https://youtu.be/y1JuSpmRotE

The 3D Workspace Compass in LiquidEarth is an intuitive GUI element that informs users about the orientation of the X, Y, and Z axes of the 3D Workspace in relation to the user camera's perspective. Positioned at the lower left of the screen on desktop, laptop, and mobile devices, the compass actively responds to any movement, panning, or tilting of the user camera, adjusting its orientation to match the changes.

The 3D Workspace Compass.

The 3D Workspace Compass.

Besides serving as a visual aid for understanding the relative orientation of the user camera and the content within the workspace, the compass also offers the ability to perform certain camera perspective-related actions:

  1. Align User Camera with Axis: By clicking on an axis (X, Y, or Z), the user camera's perspective aligns with the chosen axis direction. This feature can be handy when you want to perform actions either aligned with or perpendicular to a workspace axis, enhancing precision in manipulation tasks.
  2. Switch Between 3D Perspective and Isometric Projection: Selecting the cube in the center of the compass toggles the user's view between the standard 3D perspective and the isometric projection. The isometric projection, commonly used in other 3D geodata and modeling software programs, is particularly useful for creating 2D screenshots of data or for certain visual analyses that benefit from this perspective.

<aside> ⚠️ Mobile Limitation: As of now, the 3D Workspace Compass's interactive features are not available on mobile touch devices such as the iPad, as these currently only support AR mode. This mode uses your real-world surroundings as your 3D workspace and your device camera as the user camera. A non-AR mode will be added for mobile devices as part of our future developments.

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<aside> ℹ️ Note: Please be aware that due to development specifics, the Y-axis is designated as 'up' within the 3D workspace. As LiquidEarth evolves to better serve geoscientific applications, including the introduction of georeferencing methods, we plan to adapt the compass to be more in line with geoscientific conventions. This will likely involve replacing the axis labels with cardinal directions, or offering customizable axis labeling options to accommodate the unique requirements of different projects and datasets.

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