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The above executables rely on SGI's version of Open Inventor.
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Screenshots
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3D Grapher
November 2001
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Introduction
 3D Grapher is an interactive tool for graphing functions with 3 components.
The application has an interface to input any function, along with the minimum and maximum
plotting bounds, and the resolution of the mesh. After a function has been
input, the value of the function can be modified with a slider tool.
The purpose of
the project was mainly to become more proficent at Open Inventor and to give
an example of how to use the Marching Cubes
Engine I created for my Scientific
Visualization course.
How to use it
- Download an executable
 If all goes well, an Open Inventor window similar
to the one at right should pop up when
3dgrapher executed. If you are familiar with Open Inventor you will
notice that the viewer contains some extra buttons along the left and right
sides.
- The
Camera button (the last button on the righthand side) is used to take a snapshot
of the scene. This is an addition to the SoXtExaminerViewer and is
not unique to this project. The viewer itself can be downloaded at ExaminerViewerPlus.
When clicked a dialog
box pops up prompting the user to enter a save file and image type. The
image types supported are jpeg, png, ppm, rgb, and Postscript.
 The 
Pencil button (first button on lefthand side) is used to modify the parameters of the function being
graphed. When clicked a new window pops up (similar to the one at right).
The window contains an interface to interactively modify the mesh resolution,
function domain, the function itself, and the value to set the function to.
Also, thanks to Gokhan Kisacikoglu, a blending function can be input and
blended with the first.
The window was implemented by subclassing the SoXtComponent class
and adding Motif widgets.
 The  RGB
button (second button on lefthand side) is used to modify the material properties of the surface. When
clicked a window pops up (similar to the one at right). This component is
not unique to this project, it is from the SoXtMaterialEditor class
provided by Open Inventor.
- Start inputing your own functions and tell me what you think.
How it was Built
 3D Grapher is a perfect example of how easily applications can be built by
subclassing the Open Inventor libraries. This application was built using
several extensions of the libraries, including two Engine nodes, one Shape
node, a single valued Field, an XtComponent, and a Viewer.
- The Classes
- SFScalarField
- a subclass of SoField used to maintain a 3-dimensional
array of scalar values, including the minimum and maximum bounds, and the
resolution.
ScalarArithmitic
- a sublcass of SoEngine used to create an
SFScalarField based on a function The
values of the scalar field are created by solving the function at each grid
point based on an input domain and resolution.
SFScalarFieldBlend
- a sublcass of SoEngine used to blend two
SFScalarField fields together based on a percentage value between 0
and 1.
MarchingCubes
- a subclass of SoEngine used to create a list of
triangles forming a surface. The surface is determined by a data and
isoValue input. It outputs a series of points along with the indexes used
to for the triangles.
BoundingBox
- a subclass of SoShape used to draw a nonshaded box
around the surface, along with coordinate labels at the vertices.
ParameterEditor
- a subclass of SoXtComponent used to provide an
interface to the input parameters of ScalarArithmitic and
MarchingCubes.
ExaminerViewerPlus
- a subclass of SoXtExaminerViewer used to add a
snapshot button to the righthand side button list. The extension allows for
scenes to be rendered to file very easily.
The ParameterEditor class doesn't really have any application
outside of this one, but it is a simple example of how to extend the
SoXtComponent class. 3D Grapher was not tested robustly and
I am sure has some bugs. Also, I do not plan on keeping up with this
project. This was a small project I put together and I had to keep myself from
expanding on it too much due to time constraints.
The Source Code
The source code of the entire project is available for educational purposes.
Special thanks goes to Gokhan Kisacikoglu for his additions to the interface,
the SFScalarFieldBlend engine, and to the MarchingCubes engine.
If you happen to use any of this code for any reason, please send me an email at grant@cs.fsu.edu and tell me what for.
This is for nothing more than my own curiosity.
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