The Align View (Alt+1) tool aligns the viewport camera based on its orientation relative to the global XY, XZ, and YZ planes. If the camera is rotated closer to one of these planes, pressing Alt+1 will switch it to an orthographic view, precisely aligned with the selected plane. Pressing the tool again or rotating the camera using Alt+LMB (Space+LMB) will disable the alignment, returning the camera to a free perspective view. This simplifies navigation and eliminates the need for standard built-in orthographic projections such as Top, Front, and Right.
The Look At (Alt+Shift+1) tool also aligns the viewport camera and makes it orthographic, but perpendicular to the normal of the selected face or perpendicular to the Z-axis of the Construction Plane.
Although the Swap Objects (5) tool is designed to activate objects, it can also be considered a navigation tool. It allows for quickly switching between objects and geometry levels, significantly speeding up the workflow and enhancing convenience when navigating complex scenes.
Since Houdini is a procedural environment, users often adjust parameters of nodes that are located above the current display node. This allows for more flexible model adjustments.
The Select Display (Shift+D) tool enables activating the display node after such editing. It works both in the viewport and in the node editor.
To simplify navigation in the node editor, there's the Activate Node (F1) tool. It activates the node closest to the mouse cursor. The first press selects the node, and the second press sets the display flag.