Viewer navigation

🕐 Read time: 2 min

Written By Clark Yuan

Last updated 9 days ago

Overview

The Stitch3D Viewer supports mouse, keyboard, and touchscreen navigation. The controls differ slightly between 3D and 2D views.

3D Viewer navigation

Mouse controls

Mouse	Control	Action
	Left click + drag	Rotate
	Right click + drag	Pan
	Scroll wheel	Zoom in / out

Keyboard controls

Key	Action
W	Zoom in
S	Zoom out
A	Pan left
D	Pan right

💡 Tip: Combine any WASD key with a left click and drag for a first-person navigation feel. For example, hold W while dragging with the left mouse button to zoom in and rotate simultaneously. This is useful for immersive walkthroughs of large scenes.

Interacting with icons and annotations

Click any icon (GCP pin, media file) or annotation (point, distance, area, volume) to open its Information Panel on the right.
Hover over any icon to see a preview tooltip above it without opening the full panel.

2D Viewer navigation

Mouse	Control	Action
	Left click + drag	Pan
	Scroll wheel	Zoom in / out

ℹ️ Note: Right click and WASD keyboard navigation are not available in 2D view.

Navigation Bar controls

The Navigation Bar sits in the top right corner of the Viewer and is available in both 2D and 3D views unless otherwise noted.

Control	Icon	Available in	What it does
Zoom in		2D and 3D	Zooms in incrementally
Zoom out		2D and 3D	Zooms out incrementally
Focus		2D and 3D	Recenters the view on all loaded data. Use this if you navigate away from your scene and need to quickly bring everything back into view.
Full screen		2D and 3D	Expands the Viewer to fill the entire browser window
Viewer Orientation		3D only	Snaps the camera to a preset view angle (see below)
Basemap		2D and 3D	Opens the Basemap menu

Viewer Orientation shortcuts

The Viewer Orientation button snaps your camera to one of six preset angles. Each angle also has a keyboard shortcut:

View	Keyboard shortcut
Top	T
Down	D
Left	L
Right	R
Front	F
Back	B

💡 Tip: The Top view (T) is the fastest way to get an overhead perspective of your entire scene. It is useful for confirming spatial coverage, checking annotation placement from above, and taking area measurements where a plan view gives you the most accuracy.

Touchscreen navigation

Stitch3D works on smartphones and tablets. The following touch gestures are supported in the 3D Viewer:

Motion	Action
Pinch in / out	Zoom in / out
Single finger drag	Rotate
Three finger drag	Pan

💡 Tip: Touchscreen navigation works well for presenting data on a tablet to a client in the field. Share a Project link in advance and open it on a tablet so the client can explore the data themselves using familiar touch gestures.

Camera control modes

Stitch3D offers two camera control modes that change how mouse navigation behaves in 3D. You can switch between them in the personal Viewer settings.

Mode	How it behaves
Earth	Zooms toward the point where your cursor is anchored. You can zoom all the way in to your cursor position.
Orbital	Rotates around your current center point. The camera orbits without zooming all the way in to the center.

Tips for navigating large point clouds

💡 Tip: If the Viewer feels sluggish while navigating a large dataset, adjust the Performance slider in your personal Viewer settings toward Speed. This reduces the point budget and makes navigation smoother on slower hardware or networks.

💡 Tip: Use the Focus button if you get lost in a large scene. It instantly recenters the view on all loaded data regardless of where your camera currently is.

Viewer orientation

Grouping files in the Layers Panel

Point cloud file settings

How to create a Project