Navigation & Viewport

A complete guide to moving around the BlastCAD 3D canvas — camera controls, view modes, section planes, and display toggles.

2D Mode vs. 3D Mode
1. 3D Mode (default)
2. 2D Mode
Mouse Controls
Keyboard Shortcuts for Navigation
View Cube
Coordinate Display
Grid
Section Plane Tool
Blast Animation
Display Toggles
Camera Speed Settings
Tips for Large Scenes

2D Mode vs. 3D Mode

BlastCAD has two distinct viewport modes. You can switch between them using the 2D / 3D toggle button in the Canvas Toolbar.

3D Mode (default)

The default mode. The camera is a perspective camera that orbits freely around the scene in three dimensions.

The horizon is visible — distant objects appear smaller (perspective projection).
Suitable for inspecting the full blast design in context.
All ring planes, DTM surfaces, and CAD geometry are shown in true 3D space.

2D Mode

An orthographic camera locked to a fixed orientation, looking straight down the Z-axis (top-down plan view).

No perspective distortion — parallel lines stay parallel.
Useful for drafting, checking collar positions, and viewing hole delay sequences in plan.
In 2D mode, Pan and Zoom still work; Orbit is disabled.

Switching between modes:

Find the 2D / 3D button in the floating Canvas Toolbar (left side of the canvas).
Click it to toggle. The camera transitions smoothly.
Your zoom level and pan position are preserved when switching back.

When a ring is selected in the Ring Workflow, the viewport automatically switches to a 2D orthographic view looking into the ring plane (not top-down). This is the Ring Section View — a separate mode from the standard 2D top-down view.

Mouse Controls

Action	Input	Mode
Orbit (rotate view)	Left-click drag	3D only
Pan (slide view)	Middle-click drag	2D and 3D
Zoom in / out	Scroll wheel	2D and 3D
Select entity	Left-click	2D and 3D
Box-select multiple	Left-click drag on empty space	2D and 3D
Add to selection	`Shift` + Left-click	2D and 3D
Context menu	Right-click	2D and 3D
Cancel drawing / tool	Right-click or `Esc`	2D and 3D
Fit selected to view	`F`	2D and 3D

Action	Shortcut
Fit all to view	`Ctrl` + `Shift` + `F`
Fit selected entity	`F`
Top view (plan)	Click Top on View Cube
Front view	Click Front on View Cube
Right-side view	Click Right on View Cube
Isometric corner view	Click a corner of the View Cube
Toggle 2D / 3D	Button in Canvas Toolbar
Toggle ortho / perspective	Button in Canvas Toolbar

View Cube

The View Cube is displayed in the top-right corner of the canvas. It shows the current camera orientation in real time.

Click any face to snap to that standard view:

Face	View
Top	Plan view — looking straight down
Bottom	Looking straight up
Front	Looking from the South (−Y direction)
Back	Looking from the North (+Y direction)
Left	Looking from the West (−X direction)
Right	Looking from the East (+X direction)

Click any corner of the cube to jump to the nearest isometric view.

Coordinate Display

The bottom of the canvas continuously shows the cursor’s world coordinates in real time as you move the mouse:

X: 14.230   Y: 32.110   Z: 0.000

In app coordinate convention: X = Easting, Y = Northing, Z = Elevation (up+).
The origin 0, 0, 0 corresponds to the Global Origin set in Project Settings.
Values are displayed in the project’s active unit system (meters by default).

This is particularly useful when manually placing holes or CAD entities — you can watch the coordinate display to verify exact placement.

Grid

The grid is a reference plane displayed on the XY plane (floor level of the scene).

Setting	Location
Toggle grid on/off	`F7` or Grid button in toolbar
Toggle grid snap	`F9` or Grid Snap button
Set grid spacing	Canvas Toolbar → Display Settings

When Grid Snap is enabled, the cursor locks to the nearest grid intersection during point placement in drawing tools. This is useful for placing entities at even intervals.

Section Plane Tool

The Section Plane tool cuts a volumetric slice through the 3D scene at any orientation, hiding geometry outside the slice. It is essential for inspecting ring cross-sections in context with surrounding geology.

Activating the Section Plane

Click the Section Plane button in the Canvas Toolbar (or type SECTION in the Command Terminal).
The tool prompts: “Click first point of section line”.
Click a first point on the canvas to define one side of the cutting plane.
The tool prompts: “Click second point of section line”.
Click a second point. BlastCAD computes the cutting plane normal from the two points.

The two clicked points are shown as crosshair markers (screen-space, not 3D spheres) — a centre dot with cross-hair lines and a circle, in a distinctive colour.

A cutting line is drawn between the two markers showing the plane intersection.

Active Slice Panel

Once a section plane is defined, a small Active Slice panel appears in the top-right of the canvas (below the top bar). This panel:

Shows the current slice thickness (m).
Has + and − buttons to increase or decrease the slice thickness.
Has a Deactivate button to remove the section plane.
Is draggable — click and drag the grip handle (≡) on the left edge to move the panel anywhere on screen. This is useful if the panel overlaps the Command Terminal or other UI elements.

The Active Slice panel defaults to the top-right corner. If it overlaps your work area, drag it out of the way.

What the Section Plane Clips

The section plane clips all WebGL geometry:

Drill hole meshes (collar, shaft, toe)
DTM surfaces
CAD entities (lines, polylines, circles)
Block model voxels

HTML overlay elements (hole labels, delay labels, ring name labels) cannot be clipped by the WebGL clipping plane. Instead, BlastCAD performs a JavaScript-side position check — any label whose 3D anchor point falls outside the slice volume is hidden. This means labels always match the visible geometry.

Adjusting Slice Thickness

The slice is centered on the plane defined by your two clicked points. The thickness value in the Active Slice panel controls how much geometry on either side of the plane is shown.

A thin slice (0.5 m) shows only geometry very close to the cutting plane — ideal for inspecting a single ring.
A thick slice (5+ m) shows a broader band of geometry — useful for understanding the context of multiple rings.

Removing the Section Plane

Click Deactivate in the Active Slice panel. All previously hidden geometry becomes visible again.

Blast Animation

The Blast Animation plays a time-based simulation of the blast detonation sequence, firing holes in the order of their assigned delays.

Starting the Animation

Make sure all holes have delay values assigned (via the Tie-Up Workflow or the Hole Table).
Open Statistics from the top bar.
On the Statistics panel, click Simulate Blast (or use the Blast Animation button in the Canvas Toolbar).
The animation starts immediately.

Animation Controls

Control	Function
Play / Pause	Start or pause the detonation sequence
Speed	Slider to increase or decrease playback speed (0.25× to 10×)
Reset	Return to time zero, all holes undetonated
Sound	Toggle explosion sound effects (Web Audio API)

What You See

Each hole “explodes” at its nominal delay time — the hole mesh expands in an animated sphere pulse.
Holes are colour-coded: un-fired holes are grey, detonating holes flash, fired holes take on their explosive product colour.
The current time (ms) is shown in the animation control panel.
The animation ends when the highest-delay hole has fired.

Sound Effects

Explosion sounds are synthesized using the Web Audio API. Sound is triggered at each hole’s firing time. Sounds only play if your browser tab is active and the Sound toggle is enabled. Volume and sound cannot be customized — toggle it on or off.

Display Toggles

Use the Canvas Toolbar → Display Settings panel to show or hide different geometry types:

Toggle	What it controls
Show Holes	Hole solid cylinder meshes
Show Hole Lines	Collar-to-toe wireframe lines
Show Collars	Collar marker billboards at hole start
Show Labels	Hole ID text labels
Show Delay Labels	Firing delay (ms) annotations on each hole
Show Ring Lines	Ring plane boundary outlines
Show Ring Labels	Ring name text labels
Show Detonators	Detonator symbol markers
Show As-Built	As-drilled deviation markers (if survey data loaded)
Anti-aliasing	MSAA edge smoothing (may reduce performance on large scenes)
Pixel Ratio	Render resolution: 1×, 1.5×, 2×

These toggles do not affect the data — they only control visibility in the viewport. Exported files always include all data regardless of display settings.

Camera Speed Settings

Fine-tune the camera response in Canvas Toolbar → Display Settings:

Setting	Effect
Zoom Speed	Multiplier applied to scroll wheel zoom
Pan Speed	Sensitivity of middle-click drag panning

If the scene feels sluggish to navigate (common on large point cloud or block model scenes), try reducing the Pixel Ratio setting before adjusting speeds.

Tips for Large Scenes

Set Global Origin before importing mine-scale data. Without it, floating-point precision errors cause geometry to “jitter” at large coordinate values (e.g., Easting 7,350,000).
Toggle off block models when not needed. Block models with millions of voxels have the highest render cost. Hide them via the Explorer Panel’s DTM Block Browser when working on hole geometry.
Use section planes to isolate a single ring. Rendering only the slice volume significantly reduces the number of objects being drawn each frame.
Reduce Pixel Ratio to 1× on lower-end GPUs if the frame rate feels slow.

Navigation & Viewport Controls

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