Assistant
Synopsis
Demonstration project showing the use of AVS in a variety of application areas.
Description
The Assistant project is a demonstration application that shows how AVS/Express
may be used in a number of different application areas. The application areas
available are:
- Standard 2D/3D Visualisation
- Finite Element Modelling
- Environmental Factor Visualisation
- Medical Visualisation
- Computational Fluid Dynamics
- Commercial Visualisation
Each of these areas has a set of sample data available and the user can choose
from a number of ways of visualising each piece of data. The options available
are appropriate for each application area. The user can also choose to read in
their own data. All the standard properties are available for editing. These
include setting the camera, scene and object rendering properties.
Installation
Due to the way the Assistant project works the directory it is located in has
to be specified. This is done by editing the a_start.v file. Open
this file using a standard text editior such as MSDOS Edit, vi or emacs and
find the line:
$setenv ASSIST_HOME c:/assist
Alter this line so that it points to the location of Assistant directory
on your system. For example if the Assistant project was installed by
fred on a Unix system in his home directory then the Assistant
directory might be /usr/people/fred/assist. Therefore he would
edit the a_start.v to read:
$setenv ASSIST_HOME /usr/people/fred/assist
Starting the Assistant
To start the Assistant load the application file a_start.v
using any of the standard methods. The easiest way to do this is to
choose the menu option File->Load Application... and browse
for the a_start.v file from there. The application can also
be loaded from the AVS startup dialog box or from the command line.
Using the Assistant
The Assistant will start with the main menu shown below:
Each of six pictures selects a different application area. A text
description of each can be seen by resting the mouse pointer over each
picture. Selecting one of the options brings a sub-menu similar to that
shown below:
It also brings up a larger window. This is the scene viewer and will
display the results of your visualisations. The sub-menu window can be
broken up into two sections, a toolbar at the top of the window and a
number of option panels. Clicking on a picture in an option panel enables
the visualisation that it represents. The visualisation selected will appear
in the scene viewer and parameters will appear in the right-hand panel. These
parameters can be edited in place or the button below the picture can be used
to enlarge the parameters panel. Click the RETURN button to return
to the sub-menu. These options are shown in the picture below:
The toolbar options are shown below. The two rightmost buttons perform
the same functions as in AVS/Express and can be used to reset any
rotations of the scene that you may have made.
Technical Details
The demonstration application is entirely written in V code. It creates
and destorys user interface components as required by dynamically
instancing and deinstancing objects. This technique has many uses when
developing applications with AVS/Express and it can be learnt by
studying out the Assistant project works. It particular the dynamic
creation and destruction of objects can be seen if the Network Editor is
examined.
Authors
Dr. Johannes Widyanatta
Advanced Visual Systems GmbH
Modifications
Andrew Dodd
Contact
International AVS Centre
Manchester Visualization Centre
Manchester Computing
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester
United Kingdom
M13 9PL