2.11 Modifying Application Settings
The application settings are the options which are applicable to all
the documents in the application. These are stored in the registry and
are restored when the application is relaunched. You can modify these
settings by selecting the Tools -> Options in the menu.
2.11.1 General Options
- Display
- Driver: Sets the HOOPS display driver.
- Disable Hardware Acceleration: If checked, forces
HOOPS to use software rendering. Only works for the OpenGL and Direct3D
drivers.
- Display Statistics: Displays a small window with
basic statistics about which types of geometry were drawn in the
last update.
- Double Buffering: Allow HOOPS to use alternate graphics
memory to perform time-consuming renderings. When the new rendering
is completed, the alternate memory is swapped with the visible memory.
Double-buffering usually dramatically reduces screen flickering.
If you are running Microsoft Vista and have compositing enabled,
please turn this option off as Vista is already performing double
buffering.
- Stereo Mode: If checked and the hardware supports
it, stereo viewing will be enabled with the given separation.
- Rendering
- Axis Triad: If checked, displays X-Y-Z axis triad
at the left-bottom corner of each document.
- Default Render Mode: Sets the start up render mode.
- Transparency
- Style: Allows you to set the style of transparency.
- Sorting: Allows you to set the sorting algorithm
used for transparency.
- Layers: Allows you to set the number of layers for
the depth peeling transparency sorting algorithm.
- Option Sets
- Write to Registry: Writes the current options settings
to the registry.
- Export to File: Exports the current options settings
to a file with the extension .PVO.
- Import From File: Import a .PVO file that contains
a set of options values.
2.11.2 Performance Options
- Optimizations
- Hidden Line Mode: Determines how hidden lines are
rendered when the hidden line button is selected in the Standard
Tool Bar. The options are Fast, Analytic and Fake.
- Fake Hidden Line Color: Determines the color of
hidden lines when the fake hidden line mode is enabled.
- Static Model: If checked, HOOPS will generate a
parallel optimised segment tree for rendering. When this item is
checked, Disable Geometry Editing is enabled and automatically checked
as well for optimal performance. If used with display lists turned
on, rendering performance could improve significantly.
- Disable Geometry Editing: If checked, this prevents
geometry editing. This option disables insertion of geometry,
translation, rotations, manipulators and any editing in the
segment browser.
- Occlusion Culling: If checked, Occlusion Culling
will be performed on the current scene which can result in significant
performance gains with some models. This option currently only has
effect when the OpenGL driver is selected and certain hardware requirements
are met.
- Display Lists: Determines whether display lists
will be used. Display lists can be enabled if the Driver is OpenGL
or DX9. Display list can be generated at the segment or geometry
level.
-
Framerate Optimization
- None
- Culling Threshold: If selected, will set the pixel
culling threshold for occlusion culling.
- Framerate Mode: If selected, a framerate mode will
determine how much of the scene is rendered at any given time. If
you select Fixed Framerate, HOOPS will maintain the exact specified
framerate during model manipulation but flashing may occur. If Target
Framerate is selected, HOOPS tries to maintain the framerate during
model manipulation. The transition between frames is smooth.
- Framerate: target framerate which is specified in
seconds. For instance, 0.1 is equivalent to 10 fps (frames per second).
- Max Threshold: The highest pixel size an object
can have for it to be culled from the scene to maintain the framerate.
- Use LODS.: If checked, LODS will be used in determining
what will be rendered. This option is only available for Target
Framerate.
- Dynamic Adjustment: If checked, culled objects will
be "added" back into the scene at the end of manipulation. This
option is only available for Target Framerate.
- Detail Steps: Determines the number of buckets
that culled objects will be put into for redrawing into the
scene. For example, if the Max Thres. is 100 pixels and Details
Steps is 5, objects that are between 80 and 100 pixels will
be drawn first followed by objects between 60 and 80 pixels
and so on.
System
- Multi-Threading: Determines if semaphores are enabled for
thread safe activities. The Full option renders each 3dGS
call completely thread-safe. Basic provides basic memory
access for read/write locks. Off provides no thread protection
but also eliminates overhead associated with thread safety.
2.11.3 Appearance Options
- Geometry
- Default Line/Edge Weight: Sets the default line/edge
weight.
- Enable Splat Rendering: If checked, point cloud
data will be smeared to enhance the appearance.
- Color Interpolation
- Color Interpolation: If checked, honors the color
settings at each vertex of the Shells in the scene and applies a
color ramp across the shell.
- By Value: Controls the color interpolation scheme
for Shells which have vertex level coloring. If checked, the
color at each pixel in the face is determined by simply linearly
interpolating the RGB color set on the adjacent vertices.
- By Colormap: Controls the color interpolation
scheme for Shells which have vertex level coloring. If checked,
the color at each pixel by is determined by interpolating between
the indices in the colormap. This option is only valid if the
Shell vertex colors have been set by Index.
- Isolines: If checked, renders only the Isolines
for Shells in the scene which have colors set on their vertices.
- Antialiasing
- Full Screen: If checked, enables scene anti-aliasing,
with the option to set the anti-aliasing quality (number of samples).
- Text: If checked, enables text anti-aliasing.
- Lines + Edges: If checked, enables anti-aliasing
for only lines and edges. In practice, this setting is redundant
if screen anti-aliasing is already enabled.
- Background Color
- Top: Sets the background color for the upper portion
of the window. The background color can have a gradient from top
to bottom.
- Bottom: Sets the background color for the lower
portion of the window. If you prefer a single background color without
any gradient, set this color exactly same as the Top Background
Color.
- Markup
- Color: Sets the color of Markup lines.
- Weight: Sets the line weight (thickness) for the
Markup.
- Fonts
- Name: Sets the current font for the scene.
- Size: Sets the current font size in points.
- Hide Overlapped Text: If checked, only text in the
foreground will be displayed.
- Text Greeking
- Use Text Greeking: Toggles text greeking.
- Greeking Mode: Sets the geometry that will be displayed
in place of greeked text.
- Greeking Limit: Sets the distance before text is
greeked.
- Units: The units that apply to the greeking limit.
2.11.4 File Options
- General File Options
- Part File Location: The directory location of the
HOOPS files.
- Restore Annotations: If checked, this option ensures
that annotation backgrounds will be resized as the camera zooms
in or away from the scene. Note that this can be a time consuming
operation requiring the traversal of the entire scene graph.
- Flush Model Segment on Load: If checked, the model
segment will be flushed each time a new file is loaded (not opened).
Otherwise the file will be loaded into the current model segment.
- File Input Streaming: If checked, as files are
loaded you can interact with the model. Note that this option does
increase the time it takes to load your scene. If this option is
not checked, file loading will be faster but you will not be able
to interact with the objects in your scene until the file is completely
loaded.
- Load PVO Files: If checked, when a file is loaded,
then HOOPS will also load any file with the same name but with the
PVO extensions. This let's models be loaded with a specific set
of options enabled.
- DWG File Options
- Location of DWG Texture Files: Specifies the directory
to look for textures found in DWG models.
- Conserve Memory Mode: If checked, HOOPS will export
the DWG model into the HOOPS database and then close the DWG database.
This mode is recommended for very large DWG models.
- Import XData:If checked, XData, also know as metadata,
will be imported as user options attached to the associated segment.
- Facet/Curve Deviation: enter a number that specifies
the maximum allowable difference in world space between the true
mathematical surface being imported and the tesselated surface that
will be rendered in HOOPS. For instance, if the deviation is set
to 1.0, the surfaces in HOOPS would be comparatively more tesselated
than if the deviation was a value of 10.0.
- PRC File Options
- Face/Edge/Vertex Selectability: If checked, HOOPS
preserve entities below the body level. The imported model will
allow you to browse topology below the body level and have associativity
between topological features and visualization elements. PMI associativity
is also preserved.
- DGN File Options
- Ignore Invisible Layers: If checked, then layers
(levels) which are invisible in DGN file will not be imported into
HOOPS. If unchecked, then invisible layers in DGN file are imported
into HOOPS with their visibility set to "everything = off".
- Ignore Invisible Entities: If checked, then entities
which are invisible in DGN file will not be imported into HOOPS.
If set to false then invisible entities in DGN file are imported
into HOOPS with their visibility set to "everything = off".
- Factor Cone: This option is used to control the
level of tessellation for Cone elements of DGN when they are imported
into HOOPS as mesh elements. The higher the value the higher the
tessellation.
- Factor Smart Solids: This factor is for Smart solids
and Feature solids of DGN. This option corresponds with the normal
step angle having range from 0 to 360 degree. Increasing the angle
decreases the level of tessellation for Smart/Feature solids. Note
that since Smart solids are more frequent in DGN file I gave the
name 'Factor for Smart solids' though the more correct would be
to name it 'Factor for Smart/Feature solids'.
- Material Library Options
- Material Library Location: This option tells HOOPS where
to find the repository of materials to be loaded into the Material Library.
2.11.5 HSF Options
- Export Options
- Compress Vertices: Compresses the vertices of entities
which reduces HSF file size, but can sometimes result in visual
artifacts.
- Bits per Vertex: Number of bits to be used for storing
each vertex. This can be any integer between 8 and 72. This is applicable
only if Compress Vertices is chosen.
- Compress Normals: Compresses the normals of entities
which reduces HSF file size, but can sometimes result in visual
artifacts.
- Bits per Normal: Number of bits to be used for storing
each normal. This can be any integer between 8 and 72. This is applicable
only if Compress Normals is chosen.
- Compress Parameters: Compresses the vertex parameters
of entities which reduces HSF file size, but can sometimes result
in visual artifacts.
- Bits per Parameter: Number of bits to be used for
storing each vertex parameter. This can be any integer between 8
and 72. This is applicable only if Compress Normals is chosen.
- HSF Version: The export version number for HSF files.
- Include File Dictionary: Export the file dictionary
information. File Dictionary provides random entity access capability,
but usually results in marginal increase in the size.
- Use Advanced Compression: Export the HSF file using
the advanced edge-breaker connectivity compression. For more details
on this type of compression, please refer to the HOOPS/Stream documentation.
- Save Log File: If checked, output files called
hsf_export_log.txt and hsf_import_log.txt will be created which
contain a byte representing each opcode that was exported or imported
during the write and/or read phase, respectively.
- Enable Geometry Instancing: If checked, identical
geometry will not be enumerated separately when saving a file.
- Enable Tristrips: If checked, tristrips are generated
for all faces. If unchecked, HOOPS will not make tristrips for nontriangular
faces. However, if advanced compression is on, some faces may still
be triangulated.
2.11.6 Interaction Options
- Geometry Manipulation
- Update Shadows: If checked, shadows will be updated
during translation/rotation of objects.
- Update Cut Geometry: If checked, cut geometry will
be updated during translation/rotation of objects.
- 3D Spriting: If checked, spriting is used during
translation/rotation of objects
- Animation
- Show Every Tick: If checked, displays every tick
of the animation regardless of the time per frame.
- Update Camera: If not checked, camera movement which
is part of the animation will be surpressed
- Jump To Keyframe: If checked, the +/- button
of the animation toolbar will move the animation to the next keyframe
instead of the next tick
- Variable Framerate: If checked, the Constant
Framerate Logic will be disabled while an animation is running.
- Timer Based Update: If checked, updates are happening
on regular intervals which allows animations to interact smoothly
with other user input. Turning this off can help in code debugging.
- Show Collisions: If checked, will enable visualization
of collision detection in animations.
- Walk Options
- Use Keyboard: Checking this enables keyboard controls
for movement. Keyboard controls are as follows:
- W: Forward
- A: Strafe Left
- S: Back
- D: Strafe Right
- Q: Up
- Z: Down
- Collision Detection: This enables collision detection
between the camera and geometry in the scene.
- Snap to Floor: If checked, the walk operator will
prevent the camera from floating too high over a surface, and snap
to the floor when possible.
- Avatar Height: This controls the height of the camera
when the camera is snapped to the floor.
- Automatic: Allows HOOPS to automatically set
the avatar height to be a fraction of the scene extents.
- Step Height Up: This set the height at which the
avatar will automatically walk up stairs and over small obstacles.
- Step Height Down: This sets the maximum height that
the avatar can drop. Thus, if the drop is too large, the avatar
will not be able to walk over an edge.
2.11.7 Selection Options
- Appearance
- Polygons: Sets the selection color for polygons
(faces).
- Lines: Sets the selection color for lines (edges).
- Markers: Sets the selection color for markers (vertices).
- Transparency: Sets the transparency level (%) for
the selected entities.
- Gray Scale Selection: If checked, sets the scene
to grayscale when performing a selection.
- Behavior
- Visibility based selection: If checked, all selection
operations take visibility of objects into account (versus the standard
analytical selection mode of HOOPS).
- Dynamic Highlighting: If checked, will automatically
highlight geometry on a mouseover (and subsequently unhighlight
when the mouse leaves.
- Honor Line/Edge weight/patterns: If checked, HOOPS
will honor the weights and patterns of lines and patterns.
- Transparent Select Box: If checked, the "Select
by Window" operator will display a transparent overlay.
- Displace Selection: If checked, HOOPS will rendered
a selected object on top of any coincident geometry.
- Related Selection Limit:If checked, tells the system
that no more than the number specified of items of geometry past
the first will be needed.
- Highlighting
- Quickmoves Preference: Determines the default method
of rendering quickmoves.
- Conditional Highlighting:Highlights the selected
items by setting a conditional style in the selected segments.
- Quickmoves Highlighting: Determines if Quickmoves
should be used during highlighting. If Quickmoves is on for highlighting,
specifies which method is used for rendering.
- Inverse Transparency Highlighting: Leaves the selected
item the same while making everything else in the scene transparent.
The value to the right indicates the level of transparency where
0 is no transparency and 1 is completely transparent.
- Colored Inverse Transparency Highlighting: Highlights
the selected item and making everything else in the scene transparent.
The value to the right indicates the level of transparency where
0 is no transparency and 1 is completely transparent.
2.11.8 Output Options
- Image Output
- Use Window Size: If checked, the height and width
of the current window will be used for output.
- Specify Image Size: If checked, used the specified
height and width for image output.
- Width: Determines the width of the output.
- Height: Determines the height of the output.
- General Options
- Output in Grayscale: If checked, output will appear
in grayscale.
- Favor Memory over Speed: If checked, some memory-intensive
optimizations will not be used when rendering output.
- Include Window Background: If checked, the window
background color gradient will be output along with the model.
- Document Output
- Use Current View(WYSIWYG): If checked, the output will
be exactly what is rendered into the current window.
- Use Full Printable Area: If checked, HOOPS will render
as much of the model as it can into the size of the output.
- Paper Size: Determines the paper size. For output
to a printer, the paper size is hard-coded to 8.5 by 11.
- Width: Sets the width of the paper used for
output.
- Height: Sets the height of the paper used for
output.
- DPI: Sets the print output resolution.
2.11.9 Geometry Options
- Curve Tesselation
- Budget: Sets the upper boundary of the number of
vertices that will be allowed in the tesselation of the NURBS.
- Continued Budget: Sets the number of additional
vertices will be allocated to the overall curve. Whereas a curve
with exactly degree+1 control points will have "budget" number of
vertices, curves with more control points than that number will
have "continued budget" additional vertices for every extra control
point.
- Maximum Deviation: Sets the distance, in object
space, of the tessellation to the parametric definition of the curve.
Note that since this setting is in object space, it should be set
differently depending on the scale of the NURBS control points.
- Maximum Angle: Sets the largest angle allowed between
adjacent line segments in the tessellated representation. Expressed
in degrees.
- Maximum Length: Sets the largest allowable length,
in the NURBS Curve's normalized [0, 1] parametric space, of any
line segment.
- View Independent: If checked, HOOPS tesselates a
NURBS curve with the number of vertices specified in "budget". Otherwise,
tesselation of a NURBS curve is done as far as necessary, depending
on the camera setting, in order to maintain a smooth curve. "view
dependent" is more accurate, but "view independent" is computationally
cheaper.
2.11.10 Camera Options
- View
- Smooth Transition: If checked, the camera is transitioned
between two positions smoothly (in small increments).
- Projection: Sets the camera projection.
- Near Camera Limit: Sets the near clipping distance.
- Walkthrough Orientation
- Front View Axis: Sets what the partviewer will consider
the "front view" for use with the "standard views" buttons.
- Top View Axis: Sets what the partviewer will consider
the "top view" for use with the "standard views" buttons.
- Navigation Panel: If checked, HOOPS will display
a navigation panel on the bottom right side of the window with arrows
indicating directions for movement.
- World Handedness: Determines the facing of polygons indicating
which is the "front" or "back."
- Right: If checked, the world and the axis triad
with be right handed.
- Left: If checked, the workd and the axis triad will
face opposite of right handed way.
2.11.11 Lighting Options
- Ambient Color
- Hemispheric Ambient: If checked, HOOPS will apply
ambient lighting to calculation for the color of a surface based
on its normal vector and the value of the up vector which is (0,1,0)
by default.
- Color 1: If Hemispheric Ambient is not checked, the
color applies to the lighting calculations of all surfaces.
If Hemispheric Ambient is checked, the color applies to the
lightning calculation using the up vector information.
- Color 2: If Hemispheric Ambient is checked, HOOPS uses
this color as the light color in the opposite direction of the
up vector when performing lighting calculations for surfaces.
- Up Vector:The up direction of the Hemispheric Ambient
lighting.
- Bloom
- Bloom: When enabled, HOOPS causes bright objects to
bleed into darker ones, simulating the imperfect focus inevitable
with the human eye or any other type of lens.
- Strength: this value determine the contribution of
bloom to the overall color value. Numbers in the range of 0
to 10 are accepted where the higher number means more contribution.
- Blur: the number of blur passes to perform on the output.
Higher values mean that bloom will affect a wider area and look
smoother. Numbers in the range of 1 to 8 are accepted.
- Shape: the type of kernel used in creating the bloom
effect.
- Light Options
- Light Follows Camera: If checked, HOOPS will move
lighting when the camera moves.
- Light Scaling: If checked, lighting will have a
scaling factor. A smaller factor will make the scene whiter while
a larger will make the scene darker.
- Lights: The number of distant lights that HOOPS
will insert into the scene. These lights will obey the Light Follows
Camera option.
- Gooch Options
- Color Map: Select colors for the color map that
applies to models when Gooch rendering is enabled.
- Diffuse Weight: Enter a value from 0 to 1. Regular
diffuse lighting contributes weight, and the non-photorealistic
lighting from Gooch contributes (1-weight).
- Number of Colors: The number of colors to use in
the color map starting with the left color in the color map. You
can specify whole or fractional numbers.
2.11.12 Effects Options
- Simple Shadows: If checked, shadows that are cast on the floor
will be rendered.
- Light Vector: the direction used to determine how
the simple shadow is cast. This value is independent of all other
light vectors including distant, local and spot lights added to
the scene. The default value is in the positive z direction.
- Color: The color of the shadow
- Resolution: A number from 32 to 1024 that determines
the resolution of the shadow.
- Blurring: A number between 1 to 31 indicating the
level of blurring (softening) that is applied to the shadow.
- Opacity: A floating point value between 0 and 1
that sets the transparency of the shadow where 1 is completely opaque.
- Shadow Rendering: Determines the method used to
render the shadow.
- Shadows Maps: If checked, shadows that are cast on faces are
rendered.
- Jitter:If checked, HOOPS will use stochastic sampling
of shadow maps. This can reduce aliasing in the shadow map.
- View Dependent: If this option is checked, the view
frustum is taken into account when generating shadow maps. This
can give you better quality overall but there can be a performance
cost because shadow maps are generated every time the view frustrum
changes.
- Resolution:The width and height of the shadow map.
This value will be clamped up/down to 512, 1024 or 2048.
- Samples:The number of locations in the shadow map
used to determine the percentage value of light received by a pixel
in the rendered scene.
- Simple Reflection: If checked, reflections against the floor
are rendered.
- Fading:If selected, the reflection plane will fade
as it moves away from the camera.
- Opacity:A value between 0 and 1 that determines
the transparency of the reflection plane where 0 is completely transparent.
- Blur:An integer between 1 and 31 indicating the
level of softening that is applied to the reflection. This option
is only applies when the DX9 driver is used.
- Attenuation:Fades the reflection as the model moves
away from the reflection plane. This option only applies when the
DX9 driver is used.
- Hither: Determines the location of the near
plane. This is where the attenuation begins.
- Yon: Determines the location of the far plane.
This is where the attenuation ends and the image is completely
faded.
- Frame Buffer
- Ambient Occlusion: If checked, shading is applied
when nearby objects or occluders would prevent some portion of ambient
light from reaching a surface.
- Strength:A multiplier on the default contribution of
ambient occlusion. The higher the number the strong the ambient
occlusion contribution.
- Fast Silhouette Edges: If checked, enables the drawing
of fast silhouettes where the difference between z-buffer values
of neighboring pixels is greater than a certain threshold.
- Tolerance: the threshold used when comparing adjacent
pixel depth values to detect silhouettes.
- Heavy Exterior: if checked, HOOPS draws an extra thick
line at the exterior silhouettes,