Best Practices For Viewport Navigation To Avoid Accidental Enabling Of Clipping Regions In Blender

Clipping regions can be useful tools in Blender for hiding parts of a model or scene when working to improve performance or visualize specific areas. However, clipping can also be unintentionally enabled while navigating the viewport, resulting in confusion when parts of your model suddenly disappear.

This article covers what clipping regions are, why they may be accidentally triggered, best practices for navigating around them, and how to reset your viewport if clipping gets unintentionally enabled.

Understanding Clipping Regions and How They Are Enabled

Clipping regions in Blender refer to areas that are hidden or cut off from the viewport. The clipping boundary is defined by the clipping start and clipping end distances which determine how close and how far geometry will be visible.

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There are a few ways clipping regions can be enabled in Blender:

Using the clipping options in the Properties View N panel > View tab
Toggling clipping planes in the Properties View N panel > View tab
Using the Clipping option while in camera viewing mode
Changing the camera lens values to enable clipping

When clipping distances are set, any geometry outside those defined distances on the camera’s local axis will be hidden from view. This works the same with the custom user-defined clipping planes.

Common Causes of Accidentally Enabling Clipping

There are a few ways that clipping can unintentionally get triggered in Blender’s viewport. Some common causes include:

Using Ctrl+MMB zoom which sets the clip start distance relative to the viewport instead of zooming
Pressing Ctrl+Shift+B to border zoom/clip which enables temporary clipping planes
Changing focal length in camera mode lower than required for scene size
Adjusting the camera lens Shift+F value too low for scene size
Moving clipping planes accidentally via Properties View N panel

The most common issues seem to be related to using the interactive viewport navigation hotkeys for zooming and framing areas which can alter clipping distances without the user realizing. Luckily there are adjustments we can make to the default Blender key-map and settings to help avoid enabling clipping accidentally.

Best Practices For Viewport Navigation

By understanding what triggers clipping and remapping some keys, we can navigate the viewport freely with far lower chances of enabling clipping unintentionally. Some suggestions include:

Using Hotkeys Over Menus

Get in the habit of using Blender’s hotkey shortcuts over clicking in menus when possible. The View menu has options that alter clipping planes and distances so it’s wise to use the equivalent hotkey actions instead that don’t risk triggering clipping:

Zoom to Selected = . Numpad Period
Frame Selected = Numpad 0
Frame All = Home

Locking Off Unused View Axes

Lock camera and view movement to only required axes with shortcuts: X, Y, or Z twice (XX, YY or ZZ). This avoids accidents like clipping a model by swinging the view on unneeded angles.

Setting Clipping Distance Defaults

Under Properties > View, set Clip Start/End distances high enough to fit any models you typically work with rather than leaving at default values. 1000 and 100000 is a safe buffer for most all-around use cases.

Example Keymap for Safe Navigation

Try this custom keymap set optimized for avoiding clipping accidents while offering fluid viewport control:

MMB Pan – Pan view
Alt + MMB Rotate – Rotate view
Scroll Zoom – Zoom to mouse position
Numpad 7, 9 – Rotate Up/Down
Numpad 1, 3 – Rotate Left/Right
Home – Reset view rotation
Numpad 0 – Frame selection
Numpad . – Zoom to mouse position
XX, YY, ZZ – Lock view axes

Disabling Clipping Regions

If you do end up with parts of your model getting unexpectedly clipped, there are a couple ways to instantly disable clipping viewport-wide:

Alt+B – Disable Clipping Border region
In Properties View N panel > Set Clip Start/End to values high enough to display full scene (eg. 1000m, 100000m)
Turn off Enable Clipping checkbox
Select and delete any visible clipping plane widget arrows in scene

Note that for camera based clipping such as low focal length lenses, you still need to return to that specific camera view and adjust the settings there to disable clipping rather than viewport-wide.

Resetting to Default Viewport Settings

If at any point the viewport camera or navigation becomes overly complex, messy or unintentionally clipped, the easiest option is resetting to defaults:

Select camera and press Alt+R to clear rotation
In Properties panel > View > set View Persp/Ortho and Presets to Default
Enable Only Render checkbox to show camera render view

This will override any odd clipping plane locations, focal lengths, or event complex nested camera setups so you can start fresh. It helps to reset viewport settings as a habit before starting any new section of your project after heavy viewport use.