Module category: Mapper

• CuttingSurfaceComp
  • Parameters
  • Input Ports
  • Output Ports
  • Example

CuttingSurfaceComp

The only difference between CuttingSurface and CuttingSurfaceComp is that CuttingSurfaceComp directly produces its output for a Renderer. To get a colored output you have the possibility to pass a colormap by an input port. In general you will only connect the first output port of the module directly with the renderer. Using this module instead of CuttingSurface reduces the number of modules (Collect, Colors, VectorField...) you have to use.

CuttingSurfaceComp implements now the functionality of CuttingSurface3DTex, which should no longer be used. More remarks to this point are found under examples.

CuttingSurfaceComp is available on all supported platforms.

Parameters

Name	Type	Description
vertex	Vector	Normal of the plane, center of the sphere or one point on the axis of the cylinder.
point	Vector	One point on the cutting surface.
scalar	Scalar	Distance of the origin to the plane or radius of the sphere or cylinder.
option	Choice	Select the shape of the surface: plane, sphere, cylinder-x, cylinder-y, cylinder-z. cylinder-x means a cylinder with its axis in the direction of the x axis.
gennormals	Boolean	Toggle the generation of normals. By default the generation of normals is turned off. The generated normals are available at the 3. output port named normalsOut. this port has to be connected to the 3. input port of the module Collect.
genstrips	Boolean	Toggle the generation of triangle strips. By default the generation of triangle strips is turned on.
genDummyS	Boolean	Toggle the generation of a dummy surface if the cutting surface doesn't intersect the object. By default the generation of the dummy surface strips is turned off.
offset	Scalar	Specifies the hight, the isolines are lifted above the CuttingSurfaceComp. If you don't specify an offset parts of the isolines can be occluded by the surface due to the limited accuracy of the Z-buffer. If you specify negative offsets, the lines appear on the backside of the plane respectively the inside of the sphere or cylinder.
numiso	Scalar	Specifies the number of isolines.
isostart	Scalar	Initial value for isolines.
isoend	Scalar	End value for isolines.
color_or_texture	Boolean	When true, the output Geometry object will have a an object describing colors. Otherwise, it will contain a texture.
scale	Scalar	This parameter is relevant if you want to map vector fields on your cutting surfaces. In this case the vector field is represented by line objects. Their length is controled with this parameter (see parameter length below for further details).
length	Choice	This is only relevant for vector data. You have 2 options: either 1*scale or length*scale. In the first one, all lines representing the vector field are the same length, given by parameter scale. In the second one, this scale is multiplied by the true length of the vector to determine the length for the lines.
num_sectors	Scalar	This is only relevant for vector data. If you want to better visualise the direction of the vector field, you may wish to represent the output lines as arrows. The complexity of these arrows may be controled with this parameter. Do not be too greedy using it, the higher it is, the bigger the output object shall be.
vector	Choice	Determine the appearance of vector-data associated with the cutting surface. Has an effect only when the input is vector-data.
		OnlySurface: Use the vector-length as scalar value. Nothing more.
		OnlyLines: Use lines. Nothing more.
		SurfaceAndLines: Use vector-length and lines combined.
vertex_ratio	Scalar	Percentage of grid used for memory allocation. (See CuttingSurface for more details.)

Input Ports

Name	Type	Description
requiredmeshIn	UnstructuredGrid UniformGrid StructuredGrid RectilinearGrid	All types of grids or sets of the grids.
requireddataIn	Float Vec3 Float Vec3	Scalar or vector data on the grid or sets of data. The number of data values must match the number of nodes in the grid.
optionalisoDataIn	Float Float	Optional port for supplying isodata or sets of isodata. The number of values must match the number of nodes. If this port isn't connected, dataIn is used to calculate isolines. If it is a vector dataset, only the first component is used.
optionalcolorMapIn	ColorMap	Optional port for supplying a colormap for the visualization of data.

Output Ports

Name	Type	Description
outputgeometryOut	Geometry	The complete geometry output which can be directly connected with a renderer.
outputmeshOut	Polygons TriangleStrips	The grid of the resulting cutting surface as polygons or triangle strips.
outputdataOut	Float Vec3	The interpolated data at the grid points of the cutting surface.
outputnormalsOut	Unstructured_V3D_Normals	Normals to the surface. Only available if enabled with the parameter gennormals.
outputlinesOut	Lines	The isolines as a set of lines.

Example

We redesign the pipeline for covise/net/tutorial_pressure_1.net.

Figure: covise/net/tutorial/tutorial_pressure_1.net

We get the same output with the following simplified pipeline.

Figure: covise/net/examples/CuttingSurfaceComp.net

And to conclude this documentation to CuttingSurfaceComp we show in the following example how it supersedes old module CuttingSurface3DTex.

Figure: covise/net/general/examples/CuttingSurfaceComp3DTex.net

A snapshot of the COVER with the required menu adjustments is shown below.

Figure: covise/net/examples/CuttingSurfaceComp3DTex.net