3D View Controller and Settings

The 3D view includes a controller overlay for common scene actions and a 3D View Settings dialog for renderer-level configuration.

3D View Controller

Use the 3D view controller overlay for common camera, display, and visibility actions.

Main Controls

Center: Centers the 3D view on the current scene.
Zoom In / Zoom Out: Changes magnification in small steps.
Orthographic: Switches between perspective and orthographic display. In orthographic mode, objects are projected without perspective distortion, and the ruler overlay becomes available.
Pitch / Roll / Yaw: Rotates the current view direction by a fixed amount.
Screenshot: Captures an image of the 3D view and saves it to your pictures folder.
Spin / Rock: Starts or stops view animation. Spin rotates the scene continuously around the vertical axis. Rock oscillates the scene back and forth. Clicking the active button again stops the animation.

The ruler menu controls ruler display in the 3D view.

The scene ruler works in orthographic display mode. Selecting a ruler type other than Off automatically switches the 3D view to orthographic mode.

Ruler type: Off, Thin, or Thick.
Ruler color: White, Black, or Yellow.

The orientation marker menu controls the marker shown in the corner of the 3D view.

Marker type: Off, Unidirectional axes, Bidirectional axes, Cube, or Human.
Marker size: Small, Medium, or Large.

The stereo menu provides available stereo display modes. Most modes require compatible display hardware.

No stereo – Standard non-stereo display (default).
Red/blue, Anaglyph – Color-based stereo for anaglyph glasses.
Interlaced – Row-interleaved stereo for polarized displays.
CrystalEyes – Active shutter glasses via quad-buffered OpenGL.
Left, Right – Renders only the left or right eye view.
Dresden, Checkerboard, Split horizontal – Display-specific modes.
Fake, Emulate – Software stereo modes for testing.

Use the visibility menu to show or hide individual overlay elements in the 3D view.

Crosshair axes – Shows or hides the crosshair that indicates the intersection of the three orthogonal slice planes.
Center of rotation axes – Shows or hides the axes marker at the current 3D rotation center. Press C over a feature to move it there and center that point in the view.
Logo image – Shows or hides the logo image overlay in the upper-right corner of the 3D view.
Origin axes – Shows or hides the coordinate axes at the scene origin.
Color map bar – Shows or hides the color scale legend.
Scene scale ruler – Shows or hides the distance scale ruler overlay.
Scene bounding box – Shows or hides the bounding box outline around the entire scene.
Scene axes labels – Shows or hides the axis direction labels on the bounding box corners.
Show FPS – Shows or hides the frames-per-second performance counter.

The More Options menu provides additional view actions.

When the active 3D view has focus, use Ctrl+Space to maximize or restore it, F11 to detach it, and Ctrl+Alt+Space to toggle fullscreen.

Detach view – Opens the 3D view in a separate window outside the main layout.
Toggle fullscreen – Shows the 3D view in fullscreen.
Camera settings... – Opens camera position and orientation controls.
Background presets: Default, Center glow, Light blue, Black, White, and Gray. The Default preset uses a blue-gray vertical gradient. Center glow and Gray use a dark and light radial gradient respectively. Light blue, Black, and White use a uniform color.
Choose background... – Opens a dialog for a custom background color or gradient.
View settings... – Opens the 3D View Settings dialog.

Custom Background

The Choose background... dialog lets you set a background color or gradient with full control over color and direction.

Background type:

Single color: Fills the background with one uniform color.
Gradient: Blends between two colors across the view.

Gradient direction (available when gradient type is selected):

Vertical: Color transitions from bottom to top.
Horizontal: Color transitions from left to right.
Radial to farthest side: Color radiates outward from the center to the nearest edge.
Radial to farthest corner: Color radiates outward from the center to the farthest corner.

Opening the 3D View Settings Dialog

Open the dialog from the 3D view controller overlay using the View settings... button in the More Options menu.

Use this dialog when you need to change renderer-level behavior that applies to the whole 3D view instead of a single selected object.

For the complete settings reference - Performance, Visualization, Floor shadows, back face coloring, and scene appearance options, together with scripting examples - see 3D View Settings.

Use GPU for Volume Rendering

The Use GPU for volume rendering group controls whether grayscale volume rendering uses the GPU or the CPU.

Use GPU for volume rendering: Uses the graphics card for grayscale volume rendering. If disabled, Volvicon uses CPU rendering instead.
GPU memory budget: Sets how much graphics memory Volvicon may use for grayscale volume rendering in this 3D view.

warning

For best quality and performance, keep GPU volume rendering enabled whenever possible. CPU volume rendering is more limited and may not support some rendering features available with GPU rendering.

If Auto is selected, Volvicon chooses a suitable value for the current system. Lower values can reduce image quality when large datasets are displayed.

note

The CPU/GPU choice applies to grayscale volume rendering. Surface display, volume meshes, and mask mesh preview use their own rendering methods.

Volume Renderer Choices

The dialog also provides two renderer choices for the 3D view.

Volume Renderer

The Volume renderer option controls how grayscale volumes are combined in the 3D view.

Single volume renderer: Draws each visible grayscale volume separately. This is the default and most compatible option.
Multi-volume renderer: Improves how overlapping visible grayscale volumes are blended together.

When Multi-volume renderer is selected, Volvicon still keeps the display safe. If the current scene needs separate rendering for correct results, Volvicon automatically uses the single volume renderer for that case.

Mask Direct Renderer

The Mask direct renderer option controls how Mask 3D Preview (Direct) is shown in the 3D view.

Single volume renderer: Draws each visible direct mask preview separately.
Multi-volume renderer: Improves how overlapping direct mask previews are blended together.

This setting affects only Mask 3D Preview (Direct). It does not affect Mask 3D Preview (Mesh).

note

For best interaction quality, keep 3D view → View settings → Performance → Quality at Maximum while Mask 3D Preview (Direct) is enabled. Lower settings may show edge artefacts while interacting in the 3D view.

Floor Shadows

The Floor shadows group on the Visualization page adds realistic, soft-edged shadows to opaque surfaces and an invisible floor under the 3D scene. The floor reproduces the renderer background, so only the object's shadow is visible, without any plane edge or horizon line. Floor shadows are optional and turned off by default.

Option	Description
Floor shadows	Turns the virtual floor and its shadows on or off
Quality	Detail used to draw shadows; higher quality gives sharper outlines but needs more graphics memory and time
Softness	Blur radius of the shadow edges; 0 gives hard edges, higher values give softer, more diffuse shadows
Darkness	Maximum shadow strength; 0 removes shadows and 1 gives the strongest result, while fill lights and softness still affect the final appearance
Align floor with	Aligns the floor to the world XY plane (Z up), XZ plane (Y up), or YZ plane (X up)

The floor stays fixed in world space while you orbit the camera and is placed just below the visible scene along the selected up axis. It cannot be picked and does not affect measurements, scene bounds, or camera reset. Its back face is hidden so it cannot cover the model when viewed from below.

Only switched-on directional lights and spotlights below 90° with Cast shadows selected in Light Studio contribute shadows. Lights created with Add Light start with this option off, and each multi-light preset selects one dominant light to avoid competing shadow directions. Duplicates preserve the source light's setting. Headlights, point lights, and volume rendering do not cast or receive floor shadows.

tip

Floor shadows work together with Shadows for improved depth perception (ambient occlusion); both can be enabled at the same time. For a presentation look, apply Three-Point Studio, enable Floor shadows, and choose the plane that represents the object's real-world support surface.

When Changes Take Effect

The two renderer settings do not behave identically.

Volume renderer: Applied immediately to currently loaded grayscale volumes.
Mask direct renderer: Applied immediately to currently loaded direct mask previews.

Project And Session Persistence

The selected renderer choices are stored in two places:

the 3D view settings for the application session
the project file, so the same renderer choice is restored when the project is reopened

This keeps the selected renderer choice available the next time you return to the project.

3D View Controller and Settings