View Control Tutorial

Step 1: Start Creo Parametric.

1. Start Creo by clicking the Creo Parametric 2.0 icon

You can always find the icon by clicking the Windows Start button at the bottom left corner
and selecting All Programs > _CAD Software > PTC Creo.
You may find it on the desktop of the computer.
Never start Creo by double-clicking a Creo file. A wrong program will start.
As Creo starts, you see some buttons at the top right corner.

2. Click Select Working Directory. A dialog box opens.

3. Open your LW1 folder in the dialog box. You dont select anything in the folder. Click OK.
Always select the working directory at the start of Creo. When you click the Save button
later, the data will be saved in the working directory. Directory is synonymous to folder.
4. Click the open button
and open mug.prt.
The ribbon expands and the mug part appears. Depending on the settings. you may not see the
datum tags.

The mug part is shaded. The three brown quadrilaterals named RIGHT, TOP, and FRONT are
called datum planes. They are the Cartesian planes. FRONT is the x-y plane, Right is the y-z
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plane and TOP is the z-x plane. The coordinate system with symbols x, y, and z is also shown.
The datum axis named A_1 of the cylindrical portion of the mug is also shown. These are all
called datum features. The datum features are reference geometric entities to be used as
location references in creating the CAD model of the part.
Step 2: Control views.
1. Try the following view controls with the mouse.

Spin:

: Move the cursor onto the object, press and hold the MMB (middle mouse button) and
move the mouse. The objec spins about the point where MMB was pressed.

Pan: Shift +

: Press and hold the Shift key. Press and hold the MMB and move the mouse. The
object translates.

Zoom: Ctrl +

Zoom:

: Press and hold the Ctrl key. Move the cursor onto the object, press and hold the

MMB and move the mouse up and down. The object zooms in/out. The point
where MMB was pressed stays at the same place when the object is zoomed
in/out.
: Roll the mouse wheel. The object zooms in/out.

In CAD operations, we often press and hold the left mouse button and move the mouse. In this course,
we will call this action simply drag. If the middle mouse button is pressed and held as in the view
control actions described above, we call it middle-drag. Later we move entities by this dragging action.
If we move a dimension with this action, we call it drag a dimension.
2. Graphics toolbar is also very convenient.

: Refit the object to the window.

: Box zooming: Drag as if drawing a diagonal line of a box. Release the button and click.
: Redraw the current view.
: Spin center. When it is on, the object rotates around it. It is useless and annoying. I keep it off.
: Datum feature display on/off.

Names of datum features, such as RIGHT, TOP, and FRONT, are called tags. You can turn
the display of tags on and off by selecting the View tab and clicking any of
.
Select
to hide all datum features. After the selection, you need to click
blank area of the window to hide the list of datum display options.

or in a

: Different styles of displaying the object. What each style means is obvious if you try it.

Try

and then

No Hidden

Hidden Line

doesnt work on lab computers. It is not useful anyway.

Named views are pre-defined orientations.

Try

and then

.
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3. Changing

to Isometric.

Creos standard orientation is an orientation called trimetric. The orientation of the mug part in the
first and second pages is trimetric. In engineering, much more widely used orientation is isometric.
In MECH 201, you should never show objects in isometric orientation. So please remember the
following method to change the standard orientation to isometric.
Select File > Options.
Select Model Display in the column on the left side of the Creo Parametric Options window.
Select Isometric in the Default model orientation drop-down list.
Click OK.
Click No when asked Do you want to .....

Isometric orientation
4. Close the mug.prt.
Click
near top left corner of the Creo window.
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The part disappears from the screen but it is still in the computer memory.
Click Erase Not Displayed

and click OK in the Erase Not Displayed dialog box.