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We have identified the following software limitations and have documented them with workaround solutions wherever possible.
Limitations Fixed
Fixed Reset CVs did not work in Version 8.5. In Version 9.0, the Save CVs function and the Reset CVs function work as expected.
Fixed From the Open As menu choice, if you tried to access a wire file, a DXF file, an IGES file, or a VDA file and then selected a file that was not one of those particular types (even if it was valid Open Model input), then EvalViewer hung (in a ViewKit event loop). This problem is fixed.
Fixed You could not customize reflection map images from the EvalViewer interface in Version 8.5 or earlier.
In Version 9.0, you can set 3 user-customizable reflection maps for the Reflect tab. You place these images in the files:
$HOME/.evalview/CustomRefMaps/UserImage1
where 1 can be replaced with 2 or 3 for the 3 buttons.
Fixed If you deleted an object using any Delete menu option, it would still appear in the Model View Window. You no longer need to force a redraw after deleting objects using any Delete menu options. For example, the screen does clear to blank screen after a Delete All. This problem is fixed.
Fixed The Save option was superfluous and was removed. Users will typically cut and paste data back and forth with Studio. All other file formats are saved using the Save As... menu.
Fixed Shells and Faces from Studio are correctly handled in EvalViewer now.
Fixed A simple sphere object from Studio used to shade in black in EvalViewer because of some idiosyncrasies of the old SGI OpenGL Optimizer Tessellator. This is fixed.
Fixed Surfaces and Curves of Order 9 and above would not hardware render at all when the Curves and Surfs toggle switches on the Display tab were on. These switches also caused numerous crashes. They have both been removed for Version 9.0. You can achieve any displays you had in previous versions by simply tessellating curves and surfaces with the Surfaces to Polygons button.
Fixed For Data Transfer, if you start EvalViewer from Utilities > EvalViewer in Studio with data selected, the data used to be transferred to EvalViewer via a different mechanism than when you start EvalViewer with no data selected and use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and paste data via the clipboard. Now the same data transfer method is used in both cases. Therefore, no differences in operation will occur. Specifically, polysets do transfer now.
New Limitations
Limitation
Lines > Line Point Size is not functional.
Limitation
Net Session and EVScript have a few limitations:
There are a few buttons and menus items that don't execute when replayed from an EV Script or when executed in a slaved Net Session:
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(1) Query > Line Point
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(2) Query > Polygon Vertex
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(3) Query > Polygon Center
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(4) Query > Object Center
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(5) Lines > Join
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(6) Lines > Select
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(7) Planes > Pick 3 Points
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(8) Planes > Pick 2 Points
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(9) Planes > Polygon Plane
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(10) Planes > Vertex Plane
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(11) Planes > Plane of Line
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(12) Planes > Plane Normal to Line
Workaround
There are no workarounds to this. Just avoid them if you are
using Net Sessions or EVScripts.
Limitation
Delete Clouds deletes Cloud objects. If you have polygons and cloud
data on the same object and you Delete Clouds, you will delete the
whole object even though there are polygons on that same object. This
really only occurs when you use the Clouds to Polygons option.
In general for this release, Delete X means Delete Objects containing X. This might change in the next release so that objects with other types of geometry also will not be deleted.
Workaround
Be careful deleting objects. You can separate geometry types
by writing specialized files and then reading them back in if
no other workarounds exist. Also, these delete functions are
only deleting the in-memory representation of the geometry:
no files are deleted.
Limitation
Colors > Ran (Random) does not set a random color to the
background. And Colors > Def (Default) does not reset the
background color either.
Workaround
Set the background color to what you prefer using the RGB
sliders. If you exit using the Exit from the File Menu, your
choice is remembered for subsequent sessions.
Limitation
When using Net Session, the display on the remote slave does not
show anything meaningful until the master session does a mouse
button down action, like tumble.
Workaround
Yes, you must provide a "next" event from the master session
in order to synchronize the Net Session's graphic view.
Limitation
When using Net Session, the display on the remote slave does not
correctly draw the buttons, the menu, the object lister, etc.
Workaround
This is normal for the slave session. The user at the terminal of
the remote slave session cannot interact with the EvalViewer
window unless the master session releases it. Therefore, it is
not necessary, and it might be misleading, to correctly draw all
the user interaction buttons, etc.
Limitation
The `A' key pops the Alias Studio window, but does not load the
active EvalViewer model.
Workaround
Many users will not want Studio to get loaded with
EvalViewer's contents. If you want the EV geometry in Studio
after you hit `A' in EV, you only need to paste (Ctrl+V) into
Studio. The `copy' from EvalViewer to the clipboard is already
done by the `A' key.
Limitation
My JPEG Image Gallery gets too long. How can I organize it?
Workaround
If you are serious about using this feature on a daily basis, you
can use Unix to rename your index.html file and save your
projects as you go. If you want to keep multiple projects on-
line, it gets a little trickier. We recommend simple renaming,
moving, or deleting the index.html file at whatever time
intervals make sense for your organization.
You will have to know a little HTML or be able to use an HTML editing tool like SGI's WebMagic or Netscape Composer to keep multiple projects up to date without getting too many image references in one file. We suggest you keep your data in projects. To spinoff a project (a set of images) to a separate link, do the following:
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Copy $HOME/.evalview/JpegHtml/index.html to
$HOME/.evalview/JpegHtml/projectidx.html.
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Edit projectidx.html. Change the title to the project
title.
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Delete all the references to pictures not in the project that
you are spinning off. There are 13 text lines in the HTML
file for each picture.
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Save projectidx.html. If this file is correct, you will be
able to access it from your browser as a file and the images
will display. The first part is done and you haven't lost
anything. You have a file with pictures now but it is not
referenced anywhere.
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Edit the index.html file to remove the references to the
pictures in the project. DO NOT EVER REMOVE the line
that says "The-Next-Image-Will-Be-Inserted-Here".
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Insert a line of the following form near the head of
index.html file (say after the </h1> line:
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<hr>
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<a href=projectidx.html>
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Curvature Project
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</a>
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Save the file and select View JPEGs from the EvalViewer
window to test.
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Your system administrator may be able to help you get
started with this. This JPEG gallery feature may be
enhanced in the next release but it depends on the amount
of customer feedback received.
Limitation
Sometimes the On/Off toggle indicators for some of the switches get
out of sync.
Workaround
Shut off the switches using a None button to synchronize
switch status.
Limitation
Some file output options and other options keep prompting
repeatedly.
Workaround
For cloud data, STL data, and line data, some output
procedures have not yet been redone since the first release. As
a result, some output options assume you want each object in
a separate file. If this happens, Cancel out of the repeated
prompts and use the relevant Group command (Clouds, Lines,
Polygons/Surfaces) to group the multiple objects into one object.
Then output the data to a single file.
Limitation
Check Polygons as Solid does not seem to work correctly.
Workaround
You must combine vertices first before using the solid
checking for all data including STL file data.
Limitation
Polygons to Surfaces is not checking the distance to surfaces.
Clouds to Surfaces and Polygons to Surfaces do compare to the underlying B-Spline surface. Convert polygons to clouds to get a direct spline distance comparison.
Limitation
I want to toggle a curvature map off and on. Where is the control to
do this? It is missing in the documentation.
Workaround
Use the back-quote key (`) for this.
Limitation
Resampling Lines for Number of Points or Segment Length causes
problems with Compare Lines to Surfaces.
Workaround
Prepare your line data set for checking first. Then compute the
comparison of the lines to the surfaces.
Limitation
When using Xform options or usingView Meshes, sometimes the
processed data ends up in the wrong coordinate system.
Workaround
Use the Xform Apply button first after a view mesh is finalized
for smoothing and curvature content, but before any section
cutting, etc.
Existing Limitations
Limitation
For the Optimizer tessellator, certain "unusual" types of control
point configurations result in fewer triangles than are necessary to
maintain a given tolerance
EvalViewer 9.0 uses the SGI OpenGL Optimizer Tessellator for converting NURBS surfaces to polygons. This uses a 3D chordal deviation tolerance specified in millimeters, which are the native units of EvalViewer. We have found that certain "unusual" types of control point configurations result in fewer triangles than are necessary to maintain a given tolerance.
Workaround
If you experience this problem (which should not occur for
most surfaces), then either:
- use a tighter tolerance than you actually need, or
- use Ctrl-N to activate the Maya tessellator.
Remember that any surface can be tessellated repeatedly at different tolerances, either alone or in conjunction with other model surfaces.
Limitation
For 3D surface tolerance, after you read in surface data, you will see
only the control hulls.
Workaround
You must tessellate the surface by pressing the Surfaces to
Polygons button. You are then prompted for a 3D chordal
deviation tolerance (in millimeters). If you type 0.001 mm, the
system will attempt to compute enough triangles so that the
surface is smooth down to 1 micron = 0.001 mm.
We recommend tolerances in the range of 1.0 mm for large assemblies, 0.1 to 0.15 mm for smaller parts, and 0.05 mm for fine detail. Unless you are compensating for a problem (see the limitiation on the optimizer tessellator above), we do not recommend going much smaller that 0.05 mm.
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Note:
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0.025 mm = 1 thousandth of an inch.
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Limitation
If you read in cloud data and select Clouds > Quick-Render Cloud (or
`q' from the keyboard), you may get an unsatisfactory render or no
render at all.
Workaround
Select Misc > Preferences > Cloud Tolerances and set the
Connection Distance to a higher number. This number should be
high enough to connect points in the cloud, but small enough
to avoid undesired connections. The default is 1 mm. If
QuickRender displays nothing, try 5 or 10 mm. This number is
dependent on your scanner.
If you still see nothing (which is possible and typical for certain types of scanners), then you probably have cloud data that is not "quick-renderable". You must then use the View Mesh features to process your data. You can generally achieve much better results with the View Mesh options than with the old Multiple Cloud Section Cutter. It may take slightly more time to process the data in this manner, but you will get much nicer sections and a reduced polygon mesh (and faster displays).
Please see the View Mesh section in the EvalViewer manual for more details.
Limitation
There is a disparity between units used by EvalViewer and Studio for
OBJ Files.
EvalViewer uses the millimeter as its internal unit and writes millimeter data to a Wavefront OBJ file. Studio, however, uses the centimeter as its internal unit, so you may think you see a factor of 10 size difference when using Wavefront OBJ files between EvalViewer and Studio if you mistakenly assume that their internal units are the same.
Limitation
Using Alt+Shift+Mouse-Button with slider bars on the Light and
Color tabs can cause some unusual behavior, depending on how
heavy your model is.
Certain combinations of Alt, Shift and Mouse Buttons on SGI systems can disrupt Motif controls.
Workaround
Click on the Multi-View button and try again without pressing
Alt+Shift.
Limitation
Transparency is implemented only to turn on the hardware
transparency switch. Some strange looking effects are still possible.
The hardware transparency feature is generally useful for objects with transparent glass windows where each transparent glass window is a separate surface and where these surfaces are located at the end of the EvalViewer object list.
Workaround
Select Objects > Visible Objects Last to place visible objects last in
the object list for better transparency effects.
Limitation
Instances from Studio in a wire file are not correctly handled in
EvalViewer.
Workaround
You can work around this by writing out an IGES file or an
STL file from Studio, and then reading that into EvalViewer.
Limitation
You may have problems in EvalViewer with surfaces from Studio
that use fillets and rounds.
You may get a row of CVs for each micron (0.001 mm) of distance along the surface near the start of a fillet. This should not happen any more, but older models may still exhibit this problem.
Workaround
You are likely to have problems with such surfaces in other
systems also, so if EvalViewer has a problem with a fillet or a
round, you may want to consider rebuilding it if you are
transferring the surface downstream into a manufacturing
situation.
Limitation
Selecting the menu Surfaces > Surface Info after a View Mesh has
been reduced will not indicate the correct number of visible viewable
polygons.
Workaround
The correct number is shown only after you select Mesh >
Compress. In addition, there is a Polygons Info option that tells
the number of visible polygons.
Limitation
The entire path and file name must be specified in the Selection box of
the Output File Lister.
A Motif Standard File Lister is used for file output. If you enter only the file name in the Selection box, it will be saved in the current directory, not in the directory shown in the Filter box. It is recommended that you always hit the Filter button first and then type in the name.
Limitation
The Name Filter option of the Multiple File Selector does not work.
Limitation
The Motif Object List (a scrolled list) lists only 200 objects.
It updates too slowly when more than 200 objects are listed, so only 200 objects are listed by default.
Workaround
If you need to interact with more than 200 objects, select Misc >
Object List Size and set it to the number of objects you want
listed.
Limitation
When EvalViewer writes a wire file, all entities receive the default
shader color. Studio shader colors are not preserved.
Limitation
As with almost any X Windows application, it may be possible to
lock up the X Server on occasion.
If this happens to you more often with EvalViewer than other applications, please report the problem to us.
Limitation
Overlay Widgets can turn Red on some platforms when they are
moved or when other overlay widgets are active.
The toolkits used by EvalViewer have this problem. There is nothing wrong with the System or the EvalViewer software when this happens.
Limitation
Display Options > Draw Mirror Half only works around the Y axis.
The Y axis is the convention in the automotive industry, but is incompatible with Trucking and Aerospace conventions.
These features (X mirror, Z mirror) did not make it into the Version 9.0 release. You must continue to use Xform>Rotate as a workaround.
Limitation
The small button on the Reflect tab that looks like a separator is
actually a button that activates Sky Reflection.
Limitation
If you start drawing a line to do a line cut, and then decide to abort
the line cut operation, make sure you draw the line very short and
EvalViewer will ignore it. The same goes for zooming the view.
Limitation
To read IGES Cloud data or IGES PolyLine data,, you must still use
File > OpenAs > Open Clouds > IGES or File > OpenAs > Open
Clouds > IGES.
This strange occurrence is due to the fact that the default IGES action is to read the IGES file as if it were a wire file.
Limitation
When you are using any overlay tool (Tape Measure, Protractor,
Zoom/Dolly with Box, Subsetting, or Line Cut) on a Crimson RE
machine, the screen will turn black momentarily until you are
finished using the tool. The wrong X visual is obtained on this
obsolete hardware configuration.
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