Mesh View Help

Menu Descriptions

File

• Open Mesh File

Opens a dialog to select a file in the .x or .m file format to be loaded and viewed.

• Open PMesh File

Opens a dialog to select a file in the progressive mesh format to be loaded and viewed.

• Create Shape

Opens a sub-dialog to create some basic shapes that are defined programmatically (text, polygon, box, cylinder, torus, teapot, sphere, cone).

• Save Mesh As

Opens a dialog to save the selected mesh to a file. The file can be written as a text or binary file.

• Close Selected

Closes and deletes the currently selected mesh.

• Close Non Selected

Closes and deletes the meshes that are not currently selected.

View

• Wireframe

View all content in wireframe mode.

• Edges

View all content in solid-shaded mode with the edges drawn in black.

• Creases

Highlight the creases on the visible meshes. A crease is an edge with a vertex that has a different piece of data on it for multiple faces that refer to it, that is, a different normal for the vertex per face.

• Strips

Show the strips that are generated by this mesh in blue. The blue line goes from the center of each triangle to the next triangle in the triangle strip.

• Adjacency

Show the adjacency of the polygons in a mesh by drawing a line from the center of a polygon to the center of the adjacent polygon.

• Bounding Box

Draw the bounding boxes for the visible meshes.

• Normals

Draw the normals of the vertices on the visible meshes in yellow.

• Texture Coords

Show the texture coordinates for the viewed geometry as rays projecting from the vertices. Because a vertex in Microsoft® Direct3D® can have up to eight texture coordinates, users must specify which sets they would like to view. This viewing mode is especially useful when the texture coordinates are filled with tangents for use in pixel shaders for example.

• Textures

Display the textures on the visible geometry.

• Lighting

Show the geometry in the scene with lighting calculations still on.

• Culling

Perform back face culling on the visible geometry when disabled polygons facing away from the camera are not drawn.

• Hierarchy

Display the frame hierarchy of the meshes that are currently loaded. This is displayed in a separate floating window. To make the window disappear, on the View menu, clear the Hierarchy command.

• Play Animation

Play the current animation for the currently loaded geometry if one exists.

• Pause Animation

Stop the animation at the current frame when playing.

• Normal Speed

Interpret the time value in the animation from an X file as 4800 units per second. Otherwise, the interpreted value is 30 units per second.

MeshOps

• Optimize

Optimizes the currently selected mesh with the selected optimization method. See the Microsoft® Direct3DX reference pages to see the differences in methods.

• Weld Vertices

Removes duplicate vertices and makes polygons that use these vertices use the nondeleted vertex.

• Split Mesh

Splits the selected mesh into multiple meshes that are less than specified size in vertices and faces.

• Collapse Meshes

Collapses the currently selected meshes into a single mesh.

• Reset Matrices

Resets the matrices for the frames that are loaded to their initial position.

• Mesh Properties

Shows the selected mesh's FVF render states and whether or not it is a 32 bit mesh.

• Skinning Method

Allows the user to select the skinning method while animating a skinned mesh. The choices are nonindexed, indexed, and software skinning.

• Face Selection

Enters a mode for the user to select an individual face on the current mesh.

• Vertex Selection

Enters a mode for the user to select an individual vertex on the current mesh.

PMeshes

• Convert Selected to PM

Convert the selected mesh to a progressive mesh. The conversion uses the error parameters that are entered in a dialog box. For more information on these parameters refer to the Direct3DX documentation of progressive meshes.

• Snapshot to Mesh

Convert the current progressive mesh object to a static mesh object using the current settings of the progressive mesh.

• Set number of Faces

Set the current number of faces in the progressive mesh to a specific number.

• Set number of Vertices

Set the current number of vertices in the progressive mesh to a specific number.

• Trim

Set the minimum and maximum number of faces for a progressive mesh. Once the user has set the trim values to the desired minimum and maximum, the progressive mesh can be trimmed to the selected values, thereby reducing the dynamic range of the progressive mesh.

N-Patches

• N-Patch Selected

Draw the current object as an N-Patches object. The scroll bar in this mode selects the amount of N-Patch iterations for the current object.

• SnapShot to mesh

Convert the selected object to a static mesh based on the current N-Patch settings to create a high-resolution static mesh.

Icons and Usage

Icons

• Selection Modes

The first three icons are easy ways for the user to select the selection mode. They are Mesh Selection Mode (Arrow), Face Selection Mode (yellow outlined triangle), and Vertex Selection Mode (Red point highlighted triangle). These are the same modes that are available from the menus in MeshOps.

• Display Modes

The next icons are easy ways to select the most common display modes for geometry. They are Shaded mode (nonoutlined tri-color cube), Wire frame mode (wire frame cube), and Edge mode (outlined tri-color cube). These are the same modes that are available from the menus in View.

• Topology Display modes

The next icons display specific topological information about the geometry displayed. They are adjacency (A), Strips (S), Creases (C), and Normals (N). These are the same modes that are available from the menus in View.

• Info

The next icon is the info button that will display information about the currently selected element.

• Animation Controls

The last two icons are animation controls for playing and pausing the animation for the currently visible mesh.

Status Bar

The status bar in MView displays the current status of the visible geometry. The order from left to right of the displayed information is currently selected element (face or vertex only), Mesh mode (polygon, Pmesh, or pMesh), display frames per second, display triangles per second, number of displayed triangles, and number of displayed vertices.

Scroll Bar

The scroll bar will appear in two of the three mesh modes, pMesh and nPatch mode. In pMesh mode, the scroll bar indicates the range of displayed triangles for the progressive mesh. You can slide the scroll bar up or down to change the number of triangles displayed. In nPatch mode, the scroll bar indicates how many nPatch levels are being used. As the scroll bar is moved up or down, the number of nPatch interactions performed are adjusted accordingly.

More Information