CCB ShapeToDX
ShapeToDX is an application program that translates all shape file format
that can be read by the CCB ShapeTools library into an OpenDX general format data file.
This is useful because it allows any of the supported shape formats to be read, displayed,
and analyzed by the powerful visualization tool OpenDX.
This program uses the CCB DXJava library.
Supported Shape Formats
As of this version (1.0) the following shape data file formats are supported:
- Loni UCF - Laboratory of Neuro-Imaging Universal Contour files.
- Loni TM - Laboratory of Neuro-Imaging Triangle Model files.
- Minc OBJ - Montreal Neurology Institute Object files (binary and ascii).
- Geomview OFF - GeomView project OFF files.
ShapeToDx Usage
The program translates an input file into an output file, both of which
must be explicitly named by the user of the program.
The general usage syntax of the program is
java -jar program.jar [options] input_file output_file
An example of using ShapeToDX to translate a file named
'foo.ucf' into a file named 'foo.dx' would be:
java -jar ShapeToDX.jar foo.ucf foo.dx
ShapeToDX accepts a few command line arguments which slightly modify
the behavior of the program. These are:
| Argument | Description |
| -verbose | Enables verbose status messages. |
| -version | Display program version. |
| -o | Enables overwriting of extant output file. |
| -help | Displays usage help. |
Program Details
This program is essentially a wrapper to the ShapeTools
ShapeToDX translator class. This class implements a simple,
but complete, translation of all data found in a shape file
that was read by the ShapeTools library.
All data in the original file are translated into components
of a single DX Field. The vertices of the shape are placed in
the Field "data" component; regular connections between face vertices
are saved as a "connections" component.
All other elements of the input file are saved as components of the
DX field. The names of these components are derived from the attribute
Id assigned the element by the ShapeTools shapeio reader used to
read the file into a Shape.
DX Field components often contain explicity listed dependencies;
elments of the original data file are considered "dependent" upon
the vertices or faces with with they are originally associated.
Thus, a data value measured at each point of a vertex will be
considered (in the output OpenDX file) to "depend" upon the
DX "points" component.
Restrictions
Only regular faces (e.g. all faces have the same number of vertices) are
supported.
Revised: 10 May 2006
