The Display Widget Window

The display widget window is the control center when multiple data sets are loaded and is invoked by pressing the 'DISPLAY' button on the main control panel. A data set is always assigned to exactly one display, but a display may contain zero, one or more data sets. A display includes a 3-D graphics window and defines a virtual grid space where all the graphics from its data sets are mapped. If the data grid is different from the virtual grid the appropriate resampling is applied. In some cases this resampling will cause graphics generation to be slow.

The display widget window allows you to: change the number of displays and how they are arranged, change the assignment of data sets to displays, change the parameters of a display which define the virtual grid, and change most of the command line options.

Each display's user interface includes a set of buttons and type-in fields and a data set browser. At the top of the user interface is the 'Display #' which gives the index of the display. Below that is a browser showing a list of data sets attached to that display. Each entry in the browser contains the context index of the data set and the context name. There is a scroll bar to the right of the browser which can scroll though the list if it gets larger than the browser window. Above the browser is the 'Options' button which is described in section 6.20.4 . Below the browser is the 'SET DISPLAY PARAMETERS' which is described in section 6.20.3 . Currently there can be a total of 16 displays. Watch out though, opening many displays can eat up a lot of memory.

Changing the Number of Displays

In the upper left hand corner is the 'Display Matrix' with 9 buttons, '1x1', '1x2', '1x3', '2x2', '3x2', '2x3', '3x3', '3x4', '4x3', and '4x4'. These buttons control the number and layout of displays. Underneath this is the 'Return to Vis5D' button. This will exit from the display widget window and map the 3-D graphics window of each display according to the chosen button matrix. If a display is created but has no data set attached to it then the 3-D window is left blank.

Changing the Display Assignment of a Data Set

In order to change the aassignment a data set to a different display you have to highlight the desired data set. This is done by simply clicking on the appropriate entry in the display browser. You then click inside the data set browser of another display and the data set transfered. If a data set is transfered to an empty display it may take several seconds while the display is initialized.

Changing the Parameters of a Display

The parameters of a display define the virtual grid. These parameters include: the number of rows, columns and levels of the grid, the map projection, and the vertical coordinate system. There are three ways of changing these parameters. When an index number is typed into the 'FROM Context #' field, the parameters are copied from the specified data context over to the current display. When an index number is typed into the 'FROM Display #' field, the parameters are copied from the specified display over to the current display. The third option is to manually edit one or all of the parameters by pressing the 'User Input' button. A set of fields associated with each parameter will then appear on the left hand side. When you are finished changing the parameters press the 'Done' button found at the bottom.

Changing the 'Options' for a Display

In Vis5D version 5.2 the command line options (refer to section 6.1) can now be changed at any time instead of just once while first running vis5d. When the 'Options' button is pressed at the top of the display browser a set of fields will appear on the left hand side. These fields correlate to the command line options.