in the setttings for the image plane set the depth to a very large value... if your manipulators are further away from the camera than that depth they will be occluded. thanks. I'll bear that in mind. I seem to have fixed it for now by moving the plane behind the object rather than between object & camera.. strange tho; the other planes are set between and they're fine, it's just the side view. And even then it's only recently started playing up :-/