View > Adjust Clipping Plane

Lets you change how close and how far away objects are drawn.

To improve performance and visibility as you work, Alias does not draw objects that are very far away or very close in the view windows. This tool lets you adjust these distances.

Do any of the following:

Drag the to adjust the near clipping plane.
In a perspective window, you can drag the to adjust the focal plane.
Drag the to adjust the far clipping plane.
Type two (in orthographic windows) or three (in a perspective window) numbers to set the distances exactly.
Sets the positions of the clipping planes and adjusts the focal plane for the camera associated with a modeling window.

Clipping planes are used to cut off display of the scene at a certain distance from the camera. Objects are not visible outside the volume defined by the near plane and the far plane.

The focal plane is the plane where objects are in focus when the scene is rendered. The focal plane can be adjusted only for a perspective camera.

NoteClipping planes are not used in RayTracing.

To set the clipping planes for a camera

From the Tool Palette, select View > Adjust Clipping Plane or click its icon.

To set the clipping planes for a camera, the camera’s window must be active (indicated by a white border).

One of these prompts is displayed, depending on which window is active:

Enter TOP window clipping plane positions (near [LEFT BUTTON], far [RIGHT BUTTON]): (99.8, -100.0)

Enter [FRONT|SIDE] window clipping plane positions (near [LEFT BUTTON], far [RIGHT BUTTON]): (-99.8, 100.0)

Enter [RIGHT|BACK] window clipping plane positions (near [LEFT BUTTON], far [RIGHT BUTTON]): (99.8, -100.0)

Enter PERSP plane positions (near [LEFT], focus [MIDDLE], far [RIGHT]): (0.2, 18.4, 200.0)

For an orthographic window

When setting planes for an orthographic window, specify where you want the near and far planes by clicking in a different orthographic window:

Click one of the mouse buttons and move to the new position that you selected for the plane.
A line indicates the position of the clipping plane. When you click and drag the mouse button, the line is labeled either NEAR or FAR. The line for the NEAR plane is solid and the line for the FAR plane is dashed.
To turn off the display of clipping planes, select another menu item.

For the perspective window

You can set the perspective clipping planes by typing the values for the NEAR, FAR, or FOCAL positions. (FOCAL is the focal length of the camera in the perspective window.) Alternatively, you can set the clipping and focal planes by clicking the appropriate button in any window and dragging.

To see how this looks:

From the menus, select WindowDisplay > Toggles > Cameras ❒.
Set the Frustum Display option to Full.
Dolly in or out in any orthographic window to see the near, focal, and far frustum planes of the perspective camera.