NX10 Zoom direction 1

[Toost]

John,
I'm playing around with the NX10 Beta release. ( 10.0.0.13)
I note that the "zoom direction" is reversed.( I know that it can be changed back to the pre-NX10 direction.) It would be interesting to hear the story why this change.
( I'm not saying that one direction is more logical than the other, only curious why we change such a minor but established option.)


Regards,
Tomas

 

[jerry1423]

I think that NX and AutoCad have always been reversed as far as this zoom thing goes, maybe this switch is to bring it in-line with the other CAD systems.

 

[markrief]

A reminder - I believe your agreement prohibits you from commenting on beta software in a public forum, so you may not want to make any specific observations.

However, on the general topic of mouse wheel zoom direction, the world is split. In the past, the most common behavior has been that in 2D applications the wheel moves YOU, and in 3D applications, the wheel moves the OBJECT. But of course, all applications can do what they want.

We know that users who use multiple apps with different behaviors want to set them all the same, so in NX, there is a customer default to reverse the zoom direction.

The reason for changing the OOTB default in NX is to move towards consistent behavior in all the Siemens PLM products. Of course this will take some time, as we have many products with different interfaces and release schedules.

BTW my observation in testing is that when the wheel is the opposite of what the user expected, they quicky adjust and go on. So as you say, this is well established, but minor.

Mark Rief
NX CAM Customer Success
Siemens PLM Software

 

[Toost]

Thanks for the reminder. I will keep quiet from now.

Consistency is a good reason.

Regards,
Tomas

 

[JohnRBaker]

The most 'critical' reason for the change was that even among Siemens PLM Software products the zoom-behavior of the mouse wheel was inconsistent and so for the next release of NX the new out-of-the-box default will be that when you roll the mouse wheel forward the you will Zoom-in and when you roll the wheel back you will Zoom-out, which is the opposite of what the default behavior was in the past. And as noted, there is a Customer Default to change this behavior (in NX 9.0 and older versions, there was an unpublished environment variable which controled this). Note that this will also effect the behavior when using the mouse gestures of 'Ctrl+MB2' and 'MB2+MB3' for zooming, but it will have no impact whatsoever on the Spaceball behavior.

Now as for WHY we choose the PARTICULAR scheme that we did...well there were only TWO choices but there were several reasons why.

First, in reality, when Zooming with NX, or for that matter with most any CAD system, you are NOT moving the object closer or further away. No, the model on the screen is NOT moving, but rather it's YOU, the observer, who is moving, so the new behavior matches that concept, rolling the wheel forward is moving the observer CLOSER to the model, thus you're zooming-in. Rolling it back is telling the system that the observer is moving AWAY from the model, thus you're zooming-out. The paradigm used with a Spaceball is as if you were HOLDING the model in your hand and therefore we had no problem with that since to do anything other than simulate that situation would be counterintuitive. In fact, even in the current and next version of NX Panning and Rotating has not changed whether you're using the mouse or the Spaceball, ONLY zooming has changed. And the other reason for selecting the OOTB default behavior was becausw now NX will behave like most other non-Siemens PLM products, including such icons as 'Google Earth' and 'MapQuest'.

And Mark is right, once you start, it'll take maybe all of 5 minutes before you'll forget all about the fact that it's changed.

Anyway, I hope that helps explain what's happening and why.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Toost]

Thanks for the explanation,
I' probably a bit slow... I had for some unknown reason no problem to adapt to this new scheme in modeling, but in drafting i got a brain meltdown....
I find myself , instead of panning drawings, zooming out from one area and zooming in on the next, and this is when my brain stopped working.
( Btw, when one has to use applications where zooming doesn't zoom the mouse's position but centered screen... - terrible!)

But, as said , a couple of minutes more practice , and maybe earlier in the day

Regards,
Tomas

 

[JohnRBaker]

Btw, when one has to use applications where zooming doesn't zoom the mouse's position but centered screen... - terrible!

Are you saying that there's places in NX, or any other Siemens PLM products for that matter which supports mouse-wheel zooming, where this happening, that is NOT Using the cursor location for the 'center' of the zoom? If so, please let us know.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[Toost]

Maybe i have old versions ,
The Solid Edge Viewer, ST6 is a "center zoom" when dragging up/down ( at least on jt files.)
The Teamcenter Vis mockup 8.3 is a "center zoom".
The Integrated viewer ( we have) in teamcenter 8.3.2, probably the same version as above, - "Center zoom".
JT2Go 8.3.2 is a "center zoom".

No, not NX.

Regards,
Tomas

 

[JohnRBaker]

Well, if you go back far enough, even UG/NX suffered once from the 'zoom_from_the_center-of-the-screen' syndrome.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[frankbe]

Hi Tomas,

I found this but I didn't try it myself yet:
If you're running multiple versions and you see different behavior between versions, you might want to set this variable in a startup script file instead of in the general windows environment variables' list.

Symptom
---------------
Some users wish to reverse the zoom behavior of the mouse wheel to be similar
to the behavior in other CAD software.

Hardware/Software Configuration
All Supported
Windows
NX4 and higher

Solution
This can be accomplished by setting an Environment Variable in the Windows
Control Panel.

The variable name is UGII_MOUSE_WHEEL.

The usable values for UGII_MOUSE_WHEEL are:

Undefined - Same as UGII_MOUSE_WHEEL=1.

0 - Disables the mouse wheel in the graphics window. Does not affect its
behavior elsewhere in NX or in other applications.

1 - To zoom in, scroll the mouse wheel toward you; To zoom out, scroll away
from you. The default.

2 - To zoom in, scroll the mouse wheel away from you; To zoom out, scroll
toward you.


I hope it helps,
Greetings,
Frank

2x NX8.5.3.3 and NX9.0.1.3 Mach Design
on win7 64bit
NX Beta Tester
1x Solid Edge ST2

 

[schellenbergj]

I hope this is not the biggest change in NX10
We are hoping for a real good release...

 

[Toost]

Frank, this is not an issue for me.
NX10 zoom is "reversed" compared to earlier versions but has a new customer default option to reverse- back that one can set if desired.
I was only curios about the reason for the change since there is no "standard" on what is correct scroll / drag direction.

Regards,
Tomas