VIEW MANAGER... Storing and Retrieving "View" Information
VIEW MANAGER... Storing and Retrieving "View" Information
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What is a view?
A "view" is all the information required to set up the current view of the object. In practice this means:
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Up to 100 such views may be stored and retrieved at will from a file, and any number of such files may exist. The default file name is plot.view. A view is given a name and number when it is stored, and these are used when retrieving it. View files are binary compatible across platforms of the same word length (eg 32 bits), and are the same as those used by PRIMER.
Up to and including D3PLOT 9.3: Views are stored parametrically.
What this means is that views are not tied to a particular model, they will work for any model of similar dimensions. So if you are working on a set of variants of an analysis you can share the views on file between them: this is why they are stored in a separate, model-independent file. It is only when the shape and/or size of a model differs wildly from the original from which the view was created that this shareability fails.
From D3PLOT 9.3.1 onwards: Views are stored explicitly
The parametric method described above was not a success, as users wishing to compare models visually found it misleading. Therefore from D3PLOT 9.3.1 onwards views are now stored explicitly, and no account is taken of model size or position. Put qualitatively: the camera now stays in the same place with the same settings.
Retrieval of views is backwards-compatible. A view stored prior to D3PLOT 9.3.1 will read successfully into D3PLOT 9.3.1 onwards, but will be converted to "explicit" format if subsequently saved.
Using views
D3PLOT always has a current "view" definition. This dictates how the image will appear when a drawing command is issued. You can save the current view to file at any time. Likewise you can retrieve a stored view to replace the current one at any time.
The current view only exists in memory, and changing it has no influence on any views stored on file. (Indeed you don't need to have a stored view file: the default is none.)
Commands
| STORE | Stores current view both in memory and in a view file. Click on a green (unused) view and type a name. Up to 100 views can be stored in a file, and views can be overwritten at will. If no explicit file has been opened the default file plot.view is opened automatically and used. |
| GET | Retrive from memory an existing view. |
| RENAME | Rename a stored view |
| DELETE | You can delete any existing vies |
| LIST | You can list information about stored views to screen |
| FILE | Define a file name in which views are to be stored |