Xmgf Features

Xmgf is an X11 program that displays 2D and 3D vector based objects stored in gf Format. Xmgf uses Parameter files to store camera parameters and viewing attributes. Xmgf reads compressed and uncompressed files to reduce the overall storage space required by large and complex objects.

Xmgf is an Interactive tool for display and manipulating2D and 3D vector based objects stored in gf Format. some of the main features include:-

Xmgf written in motif is completely interactive and buttons exist for most command line options.

Xmgf has features to save the current display as postscript and save the viewing parameters. Xmgf was written to complement xgf and to add 3D viewing properties. Xmgf also includes some of the xgf 2D viewing primitives but allows them to be projected onto a plane in the third dimension such that the observer can move around and observe the sets from a new perspective.

Xmgf has already been used by for 3D surface representation, Model representation, 3D line detection data visualization, view-sphere data representation and depth data visualization.

Xmgf Auto-scales images, can have the viewing parameters stored in a file produce Xfig and Postscript output as well as Ray-shade data files and Sun-Raster, PGM, PBM and XBM image outputs.

Xmgf has Interactive file selection mens to allow greater flexibility in finding files.

Xmgf has all of the power of xgf which is a 2D GF set viewer but with all the added three Dimensional primitives.

Xmgf now has the ability for the user to record the positions of individual views and then allow Xmgf to perform the movement between the subsequent frames

Xmgf can import OFF/NFF/RAY/SLA/DXF on the command line such that

> Xmgf -G offfile.geom

will now import the File using the correct filter (by the way this uses a simple file extension test so you'll need to give your files the correct extension if you want this to work)

Installing Xmgf

1) if the file is xmgf.tar.Z , run

> uncompress xmgf.tar.Z

if the file is Xmgf.tar.gz you'll need gzip and you can then uncompress the tar file with

> gzip -d xmgf.tar.gz

2) move to the directory where you keep Xmgf and type tar xvf xmgf.tar

3) change directory to xmgf, and edit the file Xmgf.tmpl to reflect site specific information.

4) run xmkmf

5) run make World this will make all the makefiles if you've done that once already and don't want to go through it all again type > make Xmgf. this will make firstly the libraries then make the Xmgf code in the src directory.

6) cd src

7) Xmgf

move to File menu select "load New Set" load in one of the files in the examples subdirectory, press autoscale and then re-draw. Have fun!

8) Xmgf can load compressed or gzipped files but you may need to alter the commands.The compression, remove, gzip and print command are all now in the application defaults file (src/XMgf.ad). The main thing you will have to do is edit these, to include your own commands to the command you use for your compression and uncompression

Also you will need to tell Xmgf where the filter commands are this can be done by pointing to the filter commands in Xmgf.ad or by adding them to you path using....

assuming you have the correct permissions or you change the BINDIR in Xmgf.tmpl you can type run make install this will put all the filter programmes into Xmgf/bin you will need to point to the locations of these programmes in Xmgf.ad with something like.

set path = ($path /usr/local/Xmgf/bin)

Failure to correctly set the filter path should return an Xmgf error dialog with error report 11

assuming you have the correct permissions you can type run make install


P.Hoad@ee.surrey.ac.uk
13th July 1994