Controls and Keyboard Shortcuts

To help you get the most out of nTop, we will introduce the controls and tools for manipulating the model view, as well as useful keyboard shortcuts. In our software, you can zoom in and out using the mouse scroll, or by holding control and right-click. To orbit around the center of the object, right-click and hold. To pan, click on the scroll wheel and hold, or hold shift and right-click.

You can also adjust your view using the view cube. The view cube is completely interactive, and you can orient your views with a click on a labeled face, edge, or corner and rotate your object either counterclockwise or clockwise by using these arrows.

There are two different camera settings you can explore: orthographic, which is the default setting, and perspective. When you are in orthographic view, objects don’t have depth. For example, from whichever view or angle we’re in, these two tires will look to be about the same size no matter how close or far away we are from them. While you’re in this view, you can use the ruler at the bottom to roughly measure any features of the part. If you’re working on something like a small screw or bolt on this tire, you might experience something called the CAD goggles where you zoom in too far and lose sense of how big things are. But with perspective view, it gives the effect that the farther away the object is, the smaller it will look and vice versa, so it gives you a better sense of depth and helps you avoid CAD goggles. In this perspective, you can also zoom in, fly through these small holes, and work on small detailed areas of the model.

There are also two different rotational styles: the turntable and tumbler. Right now we have the tumbler selected, and we can move and rotate the model to view it at an arbitrary angle. If you choose to use the turntable, the model’s axes will always remain pointing up and down on the screen, and the camera will not be able to rotate all the way around the object.

Let’s move on to keyboard shortcuts. Useful hotkeys and keyboard shortcuts in nTop can be categorized into ones that are for views, blocks, or for working with files. Let’s start with the keyboard shortcuts you can use when you’re manipulating your views in nTop. You can find all your viewing tools on the menu bar at the top left under View and their keyboard shortcuts associated with them. While working with your model, there might be times when you lose sight of your part or while working zoomed in too far. You can reset the view by pressing Z on the keyboard to bring your part back into view at a reasonable distance.

Make sure the Block’s visibility is toggled on when using the zoom to select it. You can toggle the visibility of a Block on and off by pressing V on the keyboard while the Block is selected. To turn on the display grid, press Alt and G together on the keyboard. To do the same for the ruler that’s located at the bottom, use Alt R. To see this section cut view of a part, select the part you want to cut, press X on the keyboard, then determine your location and orient the plane. To open up the field viewer, select the Block and press F on the keyboard. Toggle off the visibility of your Block, and you’ll be able to see the field of the implicit body that you’ve selected. To see a precise high resolution render of the part or to do a high resolution image capture, use Control H.

Next, we’ll go over the shortcuts you can use while working with blocks. To be able to quickly search for blocks you need, use Control L as a shortcut to the search bar. When importing a part, rather than searching for an Import Block, you can also press Control I on the keyboard to open up your files from which you can choose what you’d like to import. To isolate the view of a Block, select the Block, press I on the keyboard, and this will turn off the visibility of all other blocks in the notebook.

You can select multiple blocks at the same time by holding control and left-clicking. This will highlight them in blue. For any blocks that have their visibility toggled on, pressing Control and A will select all those blocks. To collapse or open any Block, instead of clicking on the dropdown, you can press space bar on the keyboard after selecting the Block. You can create a variable by either right-clicking and choosing make variable or just simply by pressing Control M with the Block selected.

To copy a Block or blocks, you can select by left-clicking on it or by holding control and selecting multiple blocks. With those blocks selected, either right-click and choose copy selection or press Control + C on the keyboard, or under edit, select copy. You can paste both within the same or different instance of nTop. When you’re pasting within the same instance, the pasting is much like duplicate. It’ll create a copy of the Block, but with the pasting option, you can paste it anywhere in the root of the notebook or in the input of a Block. When pasting, you’re given two options: paste and paste with references. If you’re simply pasting a Block in another notebook, external references associated with that Block will not carry over. When pasting with references, however, any variables associated with that Block will be brought over as well.

The last few shortcuts are for when you’re working with your nTop file. All the file tools are under the File dropdown in the menu bar and these are labeled with their keyboard shortcuts. While working, don’t forget to save your file by pressing Control S on the keyboard. If you want to create a new nTop file, use Control N. To open an existing nTop file, use Control O and select the nTop file you would like to open. You can change the name of a file or make a duplicate by using Control Shift S together to save as. And lastly, once you’re done using nTop, press Control Q to quit.