i posted this on eailer but found that i should have posted here. oh well.

Could we not have some simple zoom and panning commands. i am always looking for the zoom window command in blender then realize it's not there.

I do most of my modeling in Rhino and then rending and some changes using blender. I would use blender more if i could get around a bit easier.

Just my thoughts,
Thanks.

Whats wrong with control middle mouse button for zooming,
and if you have a scroll wheel mouse control mousewheel pans.
(if not shift middle button also pans)

I should have explained the mouse wheel a little better but try it with
shift alt and ctrl....

This is is not a precise zoom on a location. I find myself zooming and panning back and forth to get to where i want to be.

You can select an object and center yourself around it, I don't see any features in terms of zooming and such missing from Blender that other packages have. It's easier and more powerful than Maya, that's for sure! (boy I miss layers...darn Maya course)

Select object - right click on object
Shift s - choose cursor->sel
press c to center on the cursor
press the pluss key on numpad a bunch of times

And that doesn't sound like an absurdly large amount of work to do something that should be second nature? In Maya, for example, it's as simple a selecting the object, faces, verts, edges you want to view & hitting FKEY.

Moving the insertion cursor from a menu so that you can then focus the camera on it ...??? Sounds backwards. Odd.

Just my 2 cents.
voidptr

I don't like making long post but i feel blender needs these things if it ever wants to be widely accepted by industries.

I work for an industrial company and if anyone would ever think of using blender for such applications it would have to have industrial tools or what i am describing as decent zooming and panning tools. Here is a list of very often used zooming tools that we use with our industrial software packages. Another note, I think that if someone came across blender and decided to give it a try, that he or she would want to move around the project very easily.

Here are the the view tools i think are a must in any software drawing package and i find that blender is missing most of them:

ZoomDynamic = Zooms in and out as you drag with the left mouse button down ( this is what blender has already)

ZoomExtents = Zoom to the extents of visible objects ( this is the home key in blender)

ZoomExtentsAll = Zoom to the extents of visible objects in all viewports

ZoomIn = Zoom in ( this is the + key)

ZoomNext = Redo the last view change

ZoomOut = Zoom out (this is the - key)

ZoomPrev = Undo the last view change

ZoomSelected = Zoom to the extents of selected objects

ZoomSelectedAll = Zoom to the extents of selected objects in all viewports

ZoomTarget = Sets a new target point for the center of a zoom window

ZoomWindow = Zoom to selected rectangle

Though I'm not convinced these are a must have, and even if I find it doesn't actually match blender's workflow (it's really speedy and free-space modelling is really quick, even without those sophisticated zoom.. you get used to it), if you feel they're necessary, then it might be true. And I'm pretty sure it won't be that hard to implement. But first of all, if i'm the one to do this, i'll need to understand the code and learn a lot of programming in C and also find time...(exams)
(and i'm still fighting to get blender to compile using DevC++)

Dani

Select object/s with RMB --> Push Del-KEY at Numpad --> Zoom in and out with MouseWheel/MMB+CTRL (or Plus/Minus -keys)

easier than this I do not know

ztonzy wrote:

Select object/s with RMB --> Push Del-KEY at Numpad --> Zoom in and out with MouseWheel/MMB+CTRL (or Plus/Minus -keys) easier than this I do not know

Thats the . (dot) key on the numpad, not the Del key. That brings the selected object to the center of the screen, zoomed to the extents of the 3D window.

VelikM wrote:

ztonzy wrote: Select object/s with RMB --> Push Del-KEY at Numpad --> Zoom in and out with MouseWheel/MMB+CTRL (or Plus/Minus -keys) easier than this I do not know Thats the . (dot) key on the numpad, not the Del key. That brings the selected object to the center of the screen, zoomed to the extents of the 3D window.

yes of course...but I have a 105 keyboard...with swedish letters...I didn't know what you english speaking users have for such key there...btu I got Comma and Del at that key