[GRASS5] New NVIZ layout

GRASS GIS GRASS GIS developer
1

Hello,

I have just applied some changes to CVS for the ogsf lirary, and nviz. These changes include a number of small fixes and a new GUI layout for NVIZ.

The changes include the following:
1. I have combined the NVIZ menus and the NVIZ window into a single interface which solves some of the problems with windows on top of each other and various packing problems (i.e. windows opening minimized or too small).

2. I have added a scrollbar to the menu frame so that some of the larger menus do not disappear off the bottom of a smaller screen.

3. I have added a new option "File" -> "Set Canvas Size". This opens a window where the user can manually set the exact canvas (viewing area) size or set it to "Unconstrained". If "Unconstrained" is set the canvas will automatically resize with the main window. Manually setting the size is useful for custom images or animations where a set image size is required.

4. I have added an option under "Panel" called "Hide Panels". This can be used to temporarily hide the option menus. To re-open the menus select "Panel"->"Show Menus". Also, opeing a new menu will automatically expose the menus. To make this easier I have also added a small arrow button at the bottom of the scrollbar described above in item 2. Hiding the menus can be useful with the window maximaized (and unconstrained) with the "fly" naviagtion option selected.

5. I have re-orgainized the display options under "Main Features" and "Decorations" at the top of the main display panel. Surfaces, vectors, sites, and volumes can all be turned on or off under "Main Features". Under "Decorations" the legend, labels, north arrow, and fringe can also be turned on or off. For example after a legend has been created it can be turned on or off by selected the checkbutton under Decorations. This saves having to open othe menus to turn off a feature.

6. I have updated the North Arrow feature. It now has an option for the user to manually set the arrow length (default = 100). Also, the arrow can now be placed either on the surface or outside of the surface.

7. I have add a routine that temporily hides the the togl display canvas while off-screen rendering is taking place. This prevents the togl binding from taking focus while off-screen rendering is taking place. Do not minmize the window while off screen rendering is taking place.

8. I have added Tooltip support. I have not completely implemented this, but the main movement panel now has tooltips for most of the options.

9. I have changed the color option for cut-plane drawing so that the colors should be drawn correctly.

10. General code clean-up in nviz/src to eleiminate some of the compiler warnings.

If anyone has any questions or problems please let me know.

--
Bob Covill

Tekmap Consulting
P.O. Box 2016
Fall River, N.S.
B2T 1K6
Canada

E-Mail: bcovill@tekmap.ns.ca

2

Great! Thanks Bob. Looking forward to see it in the stable version (BTW: what
about *radically* shortening the GRASS release interval?).
pc

At 20:32, lunedì 01 agosto 2005, Bob Covill has probably written:

Hello,

I have just applied some changes to CVS for the ogsf lirary, and nviz.
These changes include a number of small fixes and a new GUI layout for
NVIZ.

--
Paolo Cavallini
cavallini@faunalia.it www.faunalia.it www.faunalia.com
Piazza Garibaldi 5 - 56025 Pontedera (PI), Italy Tel: (+39)348-3801953

3

These sound excellent!

Michael
______________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402
USA

voice: 480-965-6262; fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton

From: Bob Covill <bcovill@tekmap.ns.ca>
Date: Mon, 01 Aug 2005 15:32:17 -0300
To: GRASS List <grass5@grass.itc.it>
Subject: [GRASS5] New NVIZ layout

Hello,

I have just applied some changes to CVS for the ogsf lirary, and nviz.
These changes include a number of small fixes and a new GUI layout for NVIZ.

The changes include the following:
1. I have combined the NVIZ menus and the NVIZ window into a single
interface which solves some of the problems with windows on top of each
other and various packing problems (i.e. windows opening minimized or
too small).

2. I have added a scrollbar to the menu frame so that some of the larger
menus do not disappear off the bottom of a smaller screen.

3. I have added a new option "File" -> "Set Canvas Size". This opens a
window where the user can manually set the exact canvas (viewing area)
size or set it to "Unconstrained". If "Unconstrained" is set the canvas
will automatically resize with the main window. Manually setting the
size is useful for custom images or animations where a set image size is
required.

4. I have added an option under "Panel" called "Hide Panels". This can
be used to temporarily hide the option menus. To re-open the menus
select "Panel"->"Show Menus". Also, opeing a new menu will automatically
expose the menus. To make this easier I have also added a small arrow
button at the bottom of the scrollbar described above in item 2. Hiding
the menus can be useful with the window maximaized (and unconstrained)
with the "fly" naviagtion option selected.

5. I have re-orgainized the display options under "Main Features" and
"Decorations" at the top of the main display panel. Surfaces, vectors,
sites, and volumes can all be turned on or off under "Main Features".
Under "Decorations" the legend, labels, north arrow, and fringe can also
be turned on or off. For example after a legend has been created it can
be turned on or off by selected the checkbutton under Decorations. This
saves having to open othe menus to turn off a feature.

6. I have updated the North Arrow feature. It now has an option for the
user to manually set the arrow length (default = 100). Also, the arrow
can now be placed either on the surface or outside of the surface.

7. I have add a routine that temporily hides the the togl display canvas
  while off-screen rendering is taking place. This prevents the togl
binding from taking focus while off-screen rendering is taking place. Do
not minmize the window while off screen rendering is taking place.

8. I have added Tooltip support. I have not completely implemented this,
but the main movement panel now has tooltips for most of the options.

9. I have changed the color option for cut-plane drawing so that the
colors should be drawn correctly.

10. General code clean-up in nviz/src to eleiminate some of the compiler
warnings.

If anyone has any questions or problems please let me know.

--
Bob Covill

Tekmap Consulting
P.O. Box 2016
Fall River, N.S.
B2T 1K6
Canada

E-Mail: bcovill@tekmap.ns.ca

4

Bob,

I have updated nviz and tried your changes - it is all great - especiall
the hide pannels feature, tooltip and I am happy to see the surface being
drawn rather than wait untill it "sharpens" which was confusing for large surfaces.

I had few small problems - some may be just me not doing things right -
so others please test the changes too:

- when I hide the pannels and the canvas expands the surface is rendered
at the grid resolution (which is usually set low) - would it be possible to have
it re-render at polygon resolution (or am I missing some button to do that
when pannels are hidden?)

- I was unable to change the numbers in the set canvas size window

- the north arrow still does not work properly for me - maybe due to different
fornts the word North is written accross the arrow in a strange way and
the arrow changes its position in relation to the surface when I move the surface around.

everything else that I tried worked fine, thank you very much for the updates,

Helena

Bob Covill wrote:

Hello,

I have just applied some changes to CVS for the ogsf lirary, and nviz. These changes include a number of small fixes and a new GUI layout for NVIZ.

The changes include the following:
1. I have combined the NVIZ menus and the NVIZ window into a single interface which solves some of the problems with windows on top of each other and various packing problems (i.e. windows opening minimized or too small).

2. I have added a scrollbar to the menu frame so that some of the larger menus do not disappear off the bottom of a smaller screen.

3. I have added a new option "File" -> "Set Canvas Size". This opens a window where the user can manually set the exact canvas (viewing area) size or set it to "Unconstrained". If "Unconstrained" is set the canvas will automatically resize with the main window. Manually setting the size is useful for custom images or animations where a set image size is required.

4. I have added an option under "Panel" called "Hide Panels". This can be used to temporarily hide the option menus. To re-open the menus select "Panel"->"Show Menus". Also, opeing a new menu will automatically expose the menus. To make this easier I have also added a small arrow button at the bottom of the scrollbar described above in item 2. Hiding the menus can be useful with the window maximaized (and unconstrained) with the "fly" naviagtion option selected.

5. I have re-orgainized the display options under "Main Features" and "Decorations" at the top of the main display panel. Surfaces, vectors, sites, and volumes can all be turned on or off under "Main Features". Under "Decorations" the legend, labels, north arrow, and fringe can also be turned on or off. For example after a legend has been created it can be turned on or off by selected the checkbutton under Decorations. This saves having to open othe menus to turn off a feature.

6. I have updated the North Arrow feature. It now has an option for the user to manually set the arrow length (default = 100). Also, the arrow can now be placed either on the surface or outside of the surface.

7. I have add a routine that temporily hides the the togl display canvas while off-screen rendering is taking place. This prevents the togl binding from taking focus while off-screen rendering is taking place. Do not minmize the window while off screen rendering is taking place.

8. I have added Tooltip support. I have not completely implemented this, but the main movement panel now has tooltips for most of the options.

9. I have changed the color option for cut-plane drawing so that the colors should be drawn correctly.

10. General code clean-up in nviz/src to eleiminate some of the compiler warnings.

If anyone has any questions or problems please let me know.

5

Helena,

Helena wrote:

Bob,

I have updated nviz and tried your changes - it is all great - especiall
the hide pannels feature, tooltip and I am happy to see the surface being
drawn rather than wait untill it "sharpens" which was confusing for large surfaces.

I had few small problems - some may be just me not doing things right -
so others please test the changes too:

- when I hide the pannels and the canvas expands the surface is rendered
at the grid resolution (which is usually set low) - would it be possible to have
it re-render at polygon resolution (or am I missing some button to do that
when pannels are hidden?)

This is just executing a re-shape command (the same as manually dragging the window size out). The re-shape command should only be doing a quick draw, not a full resolution re-draw. Do you see the same behaviour if you drag the corner of the window out?

- I was unable to change the numbers in the set canvas size window

When the "Unconstrained" checkbutton is selected in the canvas_size window the width and height entries are disabled. If you unselect the
"Unconstrained" checkbutton, the entries will become active. You can also set the canvas size before starting nviz with the GRASS env. variables X3D_WIDTH and X3D_HIEIGHT.

- the north arrow still does not work properly for me - maybe due to different
fornts the word North is written accross the arrow in a strange way and
the arrow changes its position in relation to the surface when I move the surface around.

The North arrow is a bit of a trick. It has to be re-created each time the scene is changed. Unfortunately I have not refined the code for writing out "North" so that it does not go over top of the arrow. Also there may be cases where the arrow is drawn too small to be visiable depending upon the projection and viewing region. For example in the slovakia3d dataset I set the arrow size to 50000 to get a good sized arrow. It is also worth mentioning that the arrow is always drawn at the point selected using the highest elevation from the DEM. This prevents the arrow being drawn going through a surface.

everything else that I tried worked fine, thank you very much for the updates,

Helena

Hope this helps.

--
Bob

Bob Covill wrote:

Hello,

I have just applied some changes to CVS for the ogsf lirary, and nviz. These changes include a number of small fixes and a new GUI layout for NVIZ.

The changes include the following:
1. I have combined the NVIZ menus and the NVIZ window into a single interface which solves some of the problems with windows on top of each other and various packing problems (i.e. windows opening minimized or too small).

2. I have added a scrollbar to the menu frame so that some of the larger menus do not disappear off the bottom of a smaller screen.

3. I have added a new option "File" -> "Set Canvas Size". This opens a window where the user can manually set the exact canvas (viewing area) size or set it to "Unconstrained". If "Unconstrained" is set the canvas will automatically resize with the main window. Manually setting the size is useful for custom images or animations where a set image size is required.

4. I have added an option under "Panel" called "Hide Panels". This can be used to temporarily hide the option menus. To re-open the menus select "Panel"->"Show Menus". Also, opeing a new menu will automatically expose the menus. To make this easier I have also added a small arrow button at the bottom of the scrollbar described above in item 2. Hiding the menus can be useful with the window maximaized (and unconstrained) with the "fly" naviagtion option selected.

5. I have re-orgainized the display options under "Main Features" and "Decorations" at the top of the main display panel. Surfaces, vectors, sites, and volumes can all be turned on or off under "Main Features". Under "Decorations" the legend, labels, north arrow, and fringe can also be turned on or off. For example after a legend has been created it can be turned on or off by selected the checkbutton under Decorations. This saves having to open othe menus to turn off a feature.

6. I have updated the North Arrow feature. It now has an option for the user to manually set the arrow length (default = 100). Also, the arrow can now be placed either on the surface or outside of the surface.

7. I have add a routine that temporily hides the the togl display canvas while off-screen rendering is taking place. This prevents the togl binding from taking focus while off-screen rendering is taking place. Do not minmize the window while off screen rendering is taking place.

8. I have added Tooltip support. I have not completely implemented this, but the main movement panel now has tooltips for most of the options.

9. I have changed the color option for cut-plane drawing so that the colors should be drawn correctly.

10. General code clean-up in nviz/src to eleiminate some of the compiler warnings.

If anyone has any questions or problems please let me know.

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