How to Rotate Views in Viewports Independently of Model Space

By Terry Vassena, a mechanical designer and CAD software user

There are times when you need to see a drawing rotated in a layout viewport, independently of the model in Model tab. For instance, I'm currently working on a drawing in which I need to rotate the view in one of my viewports, but not in model space. I’d like to tell you how I accomplished this.

AutoCAD provides a couple of ways of rotating views, such as Align Space from Express Tool and the MvSetup command. But these are not available in AutoCAD LT nor in other 2D CAD software, such as ZWCAD. What alternatives are there to rotating views, if any?

Fortunately, there are some ways of doing this, and I would like to share them with you. They are, as follows:

1. Dview > Twist

2. UCS > Z, Plan (Notice: UCSFOLLOW=0)

3. UCS > object, Plan

Let’s look at each of them in detail.

Approach 1: DVIEW > TWIST

1. Switch to a layout tab, and then double-click inside a viewport. This makes the view active.

2. Enter the DView command.

3. When it prompts you, select an entity, and then press Enter.

4. Notice that the command has many options:

DView: CAmera/TArget/TWist/Distance/POints/Off/Hide/PAn/Zoom/: tw

Choose the TWist option by entering TW.

5. Enter the angle by which you wish to rotate the model in the viewport.

Approach 2: UCS > Z

1. Double-click inside a viewport to make it active.

2. Enter the UCS command.

3. When it prompts you to specify the axis to rotate, choose Z, which rotates the model in the XY-plane about the Z axis.

4. Enter the angle by which you wish to rotate the model in the viewport, and then exit the DView command.

5. Enter the Plan command, and then press Enter.

(If this approach does not appear to work for you, ensure that the UcsFollow system variable is set to 0.)

Approach 3: UCS > Object

Instead of specifying an axis for the new UCS, you can instead use an object to define the new UCS. After entering the UCS command, specify the Object option, and then choose an object in the viewport. Here is a video to show you exactly how it works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht9iiEFQMP0

As before, remember to set UcsFollow to 0.

Bonus Approach: Viewport Presets

Perhaps the easiest way is to use the Viewport Presets command, which you find from the View drop-down menu.

The view of the model is rotated in the viewport, although nothing in the Model tab is actually rotated.

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