8.4 Scene and View Options

A "Scene" is defined as the space represented by the model coordinate system.
Each scene has its own menu of selections but they can be different for different scenes.
A "View is defined as that portion of the scene which is drawn in the window. There can be many views of a particular scene.
Graphs and Shape window
Scenes use an "openlook" style in which the:
The left mouse button is a selecting a tool,
The right mouse button pops up menus.
The middle mouse button translates the view around the scene.

Pressing the right mouse button pops up menus from which one either selects

These menu items are like radio buttons in that only one is active at a time. It is recommended that when you move into a view you quickly pop up the menu so you can be certain of the meaning of the left button. All scenes have a common "View menu" as the first menu item. With it one can create a new view, zoom in/out, round the view or make the view correspond to the natural size of the scene. >

View=Plot

Scales the view so that the full plot of variables can be seen.

10% ZoomOut

View more of the scene, keeping the center of the view fixed.

10% ZoomIn

View less of the scene, keeping the center of the view fixed.

NewView

Provides for the creation of new view windows by using the left mouse button to draw a rectangle in the view which will become the interior of a new view. Press the left mouse button at one corner of the desired view and drag it to the opposite corner. The new view window can then be resized and positioned using your window manager.

ZoomInOut

Choose a location to be the fixed point of zooming (ie doesn't change its position) and press the left mouse button there. Drag the mouse up and to the right to zoom in. Drag the mouse down and to the left to zoom out. Graph views have independent scaling in the x and y directions. There is a bias toward changing only one dimension coresponding to the general drag direction. Shape views have a constant aspect ratio so only the x direction is used for zooming. The view may be returned to normal by choosing the "View=Plot" option.

Translate

Drag the scene around in the view with the middle mouse button. There is a drag bias which makes it easier to move in the horizontal or vertical direction without change in the other dimension.

RoundView

The header of each view window shows the size of the "canvas" in model coordinates. Pressing this button rounds the view so these numbers don't have so many decimal places. The algorithm for rounding needs improvement.

WholeScene

Adjusts the zoom and translation so the view is of the entire scene with a 10% border.

SetView

Allows the user to adjust a view to desired scales along both axes. Successive dialogs appear in an edit box showing the current ranges for x and y axes and allows (and requires) the user to enter two numbers (separated by a space) for the beginning and end of axes. Default values are left, right, bottom, top of view reduced by 10%. The view size is set to the entries and then the view zooms out by 10%. Accepting the default values leaves the view unchanged.

Scene=View

Defines the size of the whole scene. Sets the scene size to the size of the view. Subsequent Whole Scene adjustments will return to this size.

Back to:

8.1 Simulation Control
8.2 Graphs
8.3 Plotting Controls

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8.5 Sessions