While most 3D coordinate systems are right handed, Papervision3D and Away3D are left handed, like this:

So every axis points into the positive direction and that’s what puzzled me for about two months while using Away3D; why do my 3D objects appear on the left side of the 0,0,0 position when I create them, while they should appear on the right hand side. This is what the code looks like:

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var view3D:View3D = new View3D();
 
this.addChild(view3D);
var sphere:Sphere = new Sphere({radius:200, segmentsW:10, segmentsH:10});
sphere.position = new Number3D(0, 0, 0);
view3D.scene.addChild(sphere);

Here’s the answer: This is because how the view3D instance is initialized. If you don’t pass an initObj to the constructor of the view3D, the camera is positioned at z=1000 and told to look at the center. So the camera is looking towards you, so the whole coordinate system is the other way around.

Glad I figured this one out, I was starting to loose my mind