solvecraft/docs/view-clipping.md

Viewport clipping

The Design viewport computes its clipping planes from the current model and preview bounds on every projection, using the effective camera (orthographic while a sketch is open, otherwise the selected projection). Changing projection preserves the orbit camera's target, orientation and distance.

The bounding sphere around the target, with the existing viewport-scale margin, continues to determine the far plane and the orthographic depth range. The margin also admits nearby grids and overlays. In perspective, the near plane must additionally respect the nearest depth of the scene's axis-aligned bounding box along the camera's view direction. It is capped at half that depth, with a minimum of 0.001 mm. A box crossing the eye uses that minimum. Geometry behind the perspective eye remains outside the view.

Orbit distance alone cannot set a safe near plane. A component can lie close to the eye in a deep assembly even when the target and the assembly centre are near the origin. A near-plane floor of 0.1% of orbit distance can then clip the entire component. Disabling ground shadow does not change these clipping planes.

Empty, non-finite or overflowing bounds use the existing radius-based fallback. Callers that only supply a radius retain the existing camera API and clipping policy.

Regression coverage uses synthetic panels at opposite ends of a deep scene. Their vertices must remain inside the depth range through orthographic → perspective → orthographic toggles, including the viewport's f32 matrix conversion. The viewport regression checks both ground-shadow settings and unchanged stored camera state.