D3PLOT 22.1

The Old BLANK Menu (D3PLOT 13.0 and Earlier)

The BLANK panel operates on one model at a time.

If you have more than one model then you will be forced to choose which one the blanking panel operates on. You can subsequently change this by using the M1 .. Mn tabs.

Blanking is "per model", not "per window"

The blanking status of items is stored at the model level, not at the window level. Therefore if something is blanked in one window it will also disappear from any other windows in which it occurs once they are redrawn.

This is done for simplicity and to save memory. If you need to have two concurrent images of a model with different blanking attributes then you will need to read that model in twice, treating it as two separate, albeit identical, models.

The BLANK menu is split into 2 sections.

Selecting Items

The top half of the menu provides ways to select the items to be blanked and unblanked while the bottom half is used to choose the type of item that is going to be blanked / unblanked.

ON	Turns blanking ON so that blanked items are not drawn.
OFF	Turns blanking OFF so that all items are drawn even if they have been blanked. This option does not reset the blanking status of items so that when blanking is turned ON again items that were previously blanked are still blanked.

These options can be used to modify the blanking status of a complete category of elements. In addition these option can also be used to BLANK / REVERSE / UNBLANK the whole model.

PICK	Pick items individually to be blanked / unblanked, (see below for more details)
AREA	Pick items by area to be blanked / unblanked (see below for more details)
KEY IN	Type in the ID of items to be blanked/unblanked
UPDATE PLOT	Redraw the image
STATUS	Lists the blanking status of all items
ATTACHED	With this option selected any item that shares a node with an item that is picked is also blanked or unblanked along with that item
UPDATE LEVEL	The UPDATE LEVEL controls whether items are blanked dynamically. If the UPDATE LEVEL is set to 3 then dynamic blanking is turned on.

PICK Pick items to be blanked / unblanked

If DYNAMIC blanking is turned on items are blanked as they are picked. When picking items the mouse buttons have the following function:

Left Mouse	Pick an item
Middle Mouse	Reject the last item selected (Update Level 1 & 2)
Right Mouse	Deselect an item (Update Level 1 & 2)

Other Options :
REJECT	Reject the last item selected (Update Level 1 & 2)
ALL VISIBLE	Select all items currently visible on the screen. Items outside the curtrent screen area are not selected.
QUIT	Quit without blanking/unblanking selected items (Update Level 1 & 2)
TOLERANCE	Define a screen tolerance for picking items.
BLANK	Items that are selected are blanked
UNBLANK	Items that are selected are unblanked
APPLY	Blank / Unblank selected items (Update Level 1 & 2) and then return to the main BLANK menu (Update Level 1,2 & 3)
UPDATE PLOT	Redraw the image with the currently selected items blanked / unblanked.

AREA Pick items by area to be blanked / unblanked

If DYNAMIC blanking is turned on items are blanked as they are picked. When picking items the mouse buttons have the following function.

Left Mouse	Define a rectangle and select items within it.
Middle Mouse	Same as Left Mouse
Right Mouse	Define a rectangle and deselect items within it. (Update Level 1 & 2)

Other Options :
REJECT	Reject the first point selected
ALL or EXT	For 3D elements (e.g. Solids) selection can be applied to ALL elements or only EXTernal elements in the area.
QUIT	Quit without blanking/unblanking selected items (Update Level 1 & 2)
BLANK	Items that are selected are blanked
UNBLANK	Items that are selected are unblanked
APPLY	Blank / Unblank selected items (Update Level 1 & 2) and then return to the main BLANK menu (Update Level 1,2 & 3)
UPDATE PLOT	Redraw the image with the currently selected items blanked / unblanked.

KEY IN Enter the ID of items to be blanked / unblanked

END SELECTION	Return to the main BLANK menu.
BLANK	Items that are selected are blanked
UNBLANK	Items that are selected are unblanked
APPLY	Blank / Unblank selected items (Update Level 1 & 2) and then return to the main BLANK menu (Update Level 1,2 & 3)
UPDATE PLOT	Redraw the image with the currently selected items blanked / unblanked

UPDATE LEVEL Image update frequency

The top half of the menu provides ways to select the items to be blanked and unblanked while the bottom half is used to choose the type of item that is going to be blanked / unblanked.

1 (NONE)	The image is never updated automatically to show the effect of blanking. You must redraw the image (eg DR, SH, etc) to see the effect of changes. This is not recommended unless you have a very slow connection to your display.
2 (MEDIUM)	Default behaviour. (Un-)Blanking something does not cause the display to update, but any subsequent viewing operation (eg zoom, dynamic view, etc) will result in the image being updated to show the effect of changes.
3 (FREQUENT)	Immediate update. Every time you (un-)blank something the display will be redrawn immediately to show the effect of the change. Very large models on slow displays may become cumbersome if this is used.

It is recommended that you keep the default UPDATE LEVEL of 2 , and use the UPDATE PLOT button explicitly to see the effect of changes. (The " Quick Pick " blanking option provides "instant" blanking, and is a better way of achieving this behaviour.)

Entity Types

The bottom section lists the generic entity types that the model contains and this section controls the type of items that are selected by the PICK and AREA and KEY IN options.

By default this section shows a list of all the PARTs that the model contains. The blanking status of an item can be changed by clicking on its entry in the list. The list of items is colour coded as follows :

RED	The whole of the item is blanked.
GREEN	The whole of the item is unblanked.
BLUE	Some of the item is blanked.

If a BLUE menu entry is clicked on the item will be completely blanked. Clicking on the menu entry a second time will then completely unblank the item - it is not possible to return to the partially blanked state.

If an option other than PARTS is selected then the list is automatically updated to list the appropriate items. To reduce the number of generic entity types the SEATBELT and SURFACE buttons are linked to popups containing related entity types.

If DYNAMIC blanking is active then items are blanked / unblanked as they are selected in the list. If DYNAMIC blanking is not active the menu will be updated as items are selected but the image will not be updated until either the view is changed (rotated, zoomed etc) or the image is explicitly redrawn ( HI , CT , SH etc).

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