Viewport settings affect the display and interaction with items in the viewport. By changing these settings you can
• Change line thickness and colors to increase visibility.
• Increase system performance by changing redraw options.
• Adjust viewing preferences to suit your style and color scheme.
To change viewport settings,
Most options are self-explanatory. Only those options that need descriptions are included in these instructions.
1. Click File > Settings > Viewport. The Viewport Settings dialog box opens. The left pane of the Viewport Settings dialog box lists the categories of options and the right pane displays the options for each category.
2. Dynamic Viewing settings affect how 3D objects are displayed.
◦ Enhanced Realism: Sets the amount of Enhanced Realism features such as shadows and mirror that are displayed when the view is modified.
Activating shadows and mirror planes may decrease the dynamic-viewing performance on computers with low graphic power. To increase the performance, disable shadows and mirror planes in Enhanced Realism.
◦ Simplify Model: Sets the level of detail for small components while you move a model.
◦ Timeout for Redraw: The time limit to redraw a model.
◦ CTRL-less Threshold: The number of pixels that the mouse must move before the view is rotated or panned.
3. Redraw settings affect how the viewport redraws graphical elements.
◦ Simplify Model: Sets the level of detail for small components when you redraw a viewport.
◦ Timeout for Redraw: The time limit to redraw a model.
This time limit is imposed only if you try to interact with the model while the redraw is being executed otherwise the redraw is executed completely.
◦ Smooth Camera Update: The speed for camera updates. A lower number results in smoother movement in the viewport, if your video card is fast enough.
◦ Antialiasing: Improves the display of models or objects by smoothening jagged edges on the models or objects displayed in the viewport. A finer antialiasing setting improves the display of models in the viewport.
• Antialiasing requires higher graphical computational power and memory on the graphics card. Some graphic cards do not support antialiasing. If antialiasing is not supported, the Antialiasing setting is not available.
• A change in the antialiasing setting only applies to new viewports. The change does affect existing viewports.
• Antialiasing also improves the quality of viewport prints and viewport dumps. You can thus avoid high resolution prints in many situations. For more information, see
Print a viewport.
◦ Phong Shading: Gives smoother shading for the model, especially for curved surfaces. Phong Shading is automatically activated when real time shadows or mirror planes are activated. You can activate Phong Shading even when shadows and mirror planes are disabled.
◦ Occlusion Culling: Prevents the rendering of hidden components in your model. Occlusion culling can improve performance, especially if you work with large, densely-packed models. This option is only available if you have a supported video card.
◦ Optimize graphical model: Optimize and speed-up the display of graphical models; especially larger models in the viewport. This option better utilizes the computational power and the memory of modern graphics hardware and can significantly improve performance. However, this option requires more main memory (RAM).
If your system memory (RAM) does not accommodate a large or a complex model, disable this option to reduce the memory required.
The Optimize Graphical Model mode is not supported by:
• A system that uses OpenGL-based software rendering mode with no hardware acceleration.
• Some older graphics hardware, which is several years old.
Creo Elements/Direct Modeling automatically disables the Optimize Graphical Model option if it detects a system that does not support this mode.
4. Enhanced Realism settings affect the realistic impression of a model in the viewport. See
Enhanced Realism.
◦ Shadows: Allows a model in the viewport to cast shadows on a mirror floor plane and on itself.
◦ Mirror: Displays a mirrored view of the model relative to the floor plane.
◦ Floor Display: Allows you to select the type of floor such as Grid, Checkerboard, or Empty.
◦ Part and Face Mirroring:
▪ Environment Map: Allows you to select an existing environment map using Browse, or by typing the file name.
▪ Global Mirror Power: Modifies the global mirror power. All parts that do not have a mirror power value are displayed using Global Mirror Power. Mirror power is the strength of reflection of the environment map on the models surface.
5. Floor Position settings allow you to specify a floor plane in the viewport only when the floor is visible.
◦ Mode: Position the floor in the following two modes.
▪ Attached to Model: The floor moves with the model when you change the view.
▪ Fixed: The floor is fixed and does not move with the model when you change the view.
◦ Origin: Define the origin for both the modes of the floor position.
▪ Auto: Always position the floor under the model with respect to the current normal direction.
▪ Relative Distance: Modify the relative distance between the floor and the model. This relative distance is model-independent.
▪ User Defined: Click Define and choose an origin on the model in the viewport. You can specify an absolute distance or use 3D CoPilot to drag the floor.
◦ Normal Direction: Specify a normal direction with respect to the model in the Attached to Model mode.
◦ Attitude
▪ Tilt: Tilt the floor relative to the view in the Fixed mode.
▪ Rotate: Rotate the floor relative to the view.
6. 2D settings affect the appearance of profiles and construction lines in the viewport.
◦ 2D Profile Accuracy: The graphical approximation for curved 2D profiles. Lowering this value can save memory and improve performance.
7. Fly-By settings affect the information that pops up when your mouse passes over certain elements in the viewport.
◦ Enabled: The elements in the viewport are highlighted as you move the cursor over the elements.
◦ Enable Boxing: The 2D and 3D elements in the viewport are highlighted as you draw a box around the elements. For more information, see Boxing. This option can only be activated if Enabled is active.
◦ Tooltip: Click Shown to display a tooltip in the viewport when you move the cursor over an element. The tooltip appears after a time delay.
▪ You can set the time delay from 500 to 5000 millisecond (ms).
▪ You can change the relative font size of the tooltip.
8. Selection settings affect selection appearance and behavior.
◦ Preselection Mode: Allows you to select a part, face, and some other elements and start a command. The command will detect your selection and fill in the appropriate fields in the dialog.
◦ Thicken Edges: Selected edges are highlighted by color and thickness. This option allows you to set the thickness between 1 and 5.
◦ Selection Color: The color used to highlight the selected element in the viewport. You can modify the color used to display the selected element. For more information, see
Setting the selection and fly-by options.
◦ Boxing
▪ Complete: Draw a box around elements of a part to select the elements or draw a box around the whole part to select the part. This is the default.
▪ Partial: The whole part is selected even if you draw a box around one or more elements of the part. For example, if you draw a box around a vertex of a cube, the whole cube is selected. Elements are selected if they are boxed only partially.
9. View by settings affect the view changes when you use View By Face and View By Workplane.
◦ Up Direction: Settings to determine the up direction when you use View By Face or View By Clipping:
▪ No Change: The face normal or the clipping plane normal at the spot you select on the face becomes the view direction. The view is not rotated to align an axis in the viewport.
▪ Global Z-Axis: The face normal or the clipping plane normal at the spot you select becomes the view direction and the view is rotated so the Z axis is up. If the Z axis is collinear with the face normal, the Y axis becomes the up direction.
▪ Global Z-Axis - Minimal Rotation: Similar to Global Z-Axis, except with minimal rotation so the new view up direction is either the Z axis or the negative Z axis.
▪ According to Face Geometry: (default) Rectangular faces and silhouettes of cylinders are rotated and aligned in the viewport.
◦ Center Face Pick Point: The point where you select the face is centered in the viewport.
◦ Pan/Zoom: Settings to pan or zoom on a workplane when you use View By Workplane.
▪ No Change: The view is changed so the workplane W axis is up, but the workplane is not centered in the viewport. This might lead to undesired view movements where the workplane border disappears from the current view.
▪ Center Workplane Center: (default) The view is changed so the workplane W axis is up and the workplane is centered. No zooming takes place, just panning.
▪ Center Workplane Origin: Similar to Center Workplane Center but centers the workplane origin instead of its center.
▪ Fit Workplane Border: After the view direction has been changed, the current outline of the workplane (current or selected) is fit into the viewport. Only the workplane (not the drawlist) is fit into the viewport.
10. Show settings affect how objects are displayed.
◦ 3D Geometry options control how 3D objects are displayed:
▪ 3D Geometry: Display or hide 3D geometry.
▪ Hidd Supp: Suppress hidden facets and edges.
▪ Hidd Dimm: Dim hidden edges.
▪ Mixed: Mixed display mode.
▪ Clip Hatches: Display hatch lines on an active clipping plane.
◦ Workplanes settings control how workplanes are displayed:
▪ Workplanes: Master switch for workplanes (including contents).
▪ Dim Inactive: Dims the geometry in inactive workplane.
▪ Match Lines: Match lines (used in Loft).
▪ Hidd Supp: With this option on, the geometry of the active workplane is hidden (suppressed). You can see the geometry even if the workplane lies within a part.(1)
11. Background settings affect the color of the viewport background. You can choose a two or three color gradient or a single color. If you select an image, you can display the image tiled or centered in the viewport. For more information, see
Change the background of a viewport.
12. Clipping settings affect the colors used while clipping is active.
◦ Cap Color: Color of parts on the active clipping plane.
A cap color makes clipping planes more visible. If the Cap Color check box is cleared, the part color is used. The default color is green.
◦ Clash Color: Color of the section of a clipping plane, which is present in the area in which two parts clash. The default color is red.
◦ Line Color: Color of the lines formed by the intersection of a clipping plane and a part. The default color is black.
◦ Line Width: Width of the lines formed by the intersection of a clipping plane and a part.
◦ Hatch Color: Color of the hatch lines on the active clipping plane. The default color is black.
13. Contour Map settings affect the appearance of the contour map during a surface analysis, draft analysis, and in Creo Elements/Direct Finite Element Analysis.
14. Click Reset to restore the settings of a single category, selected categories, or all categories of options to the Site, Corp, or Factory default settings. The Reset Viewport Settings dialog box opens. The current category is selected by default if you click Reset.
15. Click Close when you are finished. Changes are applied as you change settings.
