Geometries and Planes

The Geometry and Planes Tool allows to manipulate objects in the scene.

The tool consists of five panels:

• Object list: list of all currently loaded geometries
• General: panel to set the general configuration of selected objects
• Translation: panel to set the position of selected objects
• Rotation: panel to set the orientation of selected objects
• Scale: panel to set the size of selected geometries

With the button "Load Geometry" geometries can be added to the scene. All added objects are displayed in the object list. This list shows the visibility, the ID of the coordinate system and the name of each available object. The names are shown in an abbreviated version that fits into the list. For selected objects, the full name will appear in the list. Long names can then be read by scrolling to the right.

To locate a specific object in a large set of objects, the list can be sorted by coordinate system or by name by clicking on the respective column header. Furthermore the object list can be filtered by coordinate system.

Single objects can be selected by clicking on the respective row of the list or by clicking on the object itself in the renderer window. Using the list, several objects can be selected together by using the CTRL-key and/or the SHIFT-key. All objects in the list can be selected at once using the shortcut CTRL+A. The rows of selected objects are highlighted in terms of color. Selected objects can be removed from the scene using the button "Unload/Remove". The configuration and manipulation of selected objects is possible using the functionality of the panels described below. On multiselection only parameter settings that are available for all selected objects will be enabled. The values shown will be the actual ones if they are the same for all selected objects and default values if values differ between the selected objects.

The panel "General" allows to manipulate the following properties:

• Object name: the standard name for a geometry is its file name.
• View: the visibility of the object. Geometries can be "visible" or "invisible". These two views can also be set by clicking on the eye symbol of the list entries. There are the two additional views "Occlusion" (the object is invisible but those sections of other geometries that are located behind it will not be displayed) and "Wireframe" (the geometry is shown as a wireframe model).
• COS-ID: the coordinate system to which the object is bound (including the name of the coordinate system if available in the configuration)
• Bounding box: displays a boundig box around selected objects.
• Copy pose + Paste pose: The values displayed in the "Translation" and "Rotation" panels can be copied to the clipboard together as one pose/transformation or be extracted from a pose/transformation contained in the clipboard.
• Reset transformation: The selected objects will be resetted to their original transformation states (Translation + Rotation + Scale). Note: if the relative transformation mode is active it will automatically be switched to absolute transformation mode.

The panels "Translation", "Rotation" and "Scale" allow to set the position, orientation and size of the selected objects. The manipulation can be done by entering values in the corresponding fields. Transformations can also be done incrementally by clicking on the arrow buttons on the right side of the data fields or by scrolling with the mouse wheel within an activated data field. The stepsize for such incremental transformations can be set in additional fields.

It can be chosen between absolute and relative transformations. Absolute Transformations are given in relation to the objects' original state right after loading. Relative transformations are given in relation to the objects' current state. On single selection absolute transformations will be selected per default and on multiselection relative transformations will be selected. These default settings can be overridden using the radio buttons. By clicking on the "Reset" buttons objects can be resetted to their original state in terms of absolute transformations.

In the "Translation" panel geometries can be made dragable and the plane in which the dragging shall take place can be selected. Geometries that are set "dragable" can be moved by clicking on them in the renderer window and moving the mouse around while the left mouse key is pressed. Please note that dragability is automatically turned off for geometries whose view is changed to "invisible" or "occlusion".

The scale can be applied to all three axes at the same time ("Uniform scale"). The button "normalize" scales the geometry to the given size automatically. It calculates the bounding box of the geometry and scales the smallest dimension of the bounding box to the given value.

-- SupportMetaio - 2010-03-03