First we describe a simple example how to run partiview
with a supplied sample
dataset. Then we describe the different windows that partiview
is made up of, and
the different commands and keystrokes it listens to.
Start the program using one of the sample "speck" files in the
data
directory:
% cd partiview/data
% ./hipbright
or
% partiview
and this should come up with a display. You should probably enlarge the window a bit. Mine comes up in roughly a 300 by 300 display window, which may be a bit small (certainly on my screen :-)
Hit the TAB key to bring focus to the (one line) command window inbetween the log screen (top) and viewing screen (bottom). Type the commands
fov 50 (field of view 50 degrees)
jump 0 0 0 80 70 60 (put yourself in the origin
and look at euler angles
RxRyRz (80,70,60)
and it should give a nice comfy view :-) If you ever get lost, use
the jump
command to go back to a known position and/or viewing
angle, or just the center
command.
[spatial units are parsecs, angle units are degrees]
Now play with the display, use the 't', 'r', 'f' and 'o' keys in the viewing window and use the left and mouse buttons down to (carefully) move around a bit, and make yourself comfortable with moving around. Using the 't' button you get some idea of the distance of the stars by moving back and forth a little (the parallax trick). In fact, if you 't' around a little bit, you may see a green line flashing through the display. This is one of the RGB (xyz) axes attached to the (0,0,0) [our sun] position. You should see Procyon and Sirius exhibit pretty large parallaxes, but Orion is pretty steady since it is several hundred parsecs away. If you move the right mouse button you will zoom in/out and should see our Sun flash by with the red-green-blue axes.
The RGB axes represent the XYZ axes in a cartesian system. For the Hipparcos data the X (red) axis points to RA=0h, Y (green) axis to RA=6h, both in the equatorial plane, and the Z (blue) axis points to the equatorial north pole.
Try and use the middle mouse button (or the 'p' key) to click on Sirius or Procyon, and see if you can get it to view its properties. Now use the 'P' key to switch center to rotation to that star. Sirius is probably a good choice. Move around a bit, and try and get the sun and orion in the same view :-)
[NOTE: these Hipparcos data do not have reliably distance above 100-200 pc, so Orion's distances are probably uncertain to 30%]
A little bit on the types of motion, and what the mouse buttons do
| left middle right
| Button-1 Button-2 Button-3 Shift Button-1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
f (fly) | fly 'pick' zoom
o (orbit) | orbit 'pick' zoom
r (rotate) | rotate X/Y 'pick' rotate Z (+bug?) translate
t (translate) | translate 'pick' zoom
The point of origin for rotations can be changed with the 'P' button. First you can try and pick ('p' or Button-2) a point, and if found, hit 'P' to make this point the new rotation center default.
red = X axis
green = Y axis
blue = Z axis
The top row, from left to right, shows the following buttons:
Nothting implemented here yet.
Pulldown g1, g2, ... (or whichever group)
is the currently selected group. See object
command
to make aliases which group is defined to what object. If multiple
groups are defined, the next row below this contains a list of all
the groups, and their aliases, so you can toggle them to be displayed.
Pulldown to select fly/orbit/rot/tran, which can also be activate by pressing the f/o/r/t keys inside the viewing window.
Toggle to turn the points on/off. See also the points
command.
Toggle to turn polygons on/off. See also the polygon
command.
Toggle to turn labels on/off. See also the label
command.
Toggle to turn textures on/off. See also the texture
command.
Toggle to turn boxes on/off. See also the boxes
command.
The current displayed value of logslum lum
(see below)
Slider controlling a datavar variable (the one selected as luminosity)
When more than one group has been activated (groups of particles or objects can have their own display properties, and be turned on and off at will), a new Group Row will appear as the 2nd row.
Left-clicking (button 1) on a button toggles the display of that group; right-clicking (button 3) enables display of the group, and also selects it as the current group for GUI controls and text commands.
For time-dependent data, the third and fourth row from the top control the currently displayed data-time. This time-control bar is only visible when the object has a nonzero time range.
Shows the current time (or offset from the tripmeter).
The absolute time is the sum of the T and + fields.
Both are editable.
See also the step
control command.
Press to mark a reference point in time. The T field becomes zero, and the + field (below) is set to current time. As time passes, T shows the offset from this reference time.
Press to return to reference time (sets T to 0).
Current last time where tripmeter was set. You can reset to
the first frame with the command step 0
Drag to adjust the current time. Sensitivity depends on the speed setting; dragging by one dial-width corresponds to 0.1 wall-clock second of animation, i.e. 0.1 * speed in data time units.
Step time backwards or forwards by 0.1 * speed data time units.
See also the <
and >
keyboard shortcuts.
toggle movie move forwards in time
Toggle animating backwards or forwards in time, by
1 * speed data time units per real-time second.
See also the {
, ~
, and }
keyboard shortcuts.
(Logarithmic) value denoting speed of animation.
See also the speed
control command.
The fifth (or 4th or 3rd, depending if Group and/or Time rows are present) row from the top controls loading and playing sequences of moving through space.
Brings up a filebrowser to load a .wf path file. This is a file with on each
line 7 numbers: xyz location, RxRyRz viewing direction, and FOV (field of view).
The rdata
command loads such path files too.
Play the viewpoint along the currently loaded path,
as the play
command does.
Right-click for a menu of play-speed options.
Step through camera-path frames.
See also frame
control command.
Slides through camera path, and displays current frame.
The third window from the top contains a logfile of past commands and responses to them, and can be resized by dragging the bar between command window and viewing window. The Logfile window also has a scroll bar on the left. You can direct the mouse to any previous command, and it will show up in the command window. Using the arrow keys this command can then be edited.
The Command window is a single line entry window, in which Control Commands can be given. Their responses appear in the Logfile window and on the originating console. (unlike Data Commands, which show no feedback). The Up- and Down-arrow keys (not those on the keypad) scroll through previous commands, and can be edited using the arrow keys and a subset of the emacs control characters.
The (OpenGL) Viewing window is where all the action occurs. Typically this is where you give single keystroke commands and/or move the mouse for an interactive view of the data. It can be resized two ways: either by resizing the master window, or by picking up the separator between Viewing window and Command window above.
Setting up a small animation in for example Starlab can be done quite simply as follows:
mkplummer -i -n 20 | mkmass -l 0.5 -u 10.0 | scale -s | kira -d 2 -D x10 > run1
(lots of output from kira will still appear on the screen)
partiview run1.cf
cat run1.cf
kira run1
eval every
eval lum mass 0 0.01
eval psize 100
eval cment 1 1 .7 .3
eval color clump exact
Alternatively, if you had started up partiview without any arguments, the following Control Command (see below) would have done the same
read run1.cf
The 's' key within the viewing window toggles stereo viewing. By default each object is split in a blue and a red part, that should be viewed with a pair of red(left)/blue(right) glasses. Red/green glasses will probably work too. See stereo and focallen in the View Commands section.