Columns.. Controls Which Attributes Columns are Shown

Columns.. Controls which attributes columns are shown

Because the Properties box can be configured to contain a lot of information, which can look confusing, the Columns... menu can be used to control which columns of attributes are shown. There are four of these, which may be turned on/off independently:

Entity/Label Switches

At Top level the Entity switch controls whether or not that category is drawn at all (see ENTITY Switching the Display of Entity Categories On/Off ). The Label switch controls whether or not it is labeled at all (see ENTITY Switching the Display of Entity Categories On/Off ). At sub-panel level the "Entity" column is replaced by BLANK : each element may be (un) blanked individually (see BLANK "Blanking" Controls the Visibility of Nodes and Elements ). Similarly the LABEL switch may be applied individually to each element.

Display Modes

At top level each category, or the whole model, may be set via its popup menu to one of WIREFRAME, HIDDEN, SHADED (see Drawing Commands that Do Not Plot Data for what these mean) or Current (Elements are drawn in the currently selected display mode, whatever that may be). At sub-panel level each entity can be set separately in a similar way. It is possible to select any mode for any element, and to display them in combination. For example you could have a mixture of shaded, wireframe and contoured display in different areas of a mesh.

Solid-filled (ie CT or SI ) contours are not shown on elements rendered in wire, hidden or shaded modes. However vector data ( LC , VEL , VEC , Criterion ) is superimposed on the current display mode of elements. For example velocity vectors may be drawn on shaded elements.

Object Attributes

As before changes may be applied to whole categories at the top level, and to individual or selected items at the sub-panel level. There are four "attributes":

Colour : Select an explicit colour, or return to default.

Transparency : Transparency only applies to 2D and 3D objects, and by default they are all totally opaque. However you may set any such entity's transparency on the range 0% (opaque) to 100% (fully see-through) in increments of 10%.

Brightness : Setting diffuse brightness

Shininess : Setting specular brightness

Lighting is discussed in more detail in The LIGHT panel below.

Overlay Attributes

Overlay Colour : Select an explicit overlay colour, or default.

Each entity maintains a separate overlay colour, distinct from its "current" colour. The Default overlay colour is the same as the native element colour, but the two are stored separately and may be quite changed independently.

Overlay Mode :

Overlays may be drawn in one of three styles:

NO_OVERLAY: Not drawn at all.
FREE_EDGE: Only free edges are drawn.
ALL_EDGES: All edges are drawn.

When drawing the more restrictive of the main DISPLAY_OPTIONS , FREE_EDGE switch and the "local" element ones is applied: if either eliminates edges they will not be drawn. See OVERLAY... Controlling the Hidden-Line Overlay of Element Borders On Data Plots for more detail.

So what does all this mean? Here is an example which combines transparency, different modes of plotting, selective labeling and various overlays to show what can be achieved.

Here is another example which shows how "vector" mode plots (here LC , but also VEL , VEC & Criterion ) can be superimposed on shaded and wire-frame rendering.