OOF2: The Manual

OOF.Graphics_n.Layer.New
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Name

OOF.Graphics_n.Layer.New — Add a new graphics layer.

Synopsis

OOF.Graphics_n.Layer.New(category, what, how)

Details

  • Parent Menu: OOF.Graphics_n.Layer
  • Callback: function GfxWindow.newLayerCB in module ooflib.common.IO.ghostgfxwindow

  • Parameters:

    category
    The kind of object to display. Type: The name of a class of OOF2 objects (eg, 'Microstructure' or 'Skeleton').
    what
    The object to display. Type: The path to an OOF2 object.
    how
    How to display the object. Type: An object of the DisplayMethod class.

Description

A Layer is added to a Graphics Window by invoking the menu Layer/New command in the window's menu bar. This runs the OOF.Graphics_n.Layer.New command. Figure 6.8 illustrates the dialog box corresponding to the command.

There are three parameters which define a graphics Layer:

  • category — The type of object being displayed. This includes the objects defining the simulation (Skeleton, Image, etc), as well as some special objects (the pixel selection and the top bitmap).

  • what — The path to the actual object being displayed, which is an object of the given category, or a proxy.

  • how — The DisplayMethod by which the object will be displayed.

Figure 6.8. The New Graphics Layer dialog

The New Graphics Layer dialog

Two views of the New Graphics Layer dialog. category is set to Skeleton. The three boxes labelled category, what, and how define the new Layer. The dialog on the left is creating a Layer that will explicitly display the Skeleton whose path is microstructure:skel. The dialog on the right is creating a Layer with the proxy <topmost>, implicitly referring to the Skeleton used in the topmost explicit Layer.


In the New Graphics Layer dialog, the pull-down menus for what and how change according to the current category setting. The what menu lists the existing objects in the category, and the the how menu lists the DisplayMethods that are capable of displaying them.

The parameter what can be explicitly set to the path to an object. It can also be set to a proxy object, which implicitly defines the Layer by referring to another Layer in the display. In the dialog box, the proxies appear in the first pull-down menu in the what section, in the form of characters enclosed in angle brackets (e.g, <topmost> or <top bitmap>).

The available proxies depend on the current category. They are:

  • <topmost> — the object in the topmost non-proxy Layer that can be displayed by the selected DisplayMethod.
  • <top bitmap> — the object in the topmost non-proxy Layer that is being displayed as a bitmap.
  • <contourable> — the object in the topmost non-proxy layer; that contains data that can be displayed as a contour plot.
  • <top activearea> — the Active Area of the Microstructure in the topmost non-proxy Layer that is displaying a Microstructure.
  • <top microstructure> — the Microstructure in the top non-proxy Layer that is displaying a Microstructure.

When proxies are used in scripts, they appear as simple quoted strings, with the angle brackets included, e.g: 

      OOF.Graphics_n.Layer.New(
          category='Skeleton',
          what='<topmost>',
          how=SkeletonEdgeDisplay(color=TranslucentGray(value=0.6,alpha=1),width=2))

Proxy objects are heavily used in the predefined Layers contained in every new Graphics Window. They are used, for example, to show the selected pixels in the topmost Microstructure or Image, or the selected Elements in the topmost Skeleton.

See Also

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