Graphics Window Control

The graphics display windows present a graphical representation of the geometry and/or the mesh. The quality and speed of rendering the graphics, the visibility, location and orientation of objects in the window, and the labeling of entities, among other things, can all be controlled by the user.

Unless the -nographics option was entered on the command line, a graphics window with a black background and an axis triad will appear when CUBIT is first launched. The geometry and mesh will appear in this window, and can be viewed from various camera positions and drawn in various modes (wire frame, hidden line, smooth shade, etc.). This section will discuss methods for manipulating the graphics with the mouse and for controlling the appearance of entities drawn in the graphics window.

All geometry, mesh, and simulation objects created in CUBIT are put into the view automatically. Visibility, color and various other attributes of entities in the view can be controlled individually. In addition, CUBIT can also optionally show entities in a temporary view mode independent of their visibility. Drawing of items in temporary mode can be added to the regular view mode to customize the appearance. The overall view is controlled by various attributes like graphics mode, camera position, and lighting, to further enhance the graphics functionality.

The graphics view relies on OpenGL to render the scene which leverages the graphics hardware of the system. CUBIT requires the graphics hardware to support OpenGL version 3.2 or newer. If OpenGL 3.2 is not available, CUBIT will attempt to fall back to a software based implementation bundled with CUBIT. This software based approach may not perform as well as a hardware-based approach.

The following items discuss the various graphics capabilities available in CUBIT:

• Command Line View Navigation: Rotate Zoom and Pan
• Mouse Based View Navigation: Rotate Zoom and Pan
• Updating the Display
• Graphics Modes
• Drawing and Highlighting Entities
• Drawing Locations, Lines and Polygons
• Mesh Visualization
• Graphics Clipping Plane
• Entity Labels
• Colors
• Geometry and Mesh Entity Visibility
• Graphics Camera
• Graphics Lighting Model
• Graphics Window Size and Position
• Saving Graphics Views
• Hardcopy Output
• Miscellaneous Graphics Options