Module ViewLib

The Viewlib module contains the application goview, which is a utility to support visualization of curves, surface, point clouds and line clouds.

The application goview visualizes curves and surfaces read from an IGES file or from the GoTools internal (g2) file format. Currently, goview is not able to visualize volumes; in this case it is recommended to instead visualize the boundary surfaces.

Qt is used for representing the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and OpenGL for graphics. Curves and surfaces are tessellated in the submodule tesselate in the module gotools-core. According to their type, curves and surfaces are approximated by triangles or line segments, which are convenient for visualization using OpenGL.

The model in the viewer is manipulated using the mouse keys. The left key rotates the model, the middle key is used for zooming, and the right key for translation of the model.

The goview GUI has a graphical window, a window containing an object list and a number of pull down menus:

file: This menu allows the user to read from and write to geometry files, and to close the current session and make the viewer ready to read a new geometry file.
view: This menu item presents the option to choose either shaded or wireframe mode for visualization. A highlight mode may be toggled and there is some functionality for focusing.
select: Entities can be selected using this menu, in the object list or by using the control key in combination with the left mouse key.
group: Objects can be grouped using this option, although this menu is rarely used.
object: This menu offers the possibility to alter the resolution of curves and surfaces and to enable/disable selected entities from the view. Some commands have a key pad short cut.

Note that goview is offered as a utility and not a product. In particular there is no help functionality implemented, and visualization of trimmed surfaces can have flaws, even though they are normally repaired or minimized by increasing the resolution.