Original subtitles

Navigating the Layout Space

Hey everyone, in this lesson we're going to go over how to navigate the layout space of

Vetric software. Now we did go over a lot of this in the 2D section, but I'm going to add a little

bit more in this 3D section. So I figured it's a good time to go over all this and refresh your

memory on everything. So for this lesson, we're using vCarve Pro. This also applies to Aspire as

well. So right at the beginning here, right our homepage, we can start a new file. We can do a new

file from a template. We can open an existing file. We can look at our recently opened files here.

We can go to Vetric's video tutorials here. We can see Vetric's online resources here,

as well as design and make clipart down here. We'll touch on this clipart in a later lesson

in this chapter. So for this lesson, we're going to go up here to create a new file.

And we already looked over the job setup. So we're not going to go into this. We're going to click

OK. Now we are in our 2D view and we are on our drawing tab here. At the bottom of our drawing

tab, you can see we have our measurements for our job dimensions that we set up in the job setup.

Now you may not see this if you have a smaller screen size. You can see my screen is fairly large,

so I have a lot of empty space down here. So that will show this job dimension down here.

You could see if we make our screen smaller, I'll just make this window smaller. You can see that

eventually will disappear. So if you have a smaller screen, you will not see that. Although,

if you have a larger screen, that will appear down here. Now this isn't very important,

but it's good for reference if you wanted to quickly see the job dimensions of the job you have

set up here. Now you can see at the very bottom of our drawing tab, we have a few more tabs.

So we have a modeling tab, so we click on that. You can see this will give us our 3D modeling tools,

and we'll be going over all of these in this chapter. Now Aspire has many more tools to choose

from here. So if you're using Aspire, you'll see a lot more tools here, and we'll go over those

in the following chapter. And down below our 3D modeling tools, we have our component tree,

and we'll also be going over this in this chapter. Now a quick thing to add here, to switch between

the modeling and the drawing tab, there is a shortcut. If you use the F8 key on your keyboard,

you can see that switches to the drawing tab. And then if you click F8 again, that'll switch to the

modeling tab. So you can see you can quickly change back and forth between the modeling and the

drawing tab with the keyboard shortcut F8. Now our next tab we have down at the bottom here is the

clipart tab. And you can see in here, there's 3D clipart that is loaded onto your computer that

you can quickly access. We'll also be going more in depth on this clipart in this chapter.

But you can see with these 3D objects, you can double click on them or drag and drop them,

and they'll come right into your job here. Now you can see the 3D objects in the 2D view tab here.

So you can see when you have a 3D object in the 2D tab, it's shown as a grayscale image,

and then if you look over in the 3D view tab here, you can see it's shown as a 3D object.

Now a quick way to switch back and forth between the 2D view and the 3D view is the keyboard shortcut

F2 to look at the 2D view, and then F3 to look at the 3D view. So you can memorize that fairly

easily. It is the 3D equals F3, 2D equals F2. So 2 for 2D, 3 for 3D. And you can see you can switch

back and forth very easily that way. Now another thing you could do with the 2D and 3D view is you

can split the views. So you can see up here you have these two buttons here. This first one,

splits your view horizontally. So you have the 2D view at the top here and the 3D view at the bottom

split in the horizontal direction there. And then we also have the option over here to split it

vertically. So if we click on that, you can see now we have vertically split the 2D on the left

and the 3D on the right. And you can work between each window independently by zooming in or doing

whatever you want over here. And you can see whatever you update on one side will be updated

on the other side at the same exact time. So these split views become very handy when doing 3D modeling.

And of course there is shortcuts to split those views as well. So if you use the page down key

on your keyboard, that splits it horizontally. If you use the page up key, that splits it vertically.

So that's another quick way to switch between views. And then to get out of the split views,

you have to maximize one of these windows. So whether you want to maximize the 2D or 3D,

that's up to you. But all you have to do is click the maximize button here. And that will

maximize the view again. And then after that, you can switch back and forth between the 2D and 3D

view. And then you can also split your windows again if you wanted to. So you have a lot of control

between all your views there. The next thing we'll look at is zooming. So with our scroll wheel,

you can zoom in and out, scrolling in, scrolls towards your view, scrolling out goes away from

your project here. And that applies both to the 2D and the 3D view. Another thing we could do with

zooming is we have a few more controls up here. So this first one here, zoom 2D view with mouse

drawn box. So if you click on that, and now you can see your cursor is a magnifying glass. So whatever

blocks you click and drag, it's going to zoom in to that box you draw in there. And this is a great

way to zoom in very close to small details. So you can see, you can zoom in to very small box and

getting very, very close. And you get in closer with this function than you can by scrolling with

your zoom wheel. Now when you zoom in very close like this, a quick way to get out of this is these

two buttons here. So this first one here will zoom your active view to your drawing limits. So if

you click on that, that's going to zoom out to fill your job size in the window here. And there's

also shortcuts for that as well. So if we zoom back in here, you can see if we click the F6 key on

your keyboard, that'll do the same exact thing, zoom out to your active drawing window here.

Another thing if we zoom in and grow close again, and then hit the letter F key, that does the same

thing as well. So there's two shortcuts you can use to zoom out to your active drawing limits here.

And all of that applies to the 3D view as well. The last zoom option we have here is zoom

active view to selected objects. So you can see right now we have this object selected,

this 3D object. So if we click on that third button there, that will zoom in our window to go

into the bounding box of this selected object. So that's another quick way to zoom using these

functions up here. And this as well applies to the 3D view. The only ones that do not apply to the

3D view is this first one here, where you can draw a box to zoom in, that does not apply to the 3D

view. Another thing that does not apply to the 3D view is this one here, the pan 2D view with mouse.

So if you click on that, that switches your cursor to a pan view. And then if you click with your

left mouse and drag, you can see you can pan your view going in any direction you'd like.

But you can see when we switch over to the 3D view, we no longer have the option to pan our 2D

view or to zoom in with the mouse drawn box. But these other options still apply to the 3D view.

But now that we are in our 3D view, we'll take a look at what we can do in here.

So an easy way to pan your 3D view is click and hold in your scroll wheel. So if your scroll

wheel has the option to click it, if you click that and hold it in and move your view, you can see

that will pan the view as well. If you do not have the option to click in your scroll wheel,

you can also left and right click at the same time. Clicking both of those in allows you to do the

same thing and you can move your view around having both mouse buttons clicked in at the same time.

And then when you release your mouse, that allows you to move your cursor without moving your view.

Now something you could do in the 3D view that's not available in the 2D view is you can rotate

your view. So if you click and hold in your left mouse button, you can see that allows you to

rotate the view here. So you can see you can get different angles of your 3D objects in the

3D view here. And that is done by simply left clicking on your mouse and just moving it around

and that will rotate your view. Now that can take some time to get used to. So you can see

sometimes you may get stuck somewhere or you may even get on the back side. And if you want to get

to the front side very quickly, you have controls up at the top here. So the second one from the

left, if you click on that, that's going to switch you to an isometric view. So that'll give you an

isometric angle viewing it from the left side over here where you can see the x, y, and z locations.

The option after that one is the z one here. So if you click on the z, that's going to give you a

view straight down from the z height. The next option after that is the x. So if you click on that,

that's going to rotate your view from the x axis. And then you can zoom in and see your project

looking at it from the x axis. And then the final option there is the y view. So if you click on that,

that's going to rotate your view again. And this time you're looking at it from the y axis.

And then if you wanted to go back to the top view very quickly, just click on the z view here.

And then if you were zoomed in very close and wanted to zoom back out very quickly,

click on this first button here, and that'll zoom your view to the active window here.

Now another way you can zoom with the 3D view. Let's say for instance, you didn't have a scroll

wheel on your mouse. You can right click on your mouse and move your cursor up. That'll zoom you in.

And then if you move your cursor down, that'll zoom you out. So that's another option to zoom as

well. So you can see you have quite a bit of options to do in the 3D view for moving your views.

Let's split our view windows again here. So I'm going to split this vertically. So we can see our

2D on the left are 3D on the right. Now you can work in both views here. So you can see on the left

side here in the 2D view, I can move objects. And then if you go to the right side here in the 3D view,

you can do the same thing as well, and it'll update on the 2D view. And then we also have the

ability to rotate objects, scale objects, move objects, and do just about anything you want to these.

But like I mentioned earlier, in the 2D view, 3D objects will be shown as a gray scale image,

like you see here. And then in the 3D view, it's going to be shown as an actual 3D object.

And this will closely represent what it will look like when you carve it.

Another option available in the 3D view is this little blue box down here. If you click on this,

this gives you further properties to set with your 3D object here. And we'll go over all these

settings in later lessons inside this chapter. Now let's look at the last tab on the left panel

over here. So that is the layer tab. And you can see this will give you a list of all your layers.

Now in this particular project, we only have layer one. And you can see if we hide that,

that will hide the gray scale image on our 2D view. But it will not hide the 3D view

corresponding to that model. That is because the layers only apply to the 2D view. But if we

look at our modeling tab, you could see the component tree that I mentioned earlier,

will apply to the 3D view. So if I were to hide that, you could see that hides the 3D model in the

3D view. But you can also see if we look at our layers at the top here, bring back the visibility

of layer one, you can see that doesn't bring back anything. And that is because the component tree

controls both the 2D and 3D view. So if we bring that view back here, that will bring back the view

on both of these objects. So the layers only control the 2D view. The modeling tab component tree

controls both 2D and 3D view. Now we'll bring that component back again. Now another thing you

can see is the color changes on this 3D object, if you have it selected or deselected. So when you

have it deselected, it shows up as whatever material you set up in your job setup. And then

if we were to select this object by double clicking on it, you could see that turns this color here

to let you know that this object is selected. And that happens too if you were to deselect over here,

if you were to select the object in the 2D view, that will also turn this different color to let

you know that that object is selected. And that is great when you have multiple objects here,

you'll know which one is selected and which ones are deselected. And then the next thing I want

to show you, let's deselect this object. You can see this is shown as the material we set up in our

job setup. So if we go back to our drawing tab, go back to our job setup, you can see at the bottom

here, our appearance is set to Canadian Maple. So that is the appearance is going to show in the

3D view when you're creating 3D models. But I will show you this is different from your 3D preview

when you're creating your toolpaths. So let's click cancel this. And we'll switch over to our

toolpath tab at the top here. Now we're looking at our toolpath tab. And you can see when you have

your views split, sometimes that tab will overlap your view over here. So to fix that, you can click

on the split button again. And that will split those evenly between the windows here. And let's

close this box down here. Now if we go to our preview toolpath button here, you can see the

material color is going to change. This right now is set to Canadian Maple. But if we were to

switch this, let's switch it to I don't know, mahogany. You can see right now it's mahogany.

But if we close this view, it's back to Canadian Maple for the 3D objects. If we go back to

the preview toolpaths, it's back to mahogany. So you can see whatever materials you set

in the preview toolpaths is different from the materials you set in the job setup. So the job

setup is only to view your 3D objects in the 3D view. The preview toolpath material is only to

preview what your toolpaths will look like on this particular material. So those two options are

different. So I just wanted to point that out to you. And you can also see when you do the preview

toolpaths. And if we move our view here, you can see this is set up as a piece of material with the

exact length, width and thickness that you set up in your job setup. But if we close this,

you could see in the 3D view without the preview toolpath selected, you're only shown the flat

plane and the bounding box here. You're not showing the actual height of the material here.

Now there is a way to turn that on in the 3D view. Up at the top here, you have this button here

called toggle material block visibility in 3D view. So if you turn that on, you can see you're

going to get a light bulb there, letting you know it's on. And now you can see the size of your

material and where your 3D model is inside of that material. So that'll give you a bounding box there

of the size of the material you set up in your job setup. And then if you wanted to turn that off

and just click that button again, and that'll hide your material block view there.

And now the last thing we'll look at here is an important step when doing 3D models

is your material setup up here. So if you select that, we already looked at this in the toolpath

chapter. But you can see we can change our thickness here. We can change our x, y data position here.

We can change our z zero position here. And the most important part here is your model position

in material. So we looked earlier of where this location was inside of our material block here.

And if you were to change this, you could see that we'll change your z distance from the top

or the bottom of your material. So you can slide that up and down to move your 3D models inside

of your material block. And if you want to learn more on this, go back to the toolpath lessons.

But I will also be covering this more in the practice lessons for the 3D models.

And then the last options we have down here is our Rapid Z movements and our home and start positions.

And one last thing I forgot to mention over in the 2D view, you also have these scroll wheels

on the right side of your window. And then also at the bottom here, you can scroll here. So you can

also pan your view with these buttons as well. And you can either drag the bar there or click the

arrows at the top and bottom to move your view around. And then also with your split windows here,

you can move the center positions here and move them however big or small you want to make each one.

You can even overlap the windows if you wanted to. And then like I said, if you wanted to make it

bigger, just click the maximize view and that'll maximize the screen here. So hopefully you learned

a few things here how to navigate the 2D and 3D views.