Abstract: Viewing data sampled on complicated geometry, such as a helix or a torus, is hard because a single camera view can only encompass a part of the object. Either multiple views or non-linear projection can be used to expose more of the object in a single view, however, specifying such views is challenging because of the large number of parameters involved. We show that a small set of versatile widgets can be used to quickly and simply specify a wide variety of such views. These widgets are built on top of a general framework that in turn encapsulates a variety of complicated camera placement issues into a more natural set of parameters, making the specification of new widgets, or combining multiple widgets, simpler. This framework is entirely view-based and leaves intact the underlying geometry of the dataset, making it applicable to a wide range of data types.