Understanding the workspace

The 3D Scenes workspace consists of three main areas:

• The scene area: central 3D workspace for object manipulation

• The scene tree: hierarchical view of all scene elements

• The object properties: properties and settings for selected objects

The scene area

The Scene area is the area where you create your objects in order to animate a scene. When the object properties are linked to the parameters or the variables of the model, the animated objects show the effects of the parameters you have set for the simulation. This is useful as a visual representation of the results of your simulations.

The global properties of the scene are available from the environment panel. The panel allows you to set these properties:

• The background

• The grid

• The light

The scene tree

Click the left-hand toolbar button to hide/show the scene tree. The panel allows you to see the structure of your scene and then the complete list of the objects. By default, the top level world is always shown. It corresponds to the global frame of the scene.

Only 3D objects are added under it. If you add a screen object, another top level screen is added that contains all screen objects (screen texts and color-scales).

From the tree, there are quick access actions to control the object and frame visibility. Click the eye icon to show/hide the object or the frame to hide/show the object frame. When performing these actions on a parent from the scene tree, the visibility is cascaded to all the children. Use the CTRL key to block the cascading.

The scene tree area displays the structure of the scene. This area is very useful for viewing the tree structure of the objects and if necessary, modify this hierarchy.

The objects of the scene are organized within a hierarchy. The first level of the hierarchy is the World itself.

The objects of the scene can refer directly to the world coordinate system or they can refer to each other in a hierarchy. In this case, some objects can be called parents and others can become their children.

Note

The position and rotation of an object is relative to its parent. So when you move a parent, all children move at the same time but their position and rotation do not change (relative to the parent).

If you modify the position or rotation of a child, you must select the child only. This will not modify the parent.

To create a hierarchy, select the object you want to be the parent and create an object. The new object is created as the child of the object you selected.

You can have several levels of hierarchy. To modify a hierarchy, use the tree structure and drag and drop the objects as necessary.

If you want to create an entity composed of a group of objects, create a frame and set the objects as children of the frame.

Tip

When you create a new object, you must know in advance where you want to put the object in the hierarchy:

• If the object is not a child of an other object, check that no object is selected in the tree area and create your object. The new object will be the child of the scene.

• If the new object must be the child of another object, select the object that will be the parent and create the new object.

The object properties

Click the left-hand toolbar button to hide/show the object properties. The panel allows you to set the values of the object properties when this object is selected from the scene tree or from the 3D scene. If multiple objects are selected, you can set the values of the common properties.

Here are the usual properties of a 3D object:

• Frame: you can set the position and the orientation of the object frame, and so the object itself.

• Geometry: you can set the geometry properties of the basic and advanced 3D objects.

• Visual material: you can define the appearance the object. It can use a single color, a color-scale if any or a texture.

• Visibility: you can set the visibility of the object and its frame.

You can associate data (global parameters, parameters, variables, post-processing variables) with a property to drive the property from the data value. Only properties with a link icon can be associated. By default (no association), the icon is an open link.

To associate data with a property, you can:

• Click the link icon to open the data selection window.

• Drag-and-drop the data to the input field.

When data is associated with a property, the icon switches to a closed link. If you click the icon, a contextual menu is displayed that allows you to:

• See the data path of the data that is associated. Select it to open the data selection window.

• Remove the association. The icon switches to the open link.

• Highlight the submodel on the sketch from which the parameter or the variable originates.