ShapeViewer Help

File menu items read shapes from local computer files or from remote files.

Load Shape: Replaces the current display with shapes read from a file on the local computer. If a file cannot be understood by ShapeViewer it is ignored. The display is centered at the midpoint of the shape.
Add Shape: Adds a shape read from a file on the local computer to the display. The viewing angle and zoom factor of the scene are unchanged.
Load Scene: Replaces the current display with shapes read from a scene file.
Add Scene: Adds to the current view all shapes stored in a scene file. The viewing angle and zoom factor of the scene are unchanged.
Save Scene As...: Saves the parameters of the current display to a XML file on the local computer. The current scene may be restored by reading the this file (See: Load Scene).
Save Scene As Image...: Saves the current display to an image file on a local or remote computer.
Load Directory: Replaces the current display with shapes read from files in a directory. If a file cannot be understood by ShapeViewer it is ignored.
Add Directory: Adds to the current scene all files in a directory. If a file cannot be understood by ShapeViewer it is ignored. The viewing angle and zoom factor of the scene are unchanged.
Exit: Exits the ShapeViewer.

View menu items change how the shapes are drawn.

Clear Viewer

Removes all loaded shapes.

Fit to View

Adjusts the current display zoom to show all shapes.

Perspective

Alternately changes projection policy to 'perspective' or 'parallel'

Draw Mode

Points: Draws the points of shapes.
Lines: Draws the lines of shapes if possible.
Surface: Draws the shapes as a wired surface if possible.
Surface Fill: Draws the shapes as a solid surface if possible.

Draw Start Point

Marks the first point of a line for shapes constructed from lines.

Draw Stop Point

Marks the final point of a line for shapes constructed from lines.

Set Background Color

Selects and sets the color of viewer's background.

Show Message Pane

Alternately hides or shows the message display window.

Scene Orientation

Standard Orientations

+X: Rotates shapes so that shapes' right sides face to the user if the user viewing from front. Similar to 'Viewing from Left'
-X: Rotates shapes so that shapes' left sides face to the user if the user viewing from front. Similar to 'Viewing from Right'
+Y: Rotates shapes so that shapes' bottom sides face to the user if the user viewing from front. Similar to 'Viewing from Bottom'
-Y: Rotates shapes so that shapes' top sides face to the user if the user viewing from front. Similar to 'Viewing from Top'
+Z: Rotates shapes so that shapes' back sides face to the user if the user viewing from front. Similar to 'Viewing from Back'
-Z: Rotates shapes so that shapes' front sides face to the user if the user viewing from front. Similar to 'Viewing from Front'

Favorites

Select: Loads and applys the named favorite setting.
Add...: Adds current setting such as draw mode, view direction, light direction etc to a file, so later on user can reload it by choose 'Select' menu item.
Delete: Deletes permantly the named favorite setting.

Lights

Manually selects the light direction.

View Direction

Manually selects the direction to view the scene.

Advanced menu items provide advanced user services.

Beanshell

Show a interactive Java BeanShell terminal window. The ShapeViewer may be controlled by typing commands from its script language into this window. Java commands are also interpreted.

As an example, type 'print(System.getProperties());' and hit Return.

You may type the predefined commands to manipulate the viewer.

It has a variable named 'viewer' which is the reference to the Viewer object, e.g. You can change viewer's background color to red by typing 'viewer.setBackGroundColor(Color.red);'.

Start Server...

Starts server so other viewers can connect to this viewer as a ShapeViewer 'Client'. If you are behind a firewall you may need to set the values of the 'Listen Port' and 'Export Port' to IP ports to which your firewall allows access. If the numbers of these ports are changed from their default values you will need to to notify any client viewer users of their values.

Stop Server

Stops a running Server.

Connect to Server

Put your viewer into 'Client' mode and connects to a server Viewer. You must specify the server's IP address and its port number. If you are behind a firewall, the server may be unable to use the 'callback' method of updating your client's display. In this instance you may choose to use the (slower) 'poll' method of receiving server updates.

Disconnect Server

Disonnects a viewer from a Server.

Load Shape into a New Viewer.

Opens a File Browser to let user select a shape, then starts the server and loads the selected shape to a new Viewer. The new Viewer connects to the server.

Mouse actions control the viewing angle, zoom, and location of the shape display.

	Computer
Function	Windows	Mac OS X	Linux
Rotate Display	Left Mouse Button	Mouse	Left Mouse Button
Zoom Display	Middle Mouse Button OR Left Mouse Button with key “Alt” down	Option+ Mouse	Middle Mouse Button
Pan Display	Right Mouse Button	Apple (cloverleaf) + Mouse	Right Mouse Button

Control Pane controls the rendering attributes such as color and visiblity of the shapes.

Shape Menu

Selects the shape whose color and visibility will set by the visibility controls.

Normals

On: Uses the surface normal vectors to illumine a surface.
Off: Ignores the surface normals.
Flip: Flips the direction of the normal, if it is currently On

Transformation

Read From...: Reads a linear transform from an AIR file and apply it to the currently selected Shape.
Reset: Resets the transformation of the currently selected Shape to nil.

Hide Checkbox

When checked, hides the Shape selected by the Shape Menu.

Color Button

Shows a color dialog. This dialog allows a user to color a shape by either selecting a single color for the entire shape, coloring it's vertices from scalar data attribute values passed through a user-defined color map, or from a set of RGBA colors defined by a 4-tuple vector data attribute, if any exist in the shape.

Ranges report the dimensions of the world space occupied by the shapes.

Color map Dialog .

The color map allows a user to define a function mapping a scalar (data attribute) value to an RGBA color.

The color map dialog has 6 panels. From left to right,

the first pane shows the currently set colors.
The second panel shows the values of control points of the mapping function.
The third, fourth , fifth and sixth panel define the map function in terms of it's primitive Red, Green and Blue and Opacity (alpha) color components.

The color component map functions are formed from piecewise linear maps joined at control points. Maps of any complexity may be formed by adding, deleting and moving the control points.

Add a Control Point by double - clicking the mouse in the color panel.
Delete a Control Point
Change a Control Point by dragging the point, or by right-clicking the control point and editing the value dialog box.

A control point has two components, the first is its vertical value, associated with the value of the (mapped) data attribute. The second component is refers to a color component (R,G,B or A). The horizontal value ranges from 0.0 to 1.0.

The (vertical) value range of the color map can be modified by two text fields to determine the range of data attribute values colored by the color map. Data values outside the range of the color map are colored black.
This range may (and should) be manually edited to customize the coloring scheme.
Note:After editing a range value you must type type the Enter key to update the color map with the new value.

You can manipulate a color map by

Custom Color Maps may be saved to and restored from disk files.

Color Maps: Selects a color map for use.
New: Creates a new color map.
Load...: Loads a previously saved color map file.
Save As...: Saves the current color map to a color map file.
Save as Image...: Saves an image of current color map to an image file on a remote or local computer.
Rename...: Changes name of the current color map.
Reverse: Reverses the current color map top-for-bottom.

Button Panel

Shape

Selects the shape to which the color map will be applied.

Attribute

Selects the attribute of the shape to which the color map will be applied.

Ok

Applys the color map to the selected shape and selected attributes, and closes the color map dialog.

Cancel

Closes the dialog and do nothing.

Apply

Applys the color map to the selected shape and selected attributes.

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