A Few Necessary Skills: Navigation and Part Visibility

Let's start with some essential techniques...

  1. To open up some additional screen space, collapse the Output bar by clicking the Output Bar button:

    output bar

    output bar collapsed

    Note: There are three basic ways to navigate (move) the model: rotate, zoom, and pan.
  2. To rotate the model, press Shift and the middle mouse button, and move the mouse:

    rotate

  3. To zoom, roll the scroll wheel:

    zoom

  4. To pan (move), hold the middle mouse button, and move the mouse:

    pan

    Note: In several steps in this tutorial, we hide an exterior part to access an internal part.
  5. To see the internal components, hide the casing part and then the air part. To do this, position the curser over each, press Ctrl and the middle mouse button:

    Hide casing:

    hide casing

    Hide air:

    hide air

    An alternative way to hide parts is to left click on the part, and click the Hide icon from the context toolbar:

    hide electronics toolbar

    Now we can see the chips, boards, fan, and other components!

    components

  6. To show all the parts, press Ctrl and middle click off the model in the graphics window:

    show all mouse

    An alternative way to show all parts is to left click off the model, and click the Show All icon from the toolbar:

    show all lmb

    show all

Make sense? In the next steps, we rotate, pan, and zoom the model and hide parts. It's a good idea to get familiar with these useful techniques.

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