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Changelog:
2000-09-25 created the changelog after a week of initial editing PJT
2000-10-10 made consistent with VERSION 0.1 release PJT
2000-12-28 document new movie features for the new CVS version
and lotsa more commands described now PJT
2001-07-19 Even more commands described. Separate kira section. slevy
2001-08-30 better introduction and library descriptions,
added some command descriptions, removed redundancies,
added examples to make animated gifs pjt
2002-01-22 pjt
Note that linuxdoc should be converted to the DocBook format, which supersedes
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which manually a few small things will need to be cleaned up.
See the C-C++ Beautifier for details.
2002-01-03 some more installation notes
2002-06-19 describe stereo, waveobj, detach slevy
2002-06-20 document windows build process slevy
2002-06-25 some doc for colormaps, selected-sets, only= slevy
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$Log$
Revision 1.23 2004/10/19 02:10:58 slevy
Add blurbs describing .obj (Wavefront) and .pb (simple binary particle) formats.
Revision 1.22 2002/06/27 04:23:12 slevy
Describe Windows build process (for both partiview and starlab).
Update FLTK. Avoid mentioning fltk 2.0 since it probably doesn't work.
Try using <verb> around code blocks; with sgml2latex, <code> places
ugly horizontal rules around the blocks and misplaces them so that they
crop some of the text.
Describe "detach" command and new cross-eyed stereo feature.
Describe thresh, only=/only-/only+, see and sel commands.
But really need a separate section about how selection sets should work.
(Maybe writing the section will make it clear how they *should* work.)
Add "thresh" example. Look at stellar distribution by B-V -- the Orion
spur really does show up in blue!
Describe transform syntax including "tfm camera", making multiplication
order explicit.
Describe colormap file syntax in new section. Document "cment" & "vcmap" cmds.
-->
<article>
<!-- Title information -->
<title> Partiview (PC-VirDir)
<date> 25 June 2002
partiview is a program that enables you to visualize and animate
particle data. partiview runs on relatively simple desktops and
laptops, but is mostly compatible with its big brother VirDir.
This document helps you installing and running the development version
</abstract>
<!-- Table of contents -->
<toc>
<!-- Begin the document -->
<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
This assumes you have the July 2001 release (version 0.6 or later) of
<bf/partiview/, not the earlier "<bf/gview/" release that was described
in earlier versions of this document. We keep copies of some Linux support
files (Mesa, FLTK) on our current
name="http://www.astro.umd.edu/nemo/amnh"> website. Although
more current versions of support libraries may be available, they
may not have been tested out. This release has been tried on
Linux (red hat 6.2, 7.1, 7.2), Irix and Windows.
partiview needs two libraries to compile: OpenGL (or MESA) for the
drawing operations, and FLTK for the graphical user interface.
These libraries are known to work on MS-Windows as well as many Unix flavors.
there are rpm files available. For <tt/redhat7.1+/ they
are now included in the basic distribution.
Check if you have something like the following (version numbers may be different):
<tscreen><code>
% rpm -qa | grep Mesa
Mesa-3.2-2
Mesa-devel-3.2-2
% rpm -i Mesa-3.2-2.i686.rpm Mesa-devel-3.2-2.i686.rpm
You should have both installed. Some packages will use <tt/libMesaGL/, others
<tt/libGL/. Our <tt/configure/ script (see below)
should take care of the two possible options.
Homepage: <htmlurl url="http://mesa3d.sourceforge.net/"
name="http://mesa3d.sourceforge.net/">
Redhat packages: (part of powertools I believe)
<P> Mesa3D is under continuous development. As of this writing the
stable release is 4.0.1, but it has not been tested with the current partiview release.
Redhat 7.1 comes with Mesa-3.4 and also works with partiview.
You can also use a CVS release of Mesa.
Also make sure <tt/FLTK/ is installed. If you got our version, do this (as
% locate libfltk.a
% locate Fl_Slider.h
</code></tscreen>
(you only need it if you want to recompile the program at some point,
not if you just want to run it)
<p>
Homepage: <htmlurl url="http://www.fltk.org/"
<p>
Redhat packages: <htmlurl url="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/nogin/RPM/fltk-devel.html"
name="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/nogin/RPM/fltk-devel.html">
<p>
Find rpms: <htmlurl url="http://rpmfind.net"
name="http://rpmfind.net">
<P> FLTK is under continuous development. Versions from 1.0.9 through
1.1.0rc3 have been successfully tested with partiview. The upcoming 2.0
version of FLTK is unlikely to work with partiview.
<!-- therefore we don't want to mention this now, right? -slevy
Here is an example of getting a CVS version of FLTK and installing it in your
alternate installation tree /opt:
{tscreen}{code}
% cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.fltk.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/fltk co fltk
% cd fltk
% configure {-}-prefix=/opt/lib
% setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`/lib
% make
% make install
{/code}{/tscreen}
Note that fltk uses .h and .H files, and installing does not fix these problems.
You can decide to use a branded version, usually available as a tar or zip file,
or use the CVS (see below).
Extract the tarball, and install the program from within the
<tt/src/ directory:
% tar zxf partiview-0.6.tar.gz
% make depend (might need to make new local dependancies)
% make partiview (should not have to edit Makefile anymore)
If you encounter difficulties of locating either the FLTK or MESA/OpenGL
libraries, configure script options can specify them:
<tt/--with-fltk=/<it/dirname/ names the directory which contains the
<tt/lib/ and <tt/FL/ subdirectories, <tt/--with-mesa=/<it/dirname/
can specify the Mesa installation directory [??], and
<tt/--with-kira=/<it/dirname/ names the Starlab directory, whose default
value is taken from environment variable STARLAB_PATH if that is set.
Since version 0.5 <tt/partiview/ is under CVS control, and occasionally we
will stamp out a new release when we deem it stable. Anonymous or read-only
CVS access is also offered. Currently the CVS repository machine is
<tt/cvs.astro.umd.edu/ and you will need to setup your developers account with
Peter (<tt/teuben@astro.umd.edu/). Here's a sample session with some commonly
used CVS commands:
<tscreen><code>
setenv CVSROOT :pserver:anonymous@cvs.astro.umd.edu:/home/cvsroot
setenv CVS_RSH ssh (not needed for pserver access though)
cvs login (only needed once, and only for pserver type access)
cvs checkout partiview # get a new local sandbox to work in, or
cd partiview # goto the root directory of partiview
cvs -n -q update # check if others had made any changes
cvs update # if so, update your sandbox and/or resolve conflicts
cd partiview/src # goto the 'src' directory of partiview
emacs partibrains.c # edit some files
./partiview # test the program
emacs kira_parti.cc # edit another file
cvs update # if so, update your sandbox again, resolve conflicts
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<sect1> Compiling under Windows
<p>
Partiview can be compiled from the command line on Windows using either the
Microsoft Visual C tools (<tt/cl, nmake,/ etc.) or using <tt>gcc/g++</tt> with
<tt/MinGW32, MSYS and w32api/. The MinGW route is currently the only way
to compile with kira/Starlab support. There's no provision for building
partiview within the MS Visual Studio GUI.
To compile with Microsoft C:
<p>
<enum>
<item> Install FLTK using MS Visual C++ as described in its documentation.
<item> Unpack the <tt/partiview/ distribution from its tarball or via CVS.
<item> Edit the file <tt>partiview/src/partiview.mak</tt>,
changing <tt/FLTK_DIR/ as appropriate.
<item> Run the <tt/vcvars32.bat/ script from the Developer Studio <tt/Bin/
directory; this will set the MSVCDIR environment variable,
add the <tt/Bin/ directory to PATH, etc.
<item> In the <tt>partiview/src</tt> directory, compile with
<tscreen><verb>
nmake -f partiview.mak
</verb></tscreen>
Dependencies are <it/not/ properly maintained by this Makefile, so
use <tt/nmake -f partiview.mak clean/ if you change anything.
</enum>
To compile with MinGW and company, you'll need to:
<enum>
<item> Install <tt/MinGW/ (gcc, etc.), its associated <tt/w32api/
libraries and header files, and the <tt/MSYS/ suite of
UNIX-like tools. All three packages are available at:
<htmlurl url="http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/"
name="http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/">
Recent releases of w32api include MinGW versions of OpenGL
libraries and headers, which partiview needs.
As of June 2002, current versions seem to be <tt/mingw-1.0.1-20010726,
w32api-1.4-2, and MSYS-1.0.7/.
Unpack the .zip or .tar archives of MinGW and w32api;
both packages are intended to live in the same directory.
The MSYS package comes as a self-extracting archive and
can be extracted into a different directory as desired.
(But don't attempt to merge the MSYS <tt/bin/ directory contents
into <tt>mingw/bin</tt>.)
<item> Add both the MSYS <tt/bin/ subdirectory and MinGW <tt/bin/
subdirectory to the Windows PATH environment variable,
with the MSYS directory coming earlier, e.g. in a command window
<tscreen><verb>
set path=%path%;C:\util\msys\1.0\bin;C:\util\mingw\bin
</verb></tscreen>
or the analogous setting of PATH using (on WinNT/2000 at least)
<tt/My Computer -> Control Panel -> System -> Environment/
to make a permanent change to PATH.
<item> Build FLTK using MinGW. Unpack its source distribution and say
<tscreen><verb>
sh configure
make
</verb></tscreen>
<item> Build the Starlab libraries, if desired:
<enum>
<item>You may need to install CVS for Windows. Binary packages
are available; follow the Win32 link on
<htmlurl url="http://www.cvshome.org/downloads.html"
name="http://www.cvshome.org/downloads.html">.
Put the resulting cvs.exe file into the PATH somewhere.
<item>Use CVS to checkout the Starlab sources into some directory:
<tscreen><verb>
cd C:\some\where
set CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.astro.umd.edu:/home/cvsroot
cvs login
cvs checkout starlab
cd starlab
</verb></tscreen>
<item>Copy <tt>templates\starlab_setup.bat</tt> to
<tt>local\starlab_setup.bat</tt>, and edit it.
Change the first two <tt/set/ commands: set <tt/STARLAB_PATH/
to the installation directory -- in the above example,
<tt>set STARLAB_PATH=C:\some\where\starlab</tt>.
Also optionally update (or remove) <tt/set PATH=.../
to add MSYS and MinGW <tt/bin/ directories to it.
<item>From a Windows command window, type
<tscreen><verb>
local\starlab_setup
make libs
</verb></tscreen>
<item>If successful, you should find in the <tt/lib/ directory
the files <tt/libdstar.a libdyn.a libnode.a librdc.a libsstar.a libstd.a libtdyn.a/
</enum>
<p>
<item>
Now, back in the <tt>partiview/src</tt> directory,
use <tt/configure/ and <tt/make/ as under Unix.
The MSYS package imposes its own UNIX-like syntax for Windows pathnames,
which you'll need to use as arguments to configure and friends,
with forward- instead of backslashes and a /<it/drive-letter/ prefix.
Also, if typing to a Windows command-window, shell scripts like
<tt>configure</tt> must be explicitly fed to <tt>sh</tt>.
Thus for example if FLTK is installed in <tt>C:\util\fltk-1.1.0</tt>
and Starlab is in <tt>F:\src\starlab</tt>, then you might build
partiview by typing
<tscreen><verb>
sh configure --with-fltk=/c/util/fltk-1.1.0 --with-kira=/f/src/starlab
make
</verb></tscreen>
Note there's no need to specify the location of the OpenGL or other
libraries; the configure script and MinGW tools already know
where to find them.
</enum>
<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------- -->
Here is the directory structure, as per version 0.1:
<p>
<tscreen><verb>
partiview/ root directory
partiview/src source code
partiview/data sample datafiles (e.g. Hipparcos Bright Star Catalogue)
partiview/doc manual (sgml, and derived html, txt, ps/dvi)
partiview/nemo NEMO specific converters/code
partiview/starlab STARLAB specific converters/code
partiview/windows windows executables/support (old)
</verb></tscreen>
<sect> Running the program
<p>
First we describe a simple example how to run <tt/partiview/ with a supplied sample
dataset. Then we describe the different windows that <tt/partiview/ is made up of, and
the different commands and keystrokes it listens to.
<sect1> Example 1: Hipparcos Bright Star Catalogue 3-D viewing
Start the program using one of the sample "speck" files in the
% cd partiview/data
and this should come up with a display familiar to most of us who
watch the skies. You should probably enlarge the
window a bit. Mine comes up in roughly a 300 by 300 display window,
which may be a bit small (certainly on my screen :-)
(Hint: the <tt/.partiviewrc/ file may contain commands like
<tt/eval winsize 600 400/.)
Hit the TAB key to bring focus to the (one line) command window inbetween
the log screen (top) and viewing screen (bottom). Type the commands
<tscreen><code>
fov 50 (field of view 50 degrees)
jump 0 0 0 80 70 60 (put yourself in the origin
and it should give another nice comfy view :-) If you ever get lost,
and this is not hard, use
the <tt/jump/ command to go back to a known position and/or viewing
<figure loc="tbp">
<img src="pv1.gif">
<caption>partiview view</caption>
</figure>
<p>
Note that spatial units for this dataset are
parsecs, though angular units are degrees for any data in partiview.
Now play with the display, use the 't', 'r', 'f' and 'o' keys
(keys are case sensitive) in the viewing window and use the
left and mouse buttons down to (carefully) move around a bit, and make
yourself comfortable with moving around. Using the 't' button you get
some idea of the distance of the stars by moving back and forth a little
(the parallax trick). In fact, if you 't' around a little bit, you may
see a green line flashing through the display. This is one of the RGB
(xyz) axes attached to the (0,0,0) [our sun] position. You should see
Procyon and Sirius exhibit pretty large parallaxes, but Orion is pretty
steady since it is several hundred parsecs away.
If you move the right mouse button you will zoom in/out and
should see our Sun flash by with the red-green-blue axes.
<p>
The RGB axes represent the XYZ axes in a (right-handed)
cartesian system. For the Hipparcos
data the X (red) axis points to RA=0h, Y (green) axis to RA=6h, both in the equatorial
plane, and the Z (blue) axis points to the equatorial north pole.
Try and use the middle mouse button (or the 'p' key) to click on Sirius
or Procyon, and see if you can get it to view its properties. Now use
the 'P' key to switch center to rotation to that star. Sirius is
probably a good choice. Move around a bit, and try and get the sun and orion
in the same view :-)
<p>
[NOTE: these Hipparcos data do not have reliably distance above
100-200 pc, so Orion's individual distances are probably uncertain to 30%]
<p>
A little bit on the types of motion, and what the mouse buttons do
<tscreen><code>
| left middle right
| Button-1 Button-2 Button-3 Shift Button-1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
r (rotate) | rotate X/Y 'pick' rotate Z translate
t (translate) | translate 'pick' zoom
</code></tscreen>
The point of origin for rotations can be changed with the 'P' button.
First you can try and pick ('p' or Button-2) a point, and if found,
hit 'P' to make this point the new rotation center default.
<tscreen><code>
red = X axis
green = Y axis
blue = Z axis
</code></tscreen>
To choose an arbitrary center of rotation, use the <tt/center/ command.
The top row contains some shortcuts to some frequently used commands.
From left to right, it should show the following buttons:
Offers some mode switches as toggles: <tt/inertia/
for continues spin or motion,
and an <tt/H-R Diagram/ to invoke a separate H-R diagram window
for datasets that support stellar evolution.
Pulldown g1, g2, ... (or whichever group)
is the currently selected group. See <tt/object/ command
to make aliases which group is defined to what object. If multiple
groups are defined, the next row below this contains a list of all
the groups, and their aliases, so you can toggle them to be displayed.
Pulldown to select fly/orbit/rot/tran, which can also be activate
by pressing the f/o/r/t keys inside the viewing window.
<tag> point </tag>
Toggle to turn the points on/off. See also the <tt/points/ command.
Toggle to turn polygons on/off. See also the <tt/polygon/ command.
Toggle to turn labels on/off. See also the <tt/label/ command.
Toggle to turn textures on/off. See also the <tt/texture/ command.
Toggle to turn boxes on/off. See also the <tt/boxes/ command.
<tag> #.### </tag>
The current displayed value of the <tt/logslum lum/ slider (see next)
Slider controlling the logarithm of the <bf/datavar/ variable
selected as luminosity (with the <tt/lum/ command).
</descrip>
<sect1> Group row (optional)
<p>
When more than one group has been activated (groups of particles or objects
can have their own display properties, and be turned on and off at will),
a new Group Row will appear as the 2nd row.
<p>
Left-clicking (button 1) on a button toggles the display of that group;
right-clicking (button 3) enables display of the group,
and also selects it as the current group for GUI controls and
text commands.
<sect1> Time Animation rows (Optional)
For time-dependent data, the third and fourth row from
the top control the currently displayed data-time.
This time-control bar is only visible when the object
has a nonzero time range.
<descrip>
<tag> T </tag>
Shows the current time (or offset from the tripmeter).
The absolute time is the sum of the <bf/T/ and <bf/+/ fields.
Both are editable.
See also the <tt/step/ control command.
<tag>trip </tag>
Press to mark a reference point in time.
The T field becomes zero, and the + field (below)
is set to current time. As time passes, T shows the
offset from this reference time.
<tag>back </tag>
Press to return to reference time (sets T to 0).
<tag> + </tag>
Current last time where tripmeter was set. You can reset to
the first frame with the command <tt/step 0/
<tag> dial </tag>
Drag to adjust the current time. Sensitivity depends
on the speed setting; dragging by one dial-width
corresponds to 0.1 wall-clock second of animation,
i.e. 0.1 * <it/speed/ in data time units.
<tag> |< </tag>
<tag> >| </tag>
Step time backwards or forwards by 0.1 * <it/speed/ data time units.
See also the <tt/</ and <tt/>/ keyboard shortcuts.
<tag> << </tag> <p>
<tag> >> </tag> toggle movie move forwards in time
Toggle animating backwards or forwards in time, by
1 * <it/speed/ data time units per real-time second.
See also the <tt/{/, <tt/~/, and <tt/}/ keyboard shortcuts.
<tag> #.#### </tag>
(Logarithmic) value denoting <it/speed/ of animation.
See also the <tt/speed/ control command.
The fifth (or 4th or 3rd, depending if Group and/or Time rows are present)
row from the top controls loading and playing sequences of moving through space.
<tag> Path... </tag>
Brings up a filebrowser to load a <bf/.wf/ path file. This is a file with on each
line 7 numbers: xyz location, RxRyRz viewing direction, and FOV (field of view).
The <tt/rdata/ command loads such path files too.
Play the viewpoint along the currently loaded path,
as the <tt/play/ command does.
Right-click for a menu of play-speed options.
Step through camera-path frames.
See also <tt/frame/ control command.
Slides through camera path, and displays current frame.
The third window from the top contains a logfile of past commands
and responses to them, and can be resized by dragging the bar between
command window and viewing window.
The Logfile window also has a scroll bar on the left. You can
direct the mouse to any previous command, and it will show up in the
command window. Using the arrow keys this command can then be edited.
The Command window is a single line entry window, in which Control
Commands can be given. Their responses appear in the Logfile
window and on the originating console. (unlike Data Commands,
which show no feedback). You can still give Data Commands in
this window by prefixing them with the <tt/add/ command.
The Up- and Down-arrow keys (not those on the keypad) scroll through
previous commands, and can be edited using the arrow keys and a subset
of the emacs control characters.
The (OpenGL) Viewing window is where all the action occurs. Typically
this is where you give single keystroke commands and/or move the mouse
for an interactive view of the data. It can be resized two ways:
either by resizing the master window, or by picking up the separator
between Viewing window and Command window above.
<sect1> Example 2: a (starlab) animation
<p>
Setting up a small animation in for example Starlab can be done quite simply as follows:
(see also the primbim16.mk makefile to create a standard one):
<tscreen><code>
% makeplummer -i -n 20 | makemass -l 0.5 -u 10.0 | scale -s | kira -d 2 -D x10 > run1
% partiview run1.cf
% cat run1.cf
kira run1
eval every
eval lum mass 0 0.01
eval psize 100
eval cment 1 1 .7 .3
eval color clump exact
</code></tscreen>
Alternatively, if you had started up partiview without any arguments, the following
Control Command (see below) would have done the same
<tscreen><code>
read run1.cf
<sect1> Example 3: stereo viewing
<p>
The 's' key within the viewing window toggles stereo viewing. By default each
object is split in a blue and a red part, that should be viewed with a pair
of red(left)/blue(right) glasses. Red/green glasses will probably work too.
Crosseyed viewing is also available if selected by <bf/stereo cross/.
See <bf/stereo/ and <bf/focallen/ in the View Commands section.
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<sect1> Example 4: subsetting
<p>
In the <tt/data/ directory, run
<verb>
partiview hip.cf
</verb>
One of the data fields for these stars is the <it/B-V/ color, <tt/colorb_v/,
abbreviatable to just <tt/color/. Look at just the bluest stars: try
<verb>
thresh color < -.1
</verb>
Back off to a large distance (drag with right mouse button,
and drag the <tt/logslum lum/ slider to brighten)
and look at the distribution of these blue stars. The
Orion spiral-arm spur, extending generally along the +Y (green)
axis, has lots of them. Now look at more reddish stars,
those with .5 <= <it/B-V/ <= 1.5, with:
<verb>
thresh color .5 1.5
</verb>
These are much more uniformly distributed in the galactic plane.
Return to seeing all stars, with:
<verb>
see all
</verb>
or re-view the threshold-selected subset (reddish stars) with
<verb>
see thresh
</verb>
or its complement with
<verb>
see -thresh
</verb>
<!--
-->
<p>
<sect> Commands
<p>
There are two types of commands in <tt/partiview/:
Control Commands and Data Commands.
Probably the most important difference between the two is that Control
Commands return feedback to the user, whereas Data Commands
are interpreted without comment. The command window expects
to receive Control Commands. However, it is possible to
enter a Data Command where a Control Command is expected,
using the <tt/add/ command prefix. Likewise, a Control Command
may be given where data is expected, using the <tt/eval/ prefix,
e.g. in a data (or .cf) file. The <tt/real/ (Control) Command expects
data commands, but if Control Commands are needed, they need to be preceded
with the <tt/eval/ command. See also the previous <bf/starlab/ example.
<!--
Before we explain the two types of Commands in
more detail, a few other concepts are needed:
-->
<!--
-->
<p>
<sect1> Control Commands
(see partibrains.c::specks_parse_args)
<p>
Control Commands are accepted in the Command window, and in some other contexts.
Generally, <tt/partiview/ gives a response to every Control Command,
reporting the (possibly changed) status.
Typically, if parameters are omitted, the current state is reported.
<p>
Some commands apply to particles in the current group (see Object group commands);
others affect global things, such as time or display settings.
<p>
Data Commands can also be given, if prefixed with <tt/add/.
read <it/specks-file/
Read a file containing Data Commands (typical suffix <tt/.cf/ or <tt/.speck/).
NOTYET (would read a file containing control commands)
async <it/unix-command/
Run an arbitrary unix command (invoked via /bin/sh) as a subprocess of <tt/partiview/.
Its standard output is interpreted as a stream of control commands.
Thus <tt/partiview/ can be driven externally, e.g. to record an animation
(using the <tt/snapshot/ command), or to provide additional GUI controls.
Several <tt/async/ commands can run concurrently.
Examples are given later. Warning: you cannot interrupt a started command,
short of hitting ESC to exit partiview.
add <it/data-command/
Enter a Data Command where a Control Command is expected,
e.g. in the text input box. For example,
<verb>
add 10 15 -1 text blah
</verb>
adds a new label "blah" at 10 15 -1, or
<verb>
add kira myrun.out
</verb>
loads a kira (starlab) output file.
eval <it/control-command/
Processes that control command just as if the <tt/eval/ prefix weren't there.
Provided for symmetry: wherever either a control command or a data command
is expected, entering <tt/eval/ <it/control-command/ ensures that it's
add filepath (data-command)
Determines the list of directories where all data files, color maps, etc.
are sought. See the <tt/filepath/ entry under
<!-- ref id="datacommands" name="Data Commands" --> Data Commands.
<p>
<tt/Partiview/ can load multiple groups of particles,
each with independent display settings, colormaps, etc.
When more than one group is loaded, the Group Row appears on the GUI,
with one toggle-button for each group. Toggling the button turns
display of that group on or off. Right-clicking turns the group unconditionally on,
and selects that group as the current one for other GUI controls.
<p>
Many Control Commands apply to the <it/currently selected/ group.
Groups always have names of the form g<it/N/ for some small positive <it/N/;
each group may also have an alias.
g<it/N/ </tag>
Select group g<it/N/. Create a new group if it doesn't already exist.
g<it/N/=<it/alias/ </tag>
Assign name <it/alias/ to group g<it/N/.
Note there must be no blanks around the <tt/=/ sign.
object <it/objectname/
Likewise, select object <it/objectname/, which may be either an alias name
g<it/N/ <it/control-command/
object <it/objectname/ <it/control-command/
Either form may be used as a <it/prefix/ to any control command
to act on the specified group, e.g. <tt/object fred poly on/
gall <it/control-command/
Invoke the given <it/control-command/ in all groups.
For example, to turn display of group 3 on and all others off, use:
<tscreen><verb>
gall off
g3 on
</verb></tscreen>
Either one will
enable the display of the currently selected group (as it is by default).
Either one will turn off the display of the current group.
</descrip>
View commands affect the view; they aren't specific to data groups.
fov <it/float/
Angular field of view (in degrees) in Y-direction.
cen[ter] <it/X Y Z/ [<it/RADIUS/]
<!-- int[erest] <it/X Y Z/ [<it/RADIUS/] -->
Set point of interest. This is the center of rotation in
<tt/[o]rbit/ and <tt/[r]otate/ modes. Also, in <tt/[o]rbit/ mode,
translation speed is proportional to the viewer's distance from this point.
The optional <it/RADIUS/ (also set by <tt/censize/) determines the size
of the marker crosshair, initially 1 unit.
cen[ter] [<it/X Y Z/ [<it/RADIUS/]]
int[erest] [<it/X Y Z/ [<it/RADIUS/]]
Set point of interest. This is the center of rotation in
<tt/[o]rbit/ and <tt/[r]otate/ modes. And, in <tt/[o]rbit/ mode,
translation speed is proportional to the viewer's distance from this point.
The optional <it/RADIUS/ (also set by <tt/censize/) determines the size
of the marker crosshair, initially 1 unit.
**** why is center/interest commented out in the first example. Originally
this command was documented twice, the first one has /interest commented out.
<tag>
censize [<it/RADIUS/]
</tag>
Set size of point-of-interest marker.
where <it/(also)/ w
Report the 3-D camera position and forward direction vector.
clip <it/NEAR/ <it/FAR/
Clipping distances. The computer graphics setup always requires
drawing only objects in some finite range of distances in front of the
viewpoint. Both values must be strictly positive, and their ratio
is limited; depending on the graphics system in use, distant objects
may appear to blink if the <it/FAR//<it/NEAR/ ratio exceeds 10000 or so.
To set the far clip range without changing the near, use a non-numeric
near clip value, e.g. <tt/clip - 1000/.
<!--
jump [<it/X Y Z/] [<it/Rx Ry Rz/]
Get or set the current position (XYZ) and/or viewing (RxRyRz) angle.
Read a Wavefront (<tt/.wf/) file describing a path through space.
Play the currently loaded (from <tt/readpath//<tt/rdata/) camera animation
path, at <it/speed/ times normal speed,
skipping frames as needed to keep up with wall-clock time.
(Normal speed is 30 frames per second.)
With "f" suffix, displays every <it/speed/-th frame, without regard to real
time.