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-- NodPlot v1.0 : Scientific Plotting Software for 3D Structured Meshes -- Copyright (c) 1998 by Bernard Parent, parent@moebius.utias.toronto.edu --
-- This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify -- it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by -- the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or -- (at your option) any later version. --
-- This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, -- but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of -- MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the -- GNU General Public License for more details. --
-- You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License -- along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software -- Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. --
-- (See the included file LICENSE)
--

NodPlot was developped to ease the task of visualizing rapidly properties in 3D structured meshes for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) research. The mesh must be 3D or more explicitly: 3 dimensions in space or 2 in space and 1 in time. 2D meshes can be visualized simply by repeating twice the 2D data in the input file.

The visualization is performed on a node basis, rather than a spatial and/or temporal basis, easing the task of visualizing complex spatial geometries in 3D.

The author can be reached by email for bug reports, comments or code improvement suggestions at parent@moebius.utias.toronto.edu.

NodPlot was written with the cross-platform Qt libraries, which can be obtained from http://www.troll.no. You need version 1.40 or higher.

Bernard Parent, August 1998

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CONSULT THE "INSTALL" FILE FOR INSTALLATION AND TEST RUN INSTRUCTIONS -->

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NOTES:

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1. If you need to change the fonts used in nodplot because they appear too small

or too big, edit the file fonts2.h and then recompile the code with 'make clean' and then 'make'. Then reinstall it with './Install'. Not that this version of NodPlot does not permit the user to modify the font sizes in the .Xresources file.

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2. The initial values for the resolution factor, the number of scale

levels and other parameters are set in the file nplot.cpp in the subroutine Nplot::init. Depending on how fast your machine is and how many colors are available on your X-Display, you might like to modify the values in this subroutine. For example, change the lines 'cv.resfact=...' and/or 'cv.scalelevels=..' according to your needs. Note that a higher resfact will give you better looking graphics, but will also reduce the refresh rate. A higher scalelevels will give you more colors but not enough colors might be available on your 8-bit X-Display which will screw up your scale. (read note 3 on how to change your 8 bit display to 16 bits). NOTE: the scalelevels, the resolution factor and most things initialized

         in Nplot::init can be changed on the fly while running
         nodplot; so you don't need to change the nplot.cpp file
         unless you run this code extensively and need different
         defaults.. 

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3. For better performance, it is highly recommended that you set your

X-Window display to 16bits, and not 8 bits. This can be done quite easily by adding the line "DefaultColorDepth 16" in the "Screen Section" of your /etc/XF86Config file. If you have only a 1 meg video card, add the '800x512' mode (listed below) to have more than a 640x480 resolution. Theoretically, it might seem that a resolution of 800x600 with 16bits per pixel could be handled by a 1meg video card, but in practice it just ain't so. The problem comes from the accelerated X-Server which uses a multiple of 1024 pixels horizontally (even if you require only 800), hence blowing up the card's memory when 600 pixels are used vertically.

Modeline "800x512" 36.00 800 824 896 1024 512 513 515 592

Then, your "Screen Section" should look something like this:

Section "Screen"

      Driver      "svga"
      Device      "Trident TGUI9680 (generic)"
      Monitor     "My Monitor"
      DefaultColorDepth 16
      Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "800x512" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
        Virtual     800 512
      EndSubsection

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4. I programmed this code using a great look-and-feel window manager

for X called 'WindowMaker'. It emulates the the NExTStep Window manager. Looks gorgeous and very useful. Works particularly well in 16bits pixel depth. You can download it from http://www.windowmaker.org/

--Bernard
Seoul, South-Korea -- August 1998