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Tutorial: vizconnect Displays

In this tutorial you will learn how to add a sub window display and apply a fixed offset to the viewpoint.

Note: This section continues with the configuration and script used in the previous section.

Add a Sub Window

So far we've configured a single display that renders to the main window. We can also overlay smaller sub windows on the main window to show different points of view within the scene (e.g. 3rd person, bird's eye). Go to the Displays tab, click Add a New Display and select the Custom Window option again. This time the sub window parameter is automatically checked because only one display can be applied to the main window at a time. Click Apply & Exit and a small window will appear in the upper left hand corner of the graphics window. You'll see that the viewpoint is fixed at ground level, just as it was when we added the first display.

 

After a sub window is added, you can change its position and size in the Size/Pos dialog box. The values for width and height are set to 0.2 by default. This value is the size of the sub window relative to the graphics window. Try experimenting with different values in the width/height fields and alignment drop down. Before moving on to the next section, set the width to 0.35 and the height to 0.7.

Set the Viewpoint

Next, we'll set up a fixed viewpoint with a bird's eye perspective of the scene. From the Trackers tab, click Add a New Tracker, select the Group tracker option, and click Apply & Exit. A group tracker does not provide data like other trackers. It's just a node in the scene graph with position and orientation that can be made a parent or child of any other node. To specify this group's location, open the Offsets dialog box. For a bird's eye view add some position offsets and pitch the view down 90 degrees. Then click Apply and Exit.

Now all that's left to do is set the viewpoint of the sub window display to be a child of the group tracker. Go to the scene graph pane and drag custom_window2 under group. In the graphics window you should now see a sub window with a bird's eye view.

Tracker and Display Basics

Trackers

Displays