VS3D / VScad3 User's Guide

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Overview

Installation

Guided Tour

VS3D Index

VScad3 Index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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VScad3 Geometric Entities

2.4.3 Polyline mode continued.

"Geometry..." : This will bring up the "Polyline" dialog. Use it to type in the polyline coordinates instead of clicking the mouse to enter them. For each polyline type, enter the required points in the dialog (one X,Y,Z point per line). If one or more entities was selected before the "Geometry..." button was clicked, then the points from any selected entity (or entities) will be loaded into the dialog. If the number of points is large, then the dialog will show the number of points, not the actual coordinates themselves. If the coordinate points are displayed, they can be edited. If there are more points in the dialog than needed for the type of polyline, then only the first few points in the list are used.

In the "Vertex Color(s)" field, enter the colors as RGB (red, green, blue intensities - one color per line). Minimum intensity is 0 and maximum intensity is 255. If one or more entities was selected before the "Geometry..." button was clicked, then the colors from any selected entity (or entities) will be loaded into the dialog. If there are more polyline points (including facet points) than colors, then the color sequence is repeated as needed. If only one color is specified, then the entire polyline will be that color.

If the current polyline mode is "Freehand", then the "Polyline" dialog will have some additional settings. The Perimeter "Load From File" button allows a simple ASCII ".dat" file containing 3 columns of X,Y,Z numbers to be loaded and used as the perimeter coordinates. The Vertex Colors "Load From File..." button allows a simple ASCII ".dat" file containing 3 columns of R,G,B (Red, Green, Blue) values to be loaded and used as the colors.

The "Connectivity" field is for specifying how the perimeter points are connected to make polygons. A connectivity array is a list which is a concatenation of polyline/polygon definitions. Each polyline/polygon definition starts with a number that indicates the number of vertices in the polyline/polygon. Following that is a list of which perimeter points which make up the polyline/polygon. Perimeter points are identified by where they appear in the list (from 0 to the number of perimeter points minus 1). For example, the following would define two polylines - a triangle and a square (a simple "house" shape), connected along one edge.

Perimeter Points

Notes

Connectivity List

Notes

0.0 0.0 0.0
1.0 0.0 0.0
1.0 1.0 0.0
0.0 1.0 0.0
0.5 1.5 0.0
...

vertex "0"
vertex "1"
vertex "2"
vertex "3"
vertex "4"
vertex "n"

4
0
1
2
3
3
2
4
3
...

First polygon has 4 vertices (square)
1st vertex of square ("0") (0.0 0.0 0.0)
2nd vertex of square ("1") (1.0 0.0 0.0)
3rd vertex of square ("2") (1.0 1.0 0.0)
4th vertex of square ("3") (0.0 1.0 0.0)
Next polygon has 3 vertices (triangle)
1st vertex of triangle ("2") (1.0 1.0 0.0)
2nd vertex of triangle ("4") (0.5 1.5 0.0)
3rd vertex of triangle ("3") (0.0 1.0 0.0)
"Nth polygon definition starts
The Connectivity "Load From File..." button can be used to load connectivity from a simple ASCII ".dat" file containing one column of integers. If no connectivity is specified, then all the perimeter points are connected in the order listed.

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