Web viewer pointer controls

These controls apply to the first-party web viewer, with one model or a federation of models.

Gesture	Action
Left drag	Orbit, except when the active tool claims the drag
Shift + left drag	Pan in every tool, including Measure
Middle drag	Pan in every tool
Right drag	Fly mode: look around while the button is held; use WASD and Q/E to move, and the wheel to change fly speed
Wheel without right drag	Zoom

The Select tool uses Ctrl/⌘ + left drag for rectangle selection. In the Measure tool, plain left drag starts a drag measurement; Alt + left drag orbits instead. In polyline, angle, and radius measurement modes, a left drag orbits and clicks place points. Shift + left drag always pans, even when a measurement is active.

In the Model workspace, plain left movement and dragging update the active command preview without moving the camera. Placement commands commit on click; polygon placement still closes on double-click. Room shape editing grabs a corner on press, previews its movement, and commits on release as one Undo/Redo operation. A lost capture, focus loss, or command change cancels the owned room drag. A captured drag can finish outside the canvas. Shift + left, middle, and right-button navigation keep the controls above.

While you orbit, a small accent marker shows the fixed point the camera is rotating around. The marker follows that point on screen and fades when you release the pointer. Panning does not show a pivot marker.

An embed with camera controls disabled does not fly or navigate. Right-button fly is the viewer's established behavior (#4868); it takes priority over the ordinary right-button pan mapping used when fly is unavailable.

Navigation presets

Choose a preset in Settings → Display → Navigation. The choice is saved in this browser and applies to every loaded model.

Preset	Pointer difference	Wheel or trackpad
Default	The mapping above	Vertical wheel movement zooms; horizontal movement pans
Navisworks-like	Shift + middle drag orbits; middle drag pans	Wheel zooms
Trackpad	The default pointer mapping	Two-finger scroll pans in both directions; pinch or Ctrl + wheel zooms

Right-button fly remains available in every preset when camera controls are enabled. Shift + left drag pans in every preset and tool.

Alignment sections

Open Section → Alignment, select the model and its IfcAlignment, then change Horizontal distance from start to move the cut along that axis. The cut follows the evaluated 3D tangent, including grade and curvature. Distance is geometric horizontal metres from the physical start; it is neither authored chainage nor 3D arc length. Approximate supported curves are labelled. Unresolvable units, invalid placements and unsupported curves report an error instead of substituting a straight line.

The plane uses the selected model's frame and workspace placement. Moving that model updates the cut; pending IFC edits rebuild the selected evaluator. Removing the owner disables its bound cut. Closing the tool releases its worker and detaches the cut into an ordinary custom plane. Select the alignment again to resume station control.

Dragging the plane handle makes it an ordinary custom cut and detaches it from the alignment. Choose Alignment and select the axis again to resume station control. Flip, cut visibility, cap style, cardinal cuts, face picks and section boxes retain their ordinary behavior.

Acceptance was exercised in the production viewer with the original OIP 2017 844_terrain_and_alignment.ifc fixture (IfcAlignment #39). The distance field moved its section through 0, 10 and 20 m; flipping the cut remained active at 20 m. An independent circular-arc calculation using the authored radius and start heading matched the displayed horizontal station coordinates within 0.000001 m. The viewer screenshot records the rotated cut and active controls; this check uses an original authoring-tool model, not a fabricated screenshot.

Finding a panel

The right-hand activity rail and Analyze → Browse panels in the ribbon use the same task groups. A panel can be opened from either place. Customize mode can hide or reorder rail icons; Browse panels still lists every available panel.

Group	Use it for
Coordinate	Model hierarchy, properties, sources, zones, and placement
Check	Topics, validation, clashes, changes, and model comparison
Quantify	Measurements, lists, charts, costs, and schedules
Automate	Scripts, flows, and extensions
Site	Point clouds, appearance, environment, drawings, and presentations

The Point Clouds panel remains available before a scan loads; it explains what to load. The Session panel appears only when collaboration is enabled.

Viewer terms

Term	Meaning
Collection	A saved working set of selected model objects. Older guides call it a basket.
Session	A shared live workspace with other people. Older guides call it a room.
Profile	A saved viewer setup, including layout and analysis settings. Older guides call it a flavor.
Edge shading	Point-cloud depth enhancement. Technical settings may call it EDL (Eye-Dome Lighting).
Spatial index	A structure that speeds up finding nearby objects. Technical material may call it a BVH.
Tolerance	The permitted measurement difference in a spatial check. Technical material may call it epsilon.
Boundary-crossing element	An element that intersects more than one location zone. Technical material may call it a straddler.
Write zones to model	Create IFC IfcSpatialZone entities for the zones; older controls said “emit zones.”
Validation	Checking model information against rules, including IDS requirements.
Clash	A spatial conflict between model objects, with clearance settings when applicable.
Placement	The model's position and orientation, including georeferencing.

Georeferencing rotation and scale

The model information panel's Location pin and Origin Lat/Lon show the declared georeference origin: IfcMapConversion.Eastings and Northings transformed from IfcProjectedCRS to WGS84. Picking or searching for a new origin writes that position back to Eastings/Northings. The origin does not depend on the geometry bounds, RTC rebasing, model rotation, or Scale. For files whose geometry is already in absolute map coordinates, editing a nearby origin can leave the footprint stationary under the existing double-georeference correction; relocate that geometry through source placements.

If terrain elevation is available for a picked origin, applying it also sets the model base at that sampled elevation. This derives OrthogonalHeight using the geometry elevation; the sampled height is not copied directly to OrthogonalHeight. The elevation label explains this behavior.

The footprint, 3D world and geometry exports also apply the element placements and map conversion. They can differ from the declared origin. A geometry centre at least 100 km from the origin raises a distance message; check the source model's placements before treating a correct origin pin as evidence that the geometry itself is correctly georeferenced.

The georeferencing field Model rotation in map coordinates is the counterclockwise angle from map East to the model's local X-axis, viewed from above in IFC's Z-up coordinates. Positive values rotate counterclockwise; negative values rotate clockwise. It is derived as atan2(XAxisOrdinate, XAxisAbscissa), converted to degrees.

IfcMapConversion.XAxisAbscissa and XAxisOrdinate store a direction vector, rather than an angle. Its length need not be 1: (2, 2) and (1, 1) both mean +45°. IFC-Lite uses the direction without adding scale from the vector's length. Editing the angle writes XAxisAbscissa = cos(angle) and XAxisOrdinate = sin(angle). An omitted Scale has an effective value of 1; Default: 1 distinguishes that default from an explicitly authored value. IFC map conversion definition.

When comparing with Bonsai/IfcOpenShell, check which direction the angle describes. IfcOpenShell's grid-north convention describes the inverse rotation, from project north to grid north, so its sign is opposite. For example, XAxisAbscissa = 0.995644 and XAxisOrdinate = +0.093239 give approximately +5.35° model rotation here and −5.35° under the grid-north convention. IfcOpenShell angle convention.

To validate georeferencing, compare transformed model points with independently known survey coordinates, including units and the complete placement chain. Cancellation between a placement rotation and a map-conversion rotation is only expected when the model's original map alignment is known; it is not a general validity requirement.

Space floors and ceilings

Select a created IfcSpace, enter the Model workspace, and choose Edit space envelope in the command palette or the Room tool's bar. Use a front view or an active vertical section along the roof slope. Choose Flat, Sloped, or Pitched for the ceiling. Click a floor, eave, or ridge handle, move it to a roof edge or vertex, and click again to apply the snapped elevation. Eaves move vertically; a pitched ridge can also move between the eaves. Alt suspends snapping. You can also type the storey-local floor, eave, and ridge elevations in metres and press Enter. Escape cancels the edit.

Each applied envelope is one Undo/Redo operation. It keeps the space's GlobalId, name, properties, surface styles and spatial aggregation. The exported IFC contains planar clipping solids, so sloped and pitched ceilings survive saving and reopening. Floor areas stay unchanged; Height is retained only for constant-height spaces, as required by IFC. Gross and net volumes are updated only when their source floor areas and volumes identify the edited body; otherwise those quantities are cleared. Ceiling, wall and finish quantities that require construction boundaries are also cleared, so an edit does not leave stale measurements.

Editable sources are upward vertical rectangle or simple polyline extrusions with at most 256 footprint vertices, directly placed on their storey, plus supported envelopes previously saved by this tool. Mapped bodies, mesh bodies, profiles with holes, tilted extrusions, extra placement parents, explicit quantity units, and unreadable geometry refuse before writing. Horizontal, tilted, and box sections cannot be used for this edit. A source model that was reprojected into another CRS is also refused. Spaces carrying ElevationWithFlooring allow ceiling edits, but refuse floor moves until the building elevation frame can be resolved.

Autodesk cloud sources

Open Cloud sources from Coordinate mode and select Autodesk Forma / Data Exchange. The viewer administrator configures either a public APS application ID for static sign-in or a same-origin hosted session service. Hosted mode keeps Autodesk tokens on the server. Static mode keeps tokens in memory and requires sign-in after a reload. A cancelled sign-in cannot complete the pending transaction.

Browse account projects and choose Forma Data Management files or Data Exchanges. For Forma Site Design, paste a Forma site link in the project entry. IFC, IFCX/IFC5 and GLB files download through the normal loader, pinned to the listed revision. Unsupported resources show an explanation. Cancel download stops the active batch; completed models remain loaded.

The hosted service includes a Rust Forma proposal importer and a Windows Autodesk SDK Data Exchange exporter. Enable them with absolute executable paths in the service configuration. The details panel offers file/proposal version selection; whole-exchange IFC export supports the current version only. Generated resources remain disabled when their native importer is not configured. Configuration, deployment limits, current capabilities and the live-account verification checklist are in Autodesk source setup and the session service guide.