Tools

Tools & Modes to Create, Select, Edit and Modify

This page details the (separate) operation modes of user interface tools and devices (keyboard, mouse, 6DOF, etc.) You may also want to look at the general overview of User Commands.

Tool Mode

The tool mode determines what type of nodes are created, selected and modified. Each indicator works a little differently and independently. Currently, there are (*up to) 4 HUD items in the toolbar that display the tool mode:

• 3Dmouse: [tool] - Subset of mouse tool functionality with two modes:
  • Camera - (Blue) Fly or Orbit the currently selected camera.
  • Glyph - (Red) Modify the actively selected glyphs (and grids).
• zStylus: [tool] - Similar to the regular mouse tools with additional 6DOF interation.
• mode: [node topo/type] - Applies to the mouse and keyboard (but not Spacemouse nor zStylus).
• tool: [tool type] - Applies to the mouse and keyboard.

*Note that the '3Dmouse: [tool]' and 'zStylus: [tool]' are only visible when a SpaceMouse or zSpace device is installed.

There are (*currently) 3 modes:

• Camera - Allows selecting, operating and creating new cameras.
• Grid - Allows selecting, modifying and creating new grids.
  • Changing to 'mode: Grid' does NOT select a grid, however if in Grid mode, pressing G key will select the next grid.
  • Note that grids are ONLY clickable in 'mode: Grid', though it is also possible to select a sub-grid by using the arrow keys (which traverse hyperglyphs).
• Glyph - Allows selecting, modifying and creating new glyphs.
  • 3 fundamental glyph types:
    • Standard Glyph or just plain Glyph has a variety of topo types (solo or part of a hyperglyph tree), but excluding the special glyph types Link and Grid.
    • Link glyphs allow bridging across (hyperglyph) tree hierarchies, allowing any two glyphs in the scene to be connected.
    • Grid glyphs topo = grid, and it interacts differently with the user interface and also resets the branch level of it's child glyphs, starting with root glyphs level = 1.
• *We plan to add a mode for Lights & HUD (custom user interface).

Create

• Create - Tool (N key) will generate a new node based on the current mode and selection.
  • mode: Camera - Will generate a new camera attached to the root camera.
    • *Future feature - Camera's can be attached to sub-grids.
  • mode: Grid - Will generate a new sub-grid attached to the currently selected node (the parent can be either a glyph or grid).
  • mode: Glyph - If a root glyph is currently selected (or no glyphs at all) then a new root glyph (pin) with sub-torus is created and auto-distributed (based on number of siblings) onto the current (root or sub) grid. Otherwise a new glyph is attached as a child, with distribution and topo type based on the parent glyphs topo.
    • Note that if you wish to attach a child to a root glyph you need to press Shift+N key combo.

Select

• Allows you to select glyphs (or grids) by picking individual items, branches or selecting a region (with filters).