Compass displays as a non-rendering compass rose, with indicators for North, South, East, and West. A compass is part of a Daylight or Sunlight system; you create a compass automatically when you create sunlight. In a Sunlight system, the orientation of the compass indicates the orientation of the scene, relative to the path of the sun (the ecliptic).
Use the Compass helper object if you want to create an orientation symbol in your scene, but don’t need to create a sunlight system.
Create panel, activate 
(Helpers), then on the Object Type rollout, click the Compass button.
Select and rotate the compass object to orient it.
