WATADS Tutorial

COMET Workstation Tutorial Exercise

Vis5D

Based on the Vis5D Tutorial by Paolo Antonelli

1) Log on to the Hewlett-Packard Workstation:

2) Initiate Vis5D:

Click on the right mouse button outside of the X-term window and hold it down. Drag the arrow down to Met Applications, over to
Vis5D and then onto select 22 October.

Once you have started the software, you will have two screens: Vis5d Control Panel and the Vis5D 3-D Display.

3) Normal Viewing Mode:

Click the "Normal" button in the middle of the Control Panel.
Click "TOPO", "MAP", "BOX", and "CLOCK" in the upper portion of the Control Panel.
The large box in the right, middle of the Control Panel describes the functions of the 3 mouse buttons: depress the left mouse button and move the mouse to rotate the 3-D viewing area in the Vis5D 3-D Display window; depress the middle button and move up and down to zoom in and out, move the mouse right and left to control the "clipping plane"; depress the right mouse to translate display.
Click the left mouse button on "SOUTH" to change the viewing perspective. Right click on "SOUTH" to see the north perspective. Clicking on the "WEST" button will give similar perspectives. To return to the original view, click the left mouse button on "TOP" (a right click on "TOP" will give you an interesting perspective).

4) Creating isosurfaces:

Select a variable from the Isosurf menu in the lower left portion of the Control Panel with the left mouse button. Notice there is a slider bar to the left.
A pop-up window will appear that allows you to select the isovalue (many of the variables allow you to choose a negative value). After moving the bar to the location of interest, click OK.
The color of the isosurface can be modified with the right mouse button.

5) Trajectory Mode:

Click the "Trajectory" button in the middle of the Control Panel.
A pop-up window will appear.
Select the "Set" you would like to define.
Select Ribbon if you would like to view a thicker trajectory.
Select the position with the 3-D cursor by depressing the right mouse button and dragging the cursor in the 3-D box.
Select the time step with the "STEP" button in the upper portion of the control panel.
Depress the middle mouse button inside the 3-D window.
Click the "ANIMATE" button to view the trajectory.

6) Slice Mode:

Select a vertical or horizontal slice using the buttons in the lower portion of the Control Panel with the left mouse button.
Click the "Slice" button in the middle of the Control Panel and then move the slice by clicking at the corner of the slice with the right mouse button and moving the mouse.
With contour slices, a pop-up window will appear. Use this to change the height of the slice for horizontal slices and the interval of the contours (enter a negative value to draw negative values with dashed lines and positive values with solid lines).
Right click on the parameter to change the color and opacity of the slice (you need to enlarge the pop-up box to access the opacity control).
Click on the "CONT#'s" button to toggle the the contour numbers on the Display.
With Colored slices, a different pop-up window appears that allows you to change the height of the surface and the graph of colors for data values. Red values are changed with the left mouse button, green with the middle button, and blue with the right button.
Note that contour slices can be overlayed over colored slices.
Display wind vector slices using the buttons HWIND-1, VWIND-1, HWIND-2, VWIND-2 just above the isosurface and slice buttons.
The pop-up window associated with the wind vectors controls the height of the horizontal surface, and the density (how many vectors are plotted) and scale (length of the vectors). The right mouse button brings up the color control pop-up window.

Also visit the Vis5D Homepage, and the Vis5D Tutorial prepared by Paolo Antonelli