i3dm(6D)

NAME
     i3dm - Interactive 3D Modeler

SYNOPSIS
     i3dm

DESCRIPTION
     I3DM is an Interactive 3D Modeler.  It is provided for the demonstration
     of basic modeling techniques and to show the power of Silicon Graphics'
     workstations.  There are many modeling programs available on the market,
     many of which have far more capabilities than I3DM offers, however I3DM
     is license-free, and is available at no charge.

     Some of the features include line and curve drawing, surface of
     revolution, extrusions, texture-mapping (when run on machines that
     support it), interactive manipulation of objects created in wireframe and
     fully rendered form, Stereoscopic viewing (for systems equipped with
     StereoView), and live video textures and backgrounds (on machines
     equipped with VideoLab).  Models created with I3DM may be written in
     SuperViewer format, or as an IRIS Inventor SceneGraph.

Menu Window
     Make Menu selections with right mouse button.

   Dialog and Message Window
     Commands may be typed while cursor is in any I3DM Window.

   View Windows
     Right mouse button invokes per-view pop-up menu options.  Left mouse
     button for drawing/modification actions (moves, rotates, scales etc.).

     Line drawing is done with the Left mouse button in all but the
     Perspective view.  The Middle mouse button may be used to "snap" a line
     vertex to an existing vertex in any view.

     If no command is active, Middle mouse button pans view, Left & Middle
     zooms view.

Create Menu
     Selecting the Create menu with the right mouse button invokes a popup
     menu with several options.

Surface Menu
     The Surface menu allows one to create surfaces out of lines and curves.
     Examples include revolved and extruded surfaces, faces, and patches.  A
     short explanation of each feature is given below.  For more details refer
     to the Tutorial section of this document.

Pick Menu
     All directed actions on existing geometry (revolving, extruding, changing
     color/material, applying textures etc.) are applied to picked objects.
     Before a line or curve may be revolved it must be picked and highlighted.
     When a new item is created (line, curve, sphere etc.), all currently
     picked objects (if any) are first "unpicked", then the new object is
     automatically picked and ready for further action.  The Pick menu offers
     various options for controlling picked objects.

Xform Menu
     Picked objects may be transformed by using the options located under the
     Xform menu.  Transformation arguments (rotate angles, scale factors, move
     positions etc.) may be typed or interactively issued with the mouse.

Done Button
     The Done button is used to terminate commands (the enter key on the
     keyboard will do the same thing).  Creation commands that allow typed-in
     options (such as circles and spheres etc.) do not cause anything to be
     created until done is hit or enter is typed.

Edit Menu
     Picked lines/curves and surfaces may be edited by using the Edit rollover
     menu options.

Delete Button
     Deletes picked objects.

Textures Menu
     Textures may be applied to primitives (spheres, cylinders etc.),
     revolved, extruded, and patch surfaces.  Currently faces cannot be
     textured.

     Before textures may be used, a texture index file must exist in the
     directory the modeler was invoked from or in a directory
     /usr/demos/General_Demos/i3dm/data.  This file must have the name
     "textures.index" and contain a list of the textures (one per line) that
     are available to be used.  The format of each line in the file is as
     follows:

     <texture_number> <texture_name> <path name to sgi rgb file>

     Examples:

             1 brick /usr/textures/brick.rgb
             2 wood  /my_directory/textures/wood.rgb
             3 Video video

     If the system supports texture mapping, and the index file is correctly
     configured, a list of textures will exist in the Texture menu.  Textures
     are mapped to objects by first picking them then selecting the desired
     texture from the list.

     Live-Video Textures

     If your system is equipped with the VideoLab option, a texture entry in
     the texture index file may specify video instead of an rgb file as shown
     for texture 3 in the examples above.  This provides for live motion video
     textures.

Attrib Menu
     Used to set various attributes of picked objects.

Display Menu
     The Display menu has options to control things such as what gets
     displayed.  For instance, you might want to turn off vertices.

Textures
File Menu
     The File menu allows for filing and restoring models, and is where the
     Exit function is.  Models may be filed and restored in i3dm format, or
     filed in SuperViewer or Iris Inventor formats.

AUTHOR
     John Kichury, Silicon Graphics Computer Systems