3d Orbit will not rotate around object once another drawing is xref'd

[Dan Johnson]

So I just got done making a sweet fire station building model and I tried to import it into my Grading drawing so I can complete my grading plans. Once I xref'd in my proposed site layout into the Grading drawing my Orbit command started to act weird. It would not allow me to Orbit around the object that I wanted to the way I use to. Once I get close to the Building I made and I try to Orbit around it my drawings will fly off the screen. I now have to zoom out and search for them every time I try this.

This never has happened to any of my drawings ever, so I'm totally lost as to why this is happening now. The only things that I can think of are:

1) I built my Fire Station useing Arch units (feet/inches)
2) I imported it into a drawing that uses Decimal and then had to scale my Building to look right since it got imported to a much larger scale then originally created.
3) Since the Propsed Site layout seemed to corrupt my drawing when i Xref'd it I Copied the line work from the Proposed Site layout into the new Grading Plan drawing and pasted it thinking that would solve the problem but it did not.

Currently I cannot continue as I can not lay my new building out on the proposed site. SUCK!

I've searched the web but didn't find anything that worked. I tried changing my DVIEW settings but that made it worse.

Any help would be grateful.

[Dadgad]

Try using 3DORBITCTR command, it will let you define the base point around which you want to orbit.
You are almost there, hang tough!

[Dan Johnson]

I totally tried that command already. I found it in a CAD Tutor forum thread a while back posted by Remark. I thought that would have fixed it but nope

Maybe I didn't do it correctly. But it seemed pretty straight forward so I dont think I messed it up.

[Dadgad]

Given the fact that you seem uncertain if you did it correctly, perhaps you should try it again, following closely the commandline instructions.
You do have the 3D model saved somewhere else, just in case, right?

Have you also tried the focused orbit, meaning select the firehouse first, then start the ORBIT command, while in an isometric perspective.

[nestly]

The center of the view in the xreffed drawing may be very far from the center of the model. Open the xreffed drawing, do a Zoom>Extents in Modelspace, then save.

[Organic]

Try using 3DORBITCTR command, it will let you define the base point around which you want to orbit.
You are almost there, hang tough!

That is an excellent tip that solves the problem the OP details that I often have. Sometimes I want to view a surface in 3D and I always end up getting lost when rotating (and then the slowness of zooming back to the surface is a pain).