Name

brlcad — BRL-CAD programs for solid modeling, raytracing, graphics, and image processing

DESCRIPTION

The BRL-CAD Distribution contains many directories of materials. The major categories of programs are:

mged

A multi-device interactive editor for constructing and updating combinatorial solid geometry (CSG) models. See mged(1), and Understanding the Preparation and Analysis of Solid Models by Michael John Muuss (enclosed, in the "paper") directory.

librt

A library of functions suitable for interrogation of a CSG solid model, utilizing ray-tracing techniques. See librt(3).

rt

A ray-tracing lighting model, for rendering pictures of mged(1) CSG models. See rt(1), rtray(1), rtpp(1).

conv

Programs to convert mged(1) and pix(3) format binary files to a portable ASCII form, and back again. See asc2g(1), asc2pix(1), conv-vg2g(1), g2asc(1), pix2asc(1).

libpkg

A "message-passing" interface layered on top of TCP network links, to ease construction of network-distributed applications.

libfb

A generic frame-buffer library which includes support for a number of display devices, as well as file, network, and debugging interfaces. Most programs which use this library have the letters "fb" in their names. To override your system default frame-buffer, the environment variable FB_FILE can be set. In addition, some commands also support a -F framebuffer option. Note that the disk file format of libfb is that of pix(5), allowing "framebuffer" files to be later processed by any of the "pix" family of programs. See libfb(3), pix-fb(3), pix(5), etc.

fbserv

TCP-based network server which implements remote frame-buffer services.

libsysv

Some System-V compatibility routines

libtermio

A library to handle terminal mode setting on both Berkeley or SystemV machines.

libplot3

A public-domain version of the UNIX-Plot library which differs from that of the standard libplot(3), by the addition of 3-D primitives, color, floating point coordinate routines, and the use of a file pointer parameter. See libplot3(3), plot3(5).

librle

A Run-Length-Encoding (RLE) library, providing functions originally from the University of Utah in a library package. Note that the current version of this library reads Edition-3 RLE files. [Edition-1 and Edition-2 RLE files can be read and written with the liborle and orle programs.] See rle-fb(1), fb-rle(1), rle-pix(1), pix-rle(1), librle(3).

util

A collection of image-handling utilities, each constructed as individual tools intended to be used in combination. See ap-pix(1), bw-fb(1), bw-imp(1), bw-pix(1), bw3-pix(1), bwcrop(1), bwdiff(1), bwfilter(1), bwhist(1), bwmod(1), bwrect(1), bwrot(1), bwscale(1), bwstat(1), dunncolor(1), dunnsnap(1), fb-bw(1), fb-pix(1), fb-rle(1), fbanim(1), fbclear(1), fbcmap(1), fbcmrot(1), fbcolor(1), fbframe(1), fbgrid(1), fbpoint(1), fbzoom(1), gencolor(1), loop(1), pix-bw(1), pix-bw3(1), pix-fb(1), pixbackgnd(1), pixbustup(1), pixdiff(1), pixfilter(1), pixhist(1), pixhist3d-pl(1), pixhist3d(1), pixinterp2x(1), pixrect(1), pixrot(1), pixscale(1), pixstat(1), pixtile(1), pl-fb(1), pp-fb(1), rle-fb(1), rle-pix(1), wavelet(1), bw(5), pix(5), plot3(5).

fbed

An interactive, termcap-based frame-buffer image editor. See fbed(1).

vdeck

A program to convert mged(1) models to gift(1) format card deck files. See vdeck(1).

OPTIONS

A convention exists for the options used on most of the utilities provided. Random options are usually lower case. Options which could specify either a screen or file size are, by convention, lower case for file information, and upper case for screen information. Here's a list of some of the common options you may encounter:

-h

The "high resolution" flag, increasing the default screen and file size of 512x512 to 1024x1024. Has same effect as -s 1024 -S 1024 but exists as a convenient shorthand held over from the simple days when framebuffers where square, and only came in two resolutions. This historical usage unfortunately preempts this letter from use as a height specifier, forcing that function to relocate under protest to -n, which can be thought of as "number of scanlines", which isn't too bad a mnemonic.

-i

Inverse flag. Pretend origin is in upper left corner of screen, for that good old-fashioned fourth-quadrant behavior.

-c

Various. Typically means clear the screen first.

-z

Various. Typically means zoom-in on current area of display.

-s square_file_size

WARNING: Behavior is undefined when the -s flag is used in conjunction with the -w or -n flags.

-w file_width, -n file_height, -S square_screen_size

WARNING: Behavior is undefined when the -S flag is used in conjunction with the -W or -N flags.

-W screen_width, -N screen_height, -x file_x_offset, -y file_y_offset, -X screen_x_offset, -Y screen_y_offset, -# bytes_per_sample

specifies the number of bytes per sample, where the flag, where the # character is a literal "pound" or "sharp" sign character, typically found over the numeral "3" on ANSI keyboards. Several programs (like pixrect) can operate on data samples of arbitrary width. For example, a pix(5) format file can often be treated like a bw(5) format file with a width of three bytes per sample.