CloudCompare forum

I have faced these problems many times.
1) If I want to analyse small segment of a big cloud, I will have to zoom in and zoom out multiple times, just to check if I am actually seeing the desired parts on screen or not.
2) AND sometimes, if I open a bin file, I need to drag around the cursor hastily, just to locate the clouds, no matter how big or small they are. It might have happened because I zoomed out to the extent and cloud of million points appears as a tiny dot, too hard to locate easily on the screen.

I believe this can be avoided if there is a small panning window at bottom right corner of screen, showing which part of the cloud is visible on screen with respect to the entire cloud.

(For problem 1) That way, I know for sure that I have zoomed in on desired part. This function is available on many video games where the location of player is depicted by a small point on map of that terrain OR a 'You Are Here' legend on tourist maps.
(For problem 2) It may also help to locate the entire cloud in case I have zoomed out way too much and cloud is invisible on screen because of it.
It just like 'Your location' Or 'Saved Places' function on Google Maps. It simply zooms in on desired location, from any random place on world map.

For 2) I think this is what the 'magnifier' icon is meant for (to zoom on the selected entities). Another option is to save the viewport (with Display > Save viewport as object - or the 'CTRL+V' shortcut). Viewports can then be restored anytime.

For 1) That's an interesting idea. The only thing that bugs me is the performance. Games (or Google Earth) can generate these mini-maps once and for all. Moreover they know that the world is oriented in a particular way (i.e. Z = vertical, XY = horizontal, etc.). CC can load any randomly aligned 3D clouds (i.e. it would have to guess the right orientation and / or let the user specify it). But worst, anytime an entity changes (either its position, colors, normals, etc. or it's simply segmented) then we would have to update the map.

I don't say it's impossible, but that's definitely not an easy task (or it will end in a very slow mechanism).

Thanks for input. I suggested it (problem 2) because I forgot to save the viewpoint and now the clouds are lost in background. I have been searching it but could not find it yet. Is there something I can do now to locate it?
I am using CC 2.8 Beta version. The same bin files appears normal in version 2.7. Consider this problem as a feedback for beta version. It crashed for a moment and after restarting, everything is fine.

Select the cloud and use the magnifier icon?