Stop unrotating my view

[Christiaan]

I now work exclusively in a rotated view on all projects, and while there have been improvements to this workflow, I still find myself in an unrotated view far too often, which has caused real problems whereby colleagues have been working on a file unaware that they're in an unrotated view; this is exacerbated by projects that are rotated by a very small amount (e.g. 0.13 degrees).

One is problem is that certain actions unrotate the view temporarily, such as editing a slab modifier. I don't want to be in an unrotated view when I'm editing a slab modifier, but at least it returns me to a rotated view when I exit.

The other, more serious problem, is that certain sequences of work will unrotate the view permanently. For example:

1. Start in a rotated Top/Plan view on a design layer.
2. Go to a Section Viewport (e.g. a building elevation or section) on a Sheet and edit the Crop, Annotations, or a Design Layer (with the Navigate back to viewport option on).
3. Exit, then head back to a Design Layer and you will see that the view is now unrotated. Only edit Section In-Place retains the rotated view.

This is just one example. There are probably more.

It seems to me there might be a few ways to fix this once and for all (in my order of preference):

1. Provide a Document Preference for a permanent plan rotation. Even double-tapping the Top/Plan shortcut would leave you in a rotated view. To get into an unrotated view you would need to deactivate the Document Preference.
2. Give us the ability to lock and unlock the plan rotation. You would need to explicitly unlock the rotated view before double-tapping the Top/Plan shortcut (or any other action for that matter) would take you to an unrotated view.
3. Find all the actions that unrotate the view and stop them from doing it. (I don't like this this option option because could take a decade to implement fully)

 

[Jonathan Pickup]

I have to agree Christiaan, it dives me nuts. 

[Wood]

I like number 2 the best. 

 

And to tag on, when I use a keyboard shortcut to orbit to iso or front view, don't move the focus to some random place in the drawing when I go back to plan. 

[Bluetones]

On 2/7/2026 at 10:54 AM, Wood said:

I like number 2 the best. 

 

And to tag on, when I use a keyboard shortcut to orbit to iso or front view, don't move the focus to some random place in the drawing when I go back to plan. 

I agree. And it should be a "Quick-Preferences" button, with a keyboard shortcut toggle.  😄 

[BRTerry]

Ive asked a couple of times in person my vectorworks rep for a rotation lock could litterally just be a little lock icon next to the rotation. its infuriating having it snap back all the time and then have to either set it back or re go into a view.

[Ross Harris]

Revit has a 'project north' and a 'true north' setting. Project north is the generally what you start with when laying out a building. When you need to align it and position your building on a site you can set an angle relative to true north. Switching any view to either is via an orientation dropdown and is set and forget. Its only a on trick pony, but is infinity less grating that forever having to re-rotate or making saved views - which is the only time I really used saved views. Super annoying when trying to work on site plans. Having switched back to Revit, I've realised just how good this feature is... and so much less annoying that the VW way...

[Tom W.]

19 minutes ago, Ross Harris said:

Revit has a 'project north' and a 'true north' setting. Project north is the generally what you start with when laying out a building. When you need to align it and position your building on a site you can set an angle relative to true north. Switching any view to either is via an orientation dropdown and is set and forget. Its only a on trick pony, but is infinity less grating that forever having to re-rotate or making saved views - which is the only time I really used saved views. Super annoying when trying to work on site plans. Having switched back to Revit, I've realised just how good this feature is... and so much less annoying that the VW way...

 

But what if your building is shaped such that it has multiple orientations + you'd need more than one project north depending on which part of the building you were working on?

[Ross Harris]

Like I said, it's a one trick pony... But reinforces the fact a lock type function to the rotate view function would be massive for workflow, especially if you could set a view and set that as the new locked view when working on multiple differing angles. It would beat having to set up saved views just for an angle of rotation and reduce the amount of menu diving and mouse clicks..