# Coordinate tripod layer

This viewport layer inserts an axis tripod into the picture to indicate the orientation of the simulation coordinate system.

Note that the coordinate axes rendered by the layer are those of the global Cartesian simulation coordinate system. They are not tied to the simulation cell vectors.

## Configuring the axes

The viewport layer can render up to four different axes with configurable text labels, colors, and spatial directions. By default, three axes along the major Cartesian direction are shown.

## HTML text formatting

You can include HTML markup elements in the label text of the axes to format the text, e.g., to produce special notations such as superscript or subscript. See here for further information.

See also

`ovito.vis.CoordinateTripodOverlay` (Python API)