Views

Here is all you need to know about using and creating views.

What is a view?

A view is a window onto a canvas of a model. In other words, using views helps create a duplicate representation of your work. Views are the best way to create as many references to an existing drawing as you would like, to then be used for instance in page layouts or as a drawing underlay.

Notably, views display 3 main characteristics:

• Views are updated: any changes to the drawing the view represents will be immediately visible from the view itself.

• Views can be edited: the size, crop, scale of a view can be changed.

• Views can be overridden: the style and visibility of things displayed in a view can be changed to diverge from its initial aspect.

Creating a view

To create a view, head to the toolbar, in the layout section, where you will find the View tool.

With this tool, a view can be created either within a canvas referencing itself, or onto a canvas referencing another canvas. In the video below, we demonstrate both possibilities.

Note that the Canvas property allows choosing the canvas that the view is referencing.

Alternatively, views can be created from the Layer panel, behind the + of the Layer section. The View option will allow you to choose a source canvas for your new view. Once clicked, a view will be created on the canvas currently displayed, and referencing the canvas chosen in the dropdown.

Editing a view

A view is an object that can be edited by entering its edit mode.

There, 4 main aspects of a view can be tuned:

• The view crop window can be resized, by editing the view clipping path in the view edit mode. Alternatively, and to go faster, a view can be cropped by resizing it while holding CMD (CTRL on PC).

• The view origin can be modified, by either panning in the view, or editing the Origin X,Y values in the view properties.

• The view scale can be tuned, by either zooming in the view, or editing the Scale value in the view properties.

• The view canvas, that is, the canvas the current view points to, can be swapped.

Overriding a view

In edit mode, a view can be curated to refine how its content appears. Elements can be turned on/off, and the style of things can be tuned…

Visibility overrides

The content of views can be hidden/shown, by interacting with the layers/entities visibility settings, once in view edit mode.

At any point, the visibility overrides you have created can be reset, either for the entire view or for a single entity/layer.

Style overrides

The content of views can be restyled, by interacting with the entities’ styles in the style panels, once in view edit mode.

At any point, the style overrides you have created can be reset, either for the entire style, all styles at once, or for a single parameter of a style.

For more step-by-step information, watch our tutorial about how to use canvases and views in Rayon:

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