VIEW |
Visualization commands change the way to display the information in the graphical window. They do not change any definition of the geometry or any other data.
Generally, they can be used within any other command without leaving it. When the visualization process finishes, the first command continues.
They can be accessed either from the top menu View
or form the
right mouse button.
Zoom |
Zoom is used to change the visualized size of the objects without deforming them. This only enlarges or reduces the objects and changes the orthogonal perspective of the window.
Zoom in:
Pick inside the graphical window. A dynamic rectangle is opened. Pick
again and the visualization changes to display only the part within the defined
rectangle.
Zoom out:
Pick inside the graphical window. A dynamic rectangle is opened. Pick
again and the visualization changes so that everything in the graphical
window is reduced to the size of the rectangle.
Zoom frame:
Choose a visualization size so as to display everything inside the
window.
Zoom points:
User enters two points (see section Point definition), and a
visualization size is chosen so as to display these two points inside the
window.
Zoom dynamic:
Moving mouse horizontally, view is enlarged or shortened.
Zoom previous:
GiD goes to the previous saved zoom.
Zoom next:
If one previous zoom has been made, this option goes to the
one after the current view in the stack list.
Note:
Instead of picking twice to begin and end the rectangle, it is possible
to maintain the leftmouse pressed and move the cursor.
Rotate |
There are various ways to make a rotation in order to change the graphical view of the geometry, without changing it.
Note:
Instead of picking twice to begin and end the rotation, it is possible
to maintain the leftmouse pressed and move the cursor.
Rotate screen axes |
With this option, a dynamic rotation about the screen axes is made. Screen axes are defined as:
X-axis
: A horizontal axis.
Y-axis
: A vertical axis.
Z-axis
: An axis orthogonal to the screen.
When entering this command, Z-axis
is set by default and moving the mouse
to the left or to the right will rotate the geometry around this axis. Picking the
left mouse changes the axis. To leave this function, use escape
(see section Escape).
To change the axes is also possible by entering the letters x
, y
or
z
in the command line.
To move the geometry by a fixed angle, enter the number of degrees, positive or negative, in the command line.
Rotate object axes |
With this option, a dynamic rotation about the object axes is made. Object axes are the global axes in the position they are in that particular moment. i.e. the axes currently drawn in the graphical window.
When entering this command, Z-axis
is set by default and moving the mouse
to the left or to the right will rotate the geometry around this axis. Picking the
left mouse changes the axes. To leave this function, use escape
(see section Escape).
To change the axes is also possible by entering the letters x
, y
or
z
in the command line.
To move the geometry by a fixed angle, enter the number of degrees, positive or negative, in the command line.
Rotate trackball |
With this option, a dynamic rotation is made, resembling a trackball device. It means that when picking over a geometry point with the left mouse and moving the mouse, the geometric point tries to follow the mouse pointer. This can be imagined as a ball over the graphical window which is moved with the mouse.
The left mouse button can be pressed several times to connect and disconnect the
movement. To leave this function, use escape
(see section Escape).
Rotate angle |
The new position of the geometry after the rotation can be defined as the direction orthogonal to the screen via a pair of angles:
XY
starting from the X-axis
.
XY
plane.
As an example, the initial view (orthogonal to the Z-axis and with the X-axis horizontal) can be obtained with:
rotate angle 270 90
Rotate points |
This option appears only in the right side commands menu.
The new position of the geometry after the rotation can be defined as the direction orthogonal to the screen via a pair of points:
Rotate center |
The default center of rotation is defined approximately in the center of the geometry.
If it is desired to change this center, use this command and enter a point
(see section Point definition). This new rotation center will be maintained until the
next zoom frame
(see section Zoom).
Rotate original view |
This option, that appears only in the graphical pop-up menu, changes the view to the original one: screen orthogonal to the Z-axis with the X-axis lying horizontally and pointing to the right.
Pan |
Two points:
With this command, the location of the geometry is displaced in the graphical
window. To do this, pick two points in the graphical window.
dynamic:
In this case the displacement is made dynamically, moving the mouse horizontally.
Redraw |
This command redraws the geometrical model in the graphical window. For those machines that include overlays, all the layers that stay underneath are not affected, so the redraw goes faster and the underneath drawings remain untouched.
Render |
By using this option, the way of viewing the model changes. There are four options:
Normal:
This is the usual way of visualizing. The geometry and mesh are
viewed including all definition lines.
Filled:
Solid model with no illumination and lines.
Flat lighting:
Solid model with flat illumination and lines.
Smooth lighting:
Solid model with smooth illumination (better quality).
Note: The rendering of a volume mesh requires the
option View boundaries
(see section View boundaries).
Note: Quality of visualization is controlled via preferences (see section Preferences).
Note: The light vector direction can be changed interactively with the
menu option Change Light Vector
inside the menu Utilities
(see section Change Light Vector).
Label |
With this option, the labels of the entities are drawn or not. It is possible to
select some entities or to apply this option to all entities viewed in the
graphical window.
To select some entities, choose select
before applying on the
Points
, Lines
, Surfaces
or Volumes
. Then, select entities
in the usual way (see section Entities selection). Options are:
All:
All entities in the graphical window will have their labels drawn.
points,lines,surfaces
or volumes:
If select
is not set, all the
entities in the graphical window will have their labels drawn.
Off:
Finish drawing labels for all entities.
Entities |
With this option, it is possible to choose some of the points, lines, surfaces or volumes
to be drawn. It is useful to make drawing faster or clearer in some instances.
Note: this option is only available in the right buttons menu. (see section USER INTERFACE)
Layers |
Layers are a way to split a complex drawing into separate pieces. The idea is that any entity can belong to one layer or to none (an entity cannot belong to more than one layer). Then, it is possible to view only some layers and not others. It is also useful to easily select entities in the graphical window.
Layers window operations
Commands related to layers are:
New:
Creates a new layer. If name is given the layer is called "Layer#
". The new layer will be used as the default layer until the end of the session or until it is changed.
Layer To use:
Selects a layer to be used as default. All the new entities will be
created within this layer. All the layers are capable of being selected.Layer To use
button, there's an arrow facing down. This is a menu which lets you select a point, a line, a surface or a volume; the layer to which it belongs that entity, will be set as the default layer.
On:
Entities belonging to this layer will be drawn and can be selected in the graphical window.
Off:
Entities belonging to this
layer will not be drawn and cannot be selected in the graphical window.
Lock/Unlock (Freeze/Unfreeze):
Entities belonging to this
layer will be drawn but cannot be selected in any way. When copying entities
(see section Copy) and sharing old entities, entities belonging to frozen layers are
not taken into account and not even a range of numbers (see section Entities selection)
can be selected. The opposite command is Unlock
, where the
entities belonging to this layer can be selected, copied and shared.
Delete:
Deletes a layer. A layer can only be deleted if it has no entities
in it.
View:
Gives information about the layer.
Entities:
Moves entities to a new layer. No new entities are
created. They are only moved from one layer to another. When choosing, in geometry
mode, point
, line
, surface
, volume
or all
, option
all
can be used only to select entities in the graphical window and change all
the entities in the dynamic box to the new layer. In mesh mode, it is possible to
choose nodes
, elements
or all
.
Also lower entities
permits to send to the layer also the entities
that are lower entities of the selected ones.
To back:
Sends entities to the back of its layer. When an entity is "at the back" it's not visible and cannot be selected, moved, copied or deleted. To bring again the entities of a layer "to the front", select a layer and choose the Bring to front
option, from the To back
menu. There is another option, Bring ALL to front
, which brings to front all entities of all layers. Opposite
is set, entities which are not selected will go to the back.
Color:
Change color to layer. This color is used when making a render
(see section Render).
Sel...:
In the layer window, there is the option select
that allows the selection of several layers. This can be useful when using a large number of layers. After
pressing Sel...
a new window appears to allow the input of a pattern that will
match the layer's name. In this pattern, characters * and ? are wildcards that
match any characters or character, respectively, in the layer's name. So, the pattern
select
will match select
, selection
, select-surface
and so
on.
Rename:
Changes the name of a layer.
Close:
Closes the Layers window.
Important: The mesh generation does not depend on the state of
the layers when the generation is performed (see section Layers). All layers
are meshed and every node and element will be assigned to the layer
where the original geometrical entity was. The only exception to this
rule is for the case of frozen layer if the option No mesh frozen
layers
is selected.
Save/Read View |
These two options permits to save the actual view configuration into a file. Then, that configuration can be loaded using the Read View
command.
Background Image |
An image can be used as background of GiD for visualization purposes (supported image formats are .bmp
and .ppm
). There are the following options:
Multiple windows |
Command Multiple windows
permits to have several views of the
same project. Different views can be displayed inside the program main window or in supplementary windows.
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