4

EvalViewer

In This Section:

• Improved Studio Integration on page 34

• More Data Transfer Options on page 34

• More Transformation Tools on page 36

• New Alignment Capabilities on page 36

• New View Commands on page 36

• Enhanced Cloud Tools on page 37

• Curve Fitting Tools on page 38

• Line Data Management Tools on page 39

• Subsetting Enhancements on page 39

• Surface Construction and Line Evaluation on page 40

• Edit Menu on page 42

• Run Remote Sessions on page 43

• Replay Previous Sessions on page 43

• Sharing JPEG Images Over the Internet on page 43

• EvalViewer Limitations Fixed on page 44

Refer to the Alias 9.0 installation notes for instructions and requirements for installing Evalviewer.

Improved Studio Integration

For Version 9, Evalviewer is more tightly integrated with the Alias Studio products:

• Studio now works with a single EvalViewer session. Previously, new EvalViewer sessions were started each time you requested them.

• Interaction between Evalviewer and Studio is faster.

See Edit Menu on page 42.

• You can now cut and paste geometry between the two products with the new Edit menu in EvalViewer. Previously Evalviewer only supported using hotkeys (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V) to cut and paste.

• Degree 1 curves from Studio are now automatically converted to EvalViewer lines when imported into EvalViewer. This minimizes the number of points on the lines.

In addition, many features of EvalViewer are now included in the Studio products.

More Data Transfer Options

EvalViewer Version 9 gives you more import and export filters and tools for different types of data: Inventor surfaces, STL files, simple Wavefront OBJ files, Unigraphics PRT (solids/spline surfaces) and FAC (triangle) files, and Alias Object-Separated Triangle files.

Inventor (IV) Files

File > Save as
File > Open as

Inventor (IV) is a Silicon Graphics standard file format used by many organizations. Previous versions of EvalViewer could only output polygons in the Inventor format.

You can now import Inventor data, and export polygonal and surface data to the Inventor format.

STL Model Tools

STL (STereoLithography) is a rapid prototyping process, used for building plastic models from math data.

Evalviewer now provides tools for typical operations on models taken from or being sent to STL files.

Combining vertices is now optional

Polygons > Combine Vertices

Combining duplicate polygonal vertices is now optional. In previous versions, vertices were automatically combined when read in.

This allows you to read STL files very quickly and only remove duplicate vertices when necessary. Note that removing duplicates is still critical if you wish to convert an STL file to an OBJ file which is as small as possible.

Test polygons for solid modeling problems

Polygons > Check Polygons as Solid

The Check Polygons as Solid command highlights holes or non-manifold geometry (such as polygon flaps). This test does not guarantee Solid Validity of STL data, but is usually a necessary first check.

Xform > Move to +++ Octant

Move selected objects to the positive octant

The Move to +++ Octant command moves the selected objects to the positive (+, +, +) octant. Many rapid prototyping machines require this.

Unigraphics (UG) Files

File > Save as
File > Open as

Evalviewer now has greatly enhanced interoperability with Unigraphics.

Alias Triangle Files (Object Separated)

EvalViewer can now read and write Alias Object Separated Triangle files (*.tri). This allows you to use Evalviewer to view triangle files and, with Evalviewer's Optimizer tesselator capabilities, write out smaller triangle files.

More Transformation Tools

Xform > Switch tools

Switch axis transform tools are now available for all geometry types in one location (the Xform menu). Previously there were options for switching axes, but only for clouds and sections.

New Alignment Capabilities

Xform > Align Tools

You can now align cloud data, surface data, polygonal data, or curve/line data using a wider variety of tools:

• Align with 2 Pt Pairs.

• Align with 3 Pt Pairs.

• Align with N Pt Pairs.

• Align with N Spheres.

• Align with 3 Planes.

New View Commands

The View menu provides a number of new tools to help you view a model in the best way for your workflow.

90-Degree Rotations

View > Rotate Tools

You can now rotate your current view of a model up, down, right, or left by exactly 90 degrees relative to any viewing direction. This feature is useful for cutting sections and visualizing parting lines.

Go to Normal and Tangent Views

View > Set Normal to...
View > Set Tangent to Pgn,
View > Set View Along Line

Use new commands in the View menu to set your view to be normal or tangent to a polygonal surface, or to the plane containing a planar curve or section.

Specify Exact View Parameters

View > Key in View Parameters

You can now specify an exact view by typing view coordinates. This feature is useful when used in conjunction with the parting line analysis tool, since that tool sets the default die pull vector to the current viewing direction.

Non-Proportional Horizontal View

View > Non-Pro Horiz Scale

You can now "squeeze" the view non-proportionally to exaggerate differences along curves. This is useful to check the quality of long curves, since small deviations are much easier to see.

Display Size Tools

You can now adjust the pixel size of the following types of primitives to make them easier to see:

Clouds > Cloud Point Size

• Cloud points

Lines > Line Width

• Lines.

Lines > Line Point Size

• Line points.

Polygons > Polygon Center Size

• Polygonal centers.

Enhanced Cloud Tools

Cloud to Volume Mesh Tool

Clouds > Cloud to Volume Mesh

It is now possible to convert clouds to 3D polygonal meshes with the Cloud to Volume Mesh command.

This tool does not require a viewing direction, and point order does not matter. As with other mesh tools, however, dense cloud data is required to obtain good shape definition.

Convert To Cloud Tools

Converting lines and polygons back to cloud data is now more convenient with two new commands:

• Lines > Convert Lines to Cloud.

• Polygons > Convert Polygons to Cloud.

These options are useful with the new comparison functions. If you compare lines to surfaces or polygons to surfaces you will not get a color error map. However, if you convert lines to clouds or polygons to clouds, the Cloud to Surface comparison function will create a color map.

Curve Fitting Tools

Line and Circle Fit

You can now create lines or circles directly from applicable line section data with two new commands in the Section menu:

• Lines > LineFit.

• Lines > CircleFit.

Line and circle fitting is important in cases where straightness and circularity of features must be evaluated.

In both cases, the result is a new object with NURBS lines or circles, suitable for export to a modeling system such as Alias.

Curves > Curve Fit,
Curves > Fit All Sections,
Curves > Select Sections to Fit

Curve Approximation

You can now use EvalViewer to fit B-spline curves to line sections, and to perform curve approximation or interpolation on all visible lines or cursor-selected lines. This tool can deal with any number of CVs, and with degrees up to 23.

Fine Smoothing

Lines > FineSmooth

The FineSmooth command smooths a line while maintaining its dimensional integrity. This can be important, especially if fillets and radii depend on the line.

Line Data Management Tools

Evalviewer has several new tools to group your line data.

Grouping Similar Lines

Lines > Group Lines by Type

The Group Lines by Type command lets you automatically group different lines into sets of naturally associated lines (X-sections, Y-sections, Z-sections, planar curves, feature/space curves, and straight lines).

Disconnecting Improperly Connected Lines

Lines > Split

Using the Split command with the Split Lines using Angle+Length option allows you to disconnect improperly connected lines in data taken from a touch probe or laser probe.

Subsetting Enhancements

Subset tab

You can now subset all objects, not just clouds. You can also subset using polygons (or N-gons) in addition to boxes, contour traces, and circles.

EvalViewer now uses the term subset instead of the word crop. This makes Evalviewer terminology more consistent with Studio. The Clouds tab (which used to provide the subset functions) is now called Subset, to reflect that it now applies to all types of geometry.

The interface of the Subset tab has changed slightly:

• To keep those points located inside the selected box, polygon, trace, circle, or curve, select In before invoking subset functions. To keep the points on the outside, select Out instead. The default is Out.

• You can now group visible geometry from subsetting operations into a single visible object and eliminate that data from the original objects.

Surface Construction and Line Evaluation

Draft Angle/Parting Line Tool

Polygons > Draft Angle/Parting Line

For downstream processes such as plastic injection molding and sheet metal stamping, it is helpful to see the variations in surface normal direction relative to a die pull or mold vector direction (draft angle variations).

Surfacing Tools

You can now put "quick and dirty" surfaces over sets of lines. This feature helps you arrange and test-fit your cloud data sections before exporting your geometry to other modeling software such as Alias.

Polygons > Skin All Sections

• To skin all sections, select Polygons > Skin All Sections.

Polygons > Select Sections to Skin

• To skin particular sections, select Polygons > Select Sections to Skin.

Polygons > Square

• To create a polygonal square surface from a set of four lines, select Polygons > Square.

Polygonal Offset Surfacing

Polygons > Offset

You can now create a polygonal offset surface for polygonal surfaces. Offset surfaces are required for Numerical Control (NC) manufacturing techniques such as milling.

For now, the offset capability is polygonal only. However, a future release will include an accurate spline surface offset tool.

Creating Planes

Polygons > Plane Menu

You can now create planes, which you can then move around to help evaluate and visualize objects.

The Polygons > Plane Menu choices provide a variety of ways to construct planes:

• XY-Plane

• YZ-Plane

• ZX-Plane

• Three (3) Point Plane

• Two (2) Point Plane

• ABCD-Plane

• Polygon Plane

• Vertex Plane

• Plane of Line

• Plane Normal to Line

Comparison Tools

Compare menu

You can now compare cloud data to surface data and compute a color error map of the distances between them. This allows you to evaluate your own reverse engineering / surfacing work as well as inspect the dimensional integrity of digitized parts against math models.

The Compare menu contains the following commands:

• Cloud to Cloud

• Cloud to Lines

• Cloud to Polygons (polygon color mapping feature)

• Cloud to Surface (surface color mapping feature)

• Lines to Lines

• Lines to Polygons

• Lines to Surfaces

• Polygons to Polygons

Using Curvature Combs to Analyze Raw Line Data

Curvature combs are now provided for you to analyze B-spline curves and line data. These combs highlight curvature oscillations and inflection points, and assist you in analyzing the raw data before you attempt to approximate a curve.

Use the following commands to display and control curvature combs:

Display > Surface Normals

• Display > Surface Normals.

Display > Curve Normals

• Display > Curve Normals.

Curves > Curve Comb Size

• Curves > Curve Comb Size.

Edit Menu

Edit menu

The new Edit menu provides enhanced editing functions, and consolidates existing editing functions in one place for your convenience.

Run Remote Sessions

File > Net Session Tools

You can now initiate networked slave sessions on other machines. In a slave session, the remote machine is controlled by the machine that initiated the session. Users at the remote machine cannot perform actions; they can only watch the display while you interact with the model. This feature allows you to demonstrate your EvalViewer geometry to colleagues or customers at remote locations.

The remote session feature has the following requirements:

• EvalViewer must be installed on both machines.

• Remote shell (rsh) must work on both machines.

• Remote copy (rcp) must work on both machines.

Replay Previous Sessions

File > Run EVScript
File > Rename EV-Script

EvalViewer can now replay a log of all actions performed for each of its sessions. Each log starts when you invoke EvalViewer, and ends when you stop EvalViewer. This feature is useful for members of design teams who want to demonstrate their workflow to colleagues by relaying the sequence of actions they followed.

Sharing JPEG Images Over the Internet

File > Snap JPEG
File > View JPEGs

Evalviewer can now snap JPEG images and save them into a directory with an HTML document that refers to them, creating an HTML "gallery" of thumbnail images linked to the JPEG snapshots.

EvalViewer Limitations Fixed

• In previous releases, Evalviewer did not read shells from wire files. It can now read Alias shell data.

• Reset CVs now works and you can choose when to Save CVs to use for the next reset.

• 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. This problem is fixed.

• You could not use user-customizable reflection map images in V8.5. In this release, you have three custom images:

$HOME/.evalview/CustomRefMaps/UserImage1

• where 1 can be replaced with 2 or 3 for the 3 buttons.

• If you deleted an object using any Delete menu option, it would still appear on the screen until the next draw.Shells and Faces from Studio are correctly handled in EvalViewer now.

• A simple sphere object from Studio used to shade in black in V8.5. This is fixed.

• Surfaces and Curves switches on the Display tab were removed for version 9. You can achieve any displays you had in previous versions by simply tessellating curves and surfaces with the Surfaces to Polygons button. This method is much, much faster.

• 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 date transfer method is used in both cases. Therefore, no differences in operation will occur. Specifically, polysets do transfer now

• Direction lines are shown when you edit a light source direction so that it is easier to see the direction of the light source being edited.

• The up/down state of EvalViewer On/Off switches was converted to be compatible with Studio.