Visualisers

Death? Why this fuss about death? Use your imagination, try to visualize a world without death! Death is the essential condition of life, not an evil.

— Chalotte Perkins Gilman

Visualisers

Visualisers are routines that show a certain aspect of an object that is not normally seen, but helps you to design, troubleshoot, and 'visualise' things more clearly during the design stage.

`ShowCurve()`

ShowCurve

ShowCurve(Array,Radius,Frac=1,Connect=true,Closed=false)

Array	Array, array of curve vertices.
Radius	Scalar, radial dimension (thickness) of the curve 'line'.
Frac	Fraction of the curve to visualise, e.g., 0.5 for half the curve.
Connect	Boolean, connect the vertices if true.
Closed	Boolean, the curve is 'closed' or circular, i.e., connect Array[N] to Array[0] if true.

Useful for troubleshooting Bézier Curves and such things, ShowCurve() does exactly what it says on the tin: it allows you to visualise a curve consisting of an array of vertices.

`ShowFx()`

ShowFx

ShowFx(Domain=[0,1],Resolution=100,DotSize=0.05,GPLFactor=100)

Domain	Tuple, minimum and maximum values of the domain of the function.
Resolution	Integer, number of points of the displayed function across the domain.
Dotsize	Scalar, size of the displayed function points.
GPLFactor	Scalar, the `GraphPaper()` parameter Linefactor.

Display a function with a 'graph-paper' background. ShowFx() expects a function with the name Fx to be declared in the top-level name-space, and the declaration must be similar to the example below.

GPLFactor is a requirement for the GraphPaper() module which compensates the line thickness for View-Point distance ($vpd) but it needs a refreshed preview or render after every zoom operation to do so. Higher values yield thinner lines.

function Fx(X)=
    0.8*pow(sin(X*90),2)
    +1*pow(sin(X*180),20)
;

ShowFx(Domain=[0,1],Resolution=700,DotSize=0.015,GPLFactor=100);

`ShowSlice()`

Slice

ShowSlice(TX,TY,TZ,RX,RY,RZ,Thickness,Children,
SliceColor,SliceAlpha,ChildColor,ChildAlpha)

TX, TY, TZ	Scalars, translation of the slice.
RX, RY, RZ	Scalars, rotation of the slice.
Thickness	Scalar, thickness of the slice.
Children	Boolean, display `Children()` if true.
SliceColor, SliceAlpha, ChildColor, ChildAlpha	OpenSCAD color parameters.

SliceBoat

Display a slice through Children(). The 'slice' is generated in the X-Y plane, and rotated and translated into position to show the desired features of Children() Only the relevant translations and rotations need to be specified. With the default settings, Children() will be displayed transparently, however color and alpha parameters are supplied to influence this behaviour. Useful for troubleshooting new forms, and visualising intermediate cross-sections of Bézier polyhedrons during the design phase.

`ShowVertex()`

ShowVertex

ShowVertex(Vertex,Radius=0.5,Color=RED)

Vertex	Vertex to be highlighted, probably a vertex from an array like `Array[12]`.
Radius	Scalar, radius of the shere highlighting Vertex.
Color	OpenSCAD color.

ShowVertex() is used to highlight a single vertex in a curve and is just shorthand for translate(Vertex)sphere(r=Radius);. It is useful for debugging curves and shapes.

`ShowVertices()`

ShowVertices(Array,Vertices=undef,Radius=0.5,Color=RED)

Array	Array of vertices, probably a curve or similar.
Vertices	Vertices to be highlighted. Accepts any OpenSCAD range format like `[0:5]`, or an array of indices like `[2,4,8]`. If left undef, all vertices in Array are highlighted, when given as an empty array `[]`, only the first and last vertex pair are highlighted (useful for Bézier Curve control points).
Radius	Scalar, radius of the shere highlighting Vertices.
Color	OpenSCAD color.

Like ShowVertex() but for a range or selection of vertices from an array.