Spoken text

You can get to the options for the visualization of the model by View -> Display. First, we see the options “Wireframe” and “OpenGL” whereby OpenGL is activated. OpenGL-Proteus doesn’t need to be recognized. OpenGL is a software interface to the graphics hardware and offers the opportunity to visualize the three-dimensional model like it’s visualized at the moment. The option Wireframe offers the possibility to show the model as a wireframe model where only edges are depicted.
If we’re choosing this option, you can see that the lighting and shading effects are gone and that just the edges of the objects are being displayed. This option can be useful if you want to see really thin branches in a big model which aren’t recognizable in the OpenGL View. But for the moment, we’re switching back to the OpenGL View.

Further options for the 3D View are placed under View -> Display -> Options: You can see all of them by clicking on “Edit” and they will be shown in the Attribute Editor or you can reach them in this menu where the most options are also accessible.
You can set the detail level, switch off the lighting effect, display the so called support points from spline surfaces – which aren’t in this model – from the “Show Points” option and from “Show Grid” a grid can be shown. It’s also possible to display the coordinate axes of the three-dimensional space with their names and to display the resolution (pixel-size) of the 3D View.
At first, we’re demonstrating the “Show Grid” option. As you can see, a grid is being displayed below the model. This is helpful to outline the spatial structures, the dimension of the model and the viewer perspective. The size and colour of the grid and the size of the grid cells can be changed in the Attribute Editor.

The last important feature is the opportunity to display or to hide individual layers of the model by View -> Visible Layers or by the Attribute Editor after clicking on “Edit”. In this simple example model exists only one layer because every object is assigned to the layer 0. Because of that, it’s possible to hide the whole model by switching the layer 0 on or off. In the later unit 10 (about the model objects) it will be shown how to assign individual objects to different layers.
The hidden objects aren’t influenced by this option. It’s possible to hide an object, then let the model grow and to display the object again at a later moment.