'\"macro stdmacro
.TH gview 1
.SH NAME
gview \- graph viewer for Inventor 3d databases
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B gview [file | < file]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I gview
is a program for viewing, editing, and learning about Inventor 3d
scene graphs.  There are two views of the Inventor scene graph: a 3d
rendered view (left) and a scene graph view (right).  The 3d rendered
view displays the data in an examiner viewer and allows selection as
well as viewing.  The scene graph view renders the scene database as a
directed acyclic graph illustrating the structure and relationships
within the database.  This view is displayed in a GraphViewer
component, which is derived from the Inventor plane viewer. Each node
in the graph is represented by a 3D icon.
.PP
If you select an object in one view, it will be highlighted in both
views.  This is a very interesting way to learn about Inventor scene
databases.  You can create new objects, edit the values of objects,
and rearrange the structure of the database by cutting and pasting.
(See the descriptions of the menu items for details.)
.PP
This program is especially useful for Inventor programmers who
want to analyze a specific database or who wish to experiment with
Inventor features and visualize the database at the same time.
.SH GVIEW MENU
The top bar contains the following three items under the
.I gview
menu:
.TP
.I "Save in gview.iv"
.br
Saves the Inventor scene (as displayed in the examiner viewer) in the
file
.IR gview.iv .
.TP
.I "Save display graph in disp.iv"
.br
Saves the scene representing the graph (as displayed in the graph
viewer) in the file
.IR disp.iv .
.TP
.I Quit
.br
The usual.
.SH GRAPH VIEWER MENU
The top bar in the right-hand graph viewer window contains the
following menus:
.TP
.I Graph
.br
This menu contains an
.I Update
button that updates the graph view based on changes made to the scene
graph.  (This is useful only if the GraphViewer component is used in
some application that can modify the structure of the original scene
graph; the GraphViewer does not update based on changes to this scene
graph, since that would be too expensive.)
.TP
.I Edit
.br
This menu enables cutting, copying, pasting, and duplicating the
selected node in the scene graph. When pasting (or duplicating, which
is copying and pasting in one operation), you have a choice of pasting
a copy of the node or a reference to (instance of) it. Feedback
appears to indicate where the copy or instance will be located.
.TP
.I Select
.br
This menu allows you to change easily which node is selected.
.TP
.I Group
.br
This menu allows you to hide or show nodes under a group node. If a
group node is selected, the
.I Open
button displays the immediate children of the group, while
.I "Open All"
displays all descendants.
.I Close
hides all descendants, and
.I Toggle
toggles between the open and closed states.
.TP
.I Inst
.br
When a node is the child of more than one parent, each instance after
the first is displayed as an instance icon (a letter "I" in the
default icons). When an instance icon is selected, the
.I Toggle
button in this menu toggles the display of a line that connects the
instance icon to the node it is an instance of. The
.I Swap
button exchanges the instance icon with this other node. (This can be
useful to examine nodes under an instance of a group node.)
.TP
.I Node
.br
The
.I Create
button in this menu brings up a NodeCreator widget that allows you to
create a new instance of any built-in Inventor node class. Once a type
is selected or typed in, feedback appears in the GraphViewer to help
you place the new node in the graph. The
.I "Edit Fields"
button brings up a FieldEditor widget that allows you to edit the
values of fields in a selected node.
.SH SHORTCUTS
Each menu button has a corresponding keyboard shortcut displayed in
the pull-down menu.
Double-clicking on a node icon initiates a common action for that type
of node. For a group, it is equivalent to the
.I "Group Toggle"
button.
For an instance, it is equivalent to the
.I "Inst Toggle"
button.
For any other node, it is equivalent to the
.I "Node Edit Fields"
button.
.SH ICONS
The 3D icons used to represent nodes in the scene graph are read from
a file called
.IR gviewIcons.iv .
This file is searched for in (in order) directories specified in the
.I IV_GRAPH_DIR
environment variable, the current directory, and the usual place this
file gets installed (See the FILES section).
.PP
Each icon in this file is represented by a subgraph (rooted by a
separator) whose first N children are label nodes; each of the label
nodes defines one node type to be represented by that subgraph. Icons
follow the node hierarchy; that is, the icon representing a group is
used for all group nodes that don't have explicitly different icons.
.PP
The default icon set is chosen to be similar to the icons used in the
Inventor documentation.
.SH SOURCE CODE
Note that the source code to 
.I gview 
comes with the
.I Open Inventor 3d Toolkit.
.SH FILES
/usr/share/data/models/* - Sample 3D data files
/usr/share/src/Inventor/demos/gview/* - Source to gview
/usr/demos/data/Inventor/gviewIcons.iv - Default icon file
.SH SEE ALSO
SceneViewer, drop, inventor, ivcat, ivview,
noodle, showcase, revo, textomatic