The solid.Shape or the polymesh.Mesh shown. Assigning either opens the window if it is not open and redraws it in place if it is. The empty shape opens the window empty, or clears it if it is open; the first shape shown after it is fitted to the window.

The name of the variable holding the shape shown. Setting it titles the window with the name, so that several viewers can be told apart, and the queries model.Viewer.pick prints use it. Until it is set the window is titled drafting and the queries use 'S'.

model.Viewer: V = model.Viewer ()

model.Viewer: V = model.Viewer ('Hidden', TF)

V = model.Viewer () returns a viewer that shows nothing yet; its window opens when a shape, even the empty one, is assigned to its Shape:

 V = model.Viewer ();
 V.Shape = solid.box (80, 40, 12);
 V.Shape = hole (V.Shape, [20, 20, 12], 8, Inf);

V = model.Viewer ('Hidden', true) never shows its window. It draws and picks all the same, which is how the viewer is tested.

model.Viewer: [E, F] = pick (V)

model.Viewer: [E, F, ECODE, FCODE] = pick (V)

model.Viewer: [E, CODE] = pick (V, 'edge')

model.Viewer: [F, CODE] = pick (V, 'face')

model.Viewer: [P, F] = pick (V)

[E, F] = pick (V) waits while you click edges and faces in the viewer’s window, then returns the indices of the edges in E and of the faces in F, in the numbering solid.Shape.edges and solid.Shape.faces use. A click selects what is under the pointer, which stays drawn in orange, a selected edge thick and a selected face filled, and a second click on it lets it go; the shape can still be turned between clicks. Enter finishes and Escape cancels, returning nothing. With 'edge' or 'face' only that kind can be picked, and its indices are the first output.

Indices belong to the shape they were picked on, and a script that holds them breaks as soon as an earlier step adds a feature. So pick also returns, as a character vector, the code that selects the same items by kind, direction and position: CODE for one kind, and ECODE and FCODE for edges and faces picked together, empty where none was picked. The code selects exactly the items picked: one query where what they share finds them alone, else one query for each, joined, and their indices only where an item cannot be told apart from the others by any query. It names the shape by the variable the viewer shows, and eval (CODE) gives the indices again. Put it in the script in place of the numbers:

 ## Four upright edges picked on a block 80 by 40 by 12
 [E, CODE] = pick (V, 'edge');
 ## CODE holds the query for the script
 E = edges (part, 'Type', 'line', 'Direction', [0, 0, 1], ...
            'Within', [0, 0, 0, 80, 40, 12]);
 part = fillet (part, E, 3);

When the viewer shows a polymesh.Mesh, [P, F] = pick (V) waits while you click points on it, each marked where it lands, and returns them in P, an N-by-3 matrix of the points where the clicks hit the mesh, and in F an N-by-4 matrix: for each point the index of the triangle it lies on, a row of the mesh’s Faces, and the triangle’s unit normal, turned as its corners run. A click that misses the mesh adds nothing. Enter finishes and Escape cancels, returning nothing. A mesh has no edges or faces in the sense of a solid, so 'edge' and 'face' are refused.

See also: solid.Shape.edges, solid.Shape.faces, solid.Shape.show

model.Viewer: U = pickucs (V)

model.Viewer: U = pickucs (V, MODE)

model.Viewer: [U, CODE] = pickucs (…)

U = pickucs (V) returns the geom.UCS you pick on the shape in the viewer’s window, in two steps, each prompted at the foot of the window. geom.UCS (V) does the same.

The axes come first. Click a flat face, which gives the plane and its outward normal, then two points: the direction from the first to the second, laid in the face, is +x. The points can be anywhere on the part, two corners along an edge for instance. With MODE 'points' no face is picked; three points give the axes instead, +x from the first to the second and the third on the +y side, as for geom.UCS.threepoint. MODE is 'face' by default.

The origin comes second. Click one point and the origin is there, laid in the plane. Click a second and the origin takes its x from the first point and its y from the second, which puts a datum corner where a fillet or chamfer leaves no vertex to click. Press Enter at once to keep the origin at the first point of the axes.

Every point snaps to what it lands on: a corner to its vertex, a circular edge to its centre, another edge to its midpoint, a face to the point clicked. Each is marked in the window. On a triangle mesh the face clicked is a triangle, which gives the plane where the mesh is flat, and a point snaps to a corner of the triangle under it or the middle of one of its sides when the click is near, or else lies where it was clicked. The shape can be turned between clicks, and Escape cancels with an error.

A pick depends on the shape it was made on, so [U, CODE] = pickucs (…) also returns CODE, the expression that makes the same UCS from coordinates, as a character vector to put in the script in place of the pick. eval (CODE) gives the UCS again, to the ten significant digits CODE carries.

 [U, CODE] = pickucs (V);
 CODE
 ⇒ CODE = geom.UCS ([0, 0, 1], [20, 20, 12], [21, 20, 12])
 R.UCS = geom.UCS ([0, 0, 1], [20, 20, 12], [21, 20, 12]);

See also: geom.UCS, model.Viewer.pick

model.Viewer: view (V, AZ, EL)

model.Viewer: [AZ, EL] = view (V)

view (V, AZ, EL) turns the view to look at the shape from azimuth AZ and elevation EL, in degrees, and fits the shape to the window. The angles are those Octave’s view takes for a plot: AZ turns anticlockwise about z, seen from above, starting from the negative y axis, and EL rises from the x-y plane, from -90 looking straight up to 90 looking straight down. The z axis points up the window; looking straight down or up, the y axis does, turned by AZ. The mouse still turns the view afterwards.

[AZ, EL] = view (V) returns the angles the view looks from now, however it got there, AZ from -180 to 180, so that a view found with the mouse can be kept in a script. A turn about the line of sight, which the mouse can give, is not part of them.

The keys of the window give four of these views: 0 is view (V, 45, 35.26), near enough, the isometric view the window opens with, 1 is view (V, 0, 0), 2 is view (V, 0, 90) and 3 is view (V, 90, 0).

 ## A shallow part looks deeper than it is from the isometric view;
 ## look from higher up
 part = solid.box (80, 40, 4);
 V = show (part);
 view (V, 30, 60);
 ## Keep a view found with the mouse
 [az, el] = view (V);

See also: solid.Shape.show

model.Viewer: close (V)

Assigning a shape afterwards opens a new window.

model.Viewer: TF = isopen (V)