6.1 Anatomy of the Viewer Window

The Viewer window contains two main areas. The upper portion, which displays graphics and is called the Graphics window, and the lower portion where the majority of control buttons are found. Figure 6.1 contains an example of a Viewer window. In the Graphics window, viewing is controlled by the mouse, mouse buttons, and various modifier keys (shift/control/alt). In the lower window there are several buttons and sliders. Their function is described in this section.

Figure 6.1: The default Viewer window in SCIRun

 

The visible controls along the bottom of the Viewer window set default configurations as follows:

Autoview

Restores the display to a default condition. Useful when some combination of settings result in objects disappearing from the view window.

Set Home View

Captures the setting of the current view so the user can return to it later by clicking the ``Go home'' button.

Go home

Restores the current home view.

Views

Lists a number of standard viewing angles and orientations. The view directions align with the Cartesian axes of the objects, and the ``Up vector'' option sets the orientation of the objects when viewed along the selected axis.

The display's rendering speed is shown in the lower left corner of the Viewer's control window.

More controls can be revealed by clicking the [+] button in the lower right corner of the Viewer window (see Extended Control Window for a description of extended controls).

6.1.1 Menus

The Viewer window's menu bar contains the File, Edit, and Visual menus and the NewViewer button.

File

The File menu contains the following items:

Save Image...

Saves the contents of the Viewer window as an image to a file. A dialog prompts the user for a file name, an image format, and an image size.

Record Movie...

Saves the contents of the Viewer window as a movie. See Recording Movies for more information.

Edit

The Edit menu contains the following items:

View/Camera...

Edit eye point, look at point, up vector, and field of view settings.

Light Sources...

Edit light sources, colors, and brightness. Light source locations are specified relative to the camera. Alternatively, using module AddLight (category Visualization in the SCIRun package), light sources can be specified as objects in the scene.

Background...

Change the Viewer window's background color.

Clipping Planes...

Edit the orientation and visibility of clipping planes.

Point Size...

Increase or decrease the size of points.

Line Width...

Increase or decrease the width of lines.

Polygon Offset...

Set the polygon offset parameter. This parameter is used to improve rendering of coplanar polygons, lines, and points by offsetting polygons (by a small amount) from other objects.

Scene Materials...

Edit scene material properties.

Visual

Allows the user to select different graphics hardware settings that are available on the workstation. The list is ordered heuristically from most to least useful.

NewViewer

NewViewer creates a new Viewer window when pressed. Each viewer window is independent of other viewer windows.