OOF2: The Manual

3.2. Microstructure
	Chapter 3. Task Pages

3.2. Microstructure

The OOF2 Microstructure is the digitized representation of a physical microstructure and is the primary object upon which OOF2 operates. The Microstructure is a container for Skeletons and Meshes. The Microstructure Page in the main OOF2 window has two main purposes: it creates and manages Microstructure objects, and it creates and manages pixel groups.

The anatomy of the Microstructure Page is shown in Figure 3.2. The Microstructure Page per se starts below the Navigation Bar. At the top is the Microstructure Chooser, which selects the Microstructure on which most of the other components of the page operate. Below that are buttons for manipulating Microstructures and two panes, the Info Pane and the Pixel Group Pane.

Figure 3.2. The Microstructure Page

Microstructure Page Buttons

The buttons all correspond in a straightforward fashion to items in the OOF.Microstructure menu, and the details are provided there. The first row of buttons is used to create a new Microstructure.

Use the New... button to create a completely new Microstructure without any associated Images (OOF.Microstructure.New).
Use the New from Image button to create a Microstructure from an Image that's already loaded in another Microstructure (OOF.Microstructure.Create_From_Image).
Use the New from Image File button to load a new Image and create a Microstructure from it (OOF.Microstructure.Create_From_ImageFile).
Use the New from Orientation Map button to load a new Orientation Map and create a Microstructure from it (OOF.Microstructure.Create_From_OrientationMap_File).

After using any of these buttons, the Microstructure chooser at the top of the page will automatically switch to the new Microstructure.

Most of the New… buttons bring up a dialog box in which the name and size of the Microstructure can be set. If any of these parameters is set to automatic, a suitable default will be used. In the GUI, any text box with a checkbox to its left accepts the automatic value when the checkbox is unchecked, as show in Figure 6.121. The documentation for the menu commands explains what “automatic” means in each context.

The second row of buttons manipulate the Microstructure that's selected in the Microstructure chooser.

Rename. Rename the current Microstructure (OOF.Microstructure.Rename).
Copy. Make a duplicate of the current Microstructure (OOF.Microstructure.Copy). The copy will include copies of all the Images and pixel groups in the original, but not the orientation maps, Skeletons, or Meshes.
Delete. Delete the current Microstructure, as well as all of its Skeletons and Meshes (OOF.Microstructure.Delete).
Save. Save the current Microstructure in a file (OOF.File.Save.Microstructure). The only difference between the Save... button and the File/Save/Microstructure command in the menubar is that the Save... button saves the Microstructure named in the Microstructure Chooser, whereas the menubar command asks for a Microstructure in a dialog box.

The Info Pane

The Info Pane on the left lists the sizes of the currently selected Microstructure, as well as the names of any Images and orientation maps it contains.

The Pixel Group Pane

The Pixel Group Pane creates and manipulates pixel groups. Using pixel groups is in principle optional in OOF2, but they provide a convenient way of storing and operating on sets of pixels. The buttons on the left side and right sides of the pane correspond to items in the OOF.PixelGroup menu. The center of the pane is a list of all of the pixel groups defined in the current Microstructure.

The five buttons to the left of the central list operate on the pixel groups themselves: creating a new group, automatically putting all pixels into groups, renaming or copying an existing group, deleting a group, or setting a group's meshable flag. All except for New operate on the pixel group that's currently selected in the list.

The four buttons to the right of the central list operate on the contents of the currently selected group. Add button adds the currently selected pixels to the currently selected group. The Remove button removes the currently selected pixels from the group, and the Clear button empties the group entirely. The Info button prints information about the group in the Message window.


Chapter 3. Task Pages		3.3. Image