Scroll mouse button in CAD

Usually we use the scroll mouse button or wheel to zoom and pan, there are other functions, let’s explore more.

1.Zoom views

Sometimes we need to see the drawings as a whole, while sometimes we need to see some details of the drawing, that’s why we zoom drawings a lot. Of course, there are many ways to zoom your drawings, but the scroll mouse button is mostly used.

By default, Moving the mouse wheel button zooms in the drawing while moving backwards zooms out the drawing.

We can control the zoom direction when scrolling the mouse wheel by changing the system variable ZOOMWHEEL.

2. Pan views

Press the scroll mouse button and drag the drawing to pan it, and to change its position in the window.

When the system variable MBUTTONPAN, which is used to control the behaviour of the scroll mouse button, is set to 0, then using the scroll mouse button won’t get you to pan, and pressing it will pop up the Object Snap shortcut menu, shown as below,

So if you’re unable to pan your drawings with scroll mouse button, make sure the MBUTTONPAN system variable is set to 1.

3. Display entire drawing

Double-click the scroll mouse wheel, and all the graphic objects will be displayed in the current window,

4. Display views in perspectives

Pressing [Shift]+scroll mouse button or [CTRL]+[Shift]+scroll mouse button will give you more perspectives.

5. Magnifier by scroll button

There is magnifier in the Status bar, which can be switched on/off.

When the magnifier is on, we can use the scroll mouse button to click a part of the drawings, and that part of the drawing will be magnified, shown as below,