annotations or make changes to the project coordinates or position.

Note: Some types of modeling in 3D views is available only to students and to Autodesk subscribers.

Video: Working in a Perspective View

Modify the 3D View

The following table describes some common ways to modify the 3D view.

If you want to...	Then...
change the field of view	display and select the crop region, and do one of the following: drag the grips on the crop region boundaries click Modify | Cameras tabCrop panel (Size Crop)
restore the position of the camera target to the center of the crop region	display and select the crop region, and use the Reset Target tool: Modify | Cameras tabCamera panel (Reset Target) During modification of the camera position and crop region, the camera target may move off center or outside of the field of view. This tool resets the target to restore the perspective view. Note: This tool is available in the perspective view only.
toggle to the parallel 3D view from the perspective view	on the ViewCube menu, click Toggle to Parallel-3D View.
toggle to the perspective view from the parallel 3D view	on the ViewCube menu, click Toggle to Perspective-3D View. Note that differences in the functionality of the parallel and perspective 3D views result in the following behaviors: If you add elements to the parallel view that are not supported by a perspective view (such as annotations), and select to toggle to the perspective view, a dialog displays. You have the option of duplicating the view without the non-supported elements and opening the duplicate view in perspective. The Toggle to Perspective-3D View option is only available from the parallel view if the Crop Region Visible property is selected for the view. Some modes are not supported in the perspective view. For example, if you are in Reveal Constraints mode in the parallel view, this mode is automatically closed when switching to perspective. Changes made to the View Scale in the parallel view are reset when switching back to perspective.