Get your science in Shape
Render Module
Overview
This module takes care of the rendering of image and position-velocity diagrams. The output of 3-D volume data is also controlled from here.
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Overall the Render module consist of the render area where images and position-velocity (P-V) diagrams are displayed on the left side. On the right side you have the render Properties panel. It can be hidden by clicking on the Properties pane on the right. By default the General rendering parameter panel is open. From the drop-down list at the top of the panel several other sub-panels can be opened that deal with the settings for the virtual Camera, the Spectrum, the 3-D Output, Units and those of the Selected Window. We will deal with each of these in their respective sections below.
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In the default configuration only one image is rendered. If more images and P-V diagrams are to be show, those can be added and configured in the Windows drop-down menu above the render window.
In the example above two columns have been set and three P-V windows have been added to the default image window. The slits for each P-V window is represented on the image window.
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In order to delete a window click on the X icon in the top-right corner of the window. Note that this icon may be hidden if the overall Shape interface has been reduced in size. If so, then resize the user interface until the X icon appears and then click to delete the corresponding window.
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The Image Render Window
As the name suggests the Image Render Window displays the output images from the rendered model.
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To keep order when you have several windows, they can be named individually to remind you of the expected content. Just replace the text "Window 1", etc., in the text field of the menu above the window.
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In the same window several types of images can be displayed by selecting one of the five colorful icons above the image. By hovering over an icon a tool-tip gives a brief hint to what the corresponding image displays.
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By default a grey-scale image is displayed that represents the brightness variations that have been integrated along the line of sight.
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The selected type of image is marked by a blue border around the icon.
The "Color Image" displays the each sub-object with the color that was assigned to its mesh in the 3-D Module. This allows to clearly distinguish and identify them for diagnostic or visualization purposes. Importantly, in the P-V diagrams it helps distinguishing the contributions by different parts of the model.
The "Red/blue Image" displays the model in terms of its red and blue shifted regions. Volume cells with a velocity vector that points more towards the observer is colored blue and those with a line of sight component that points away are red. Regions were line-of-sight integration has a mixture of red and blue contributions will appear in a mixed color tending towards white.
The "Rainbow Image" is similar to the red/blue image in that it color codes the velocity field along the line of sight. The difference is that a continuous color coding is used that follows the spectral rainbow colors. The range of velocities to be color coded can be set up in a right-click menu.
The "Spectrum Image" uses the physical spectrum as set up in the Spectrum section of the Properties Panel on the right of the Render Module. Again the color coding follows the rainbow colors that are distributed through the range of the physical spectrum. Now the rendered color will depend on the full physical setup of the model. Therefore this image type is used to render physical and photo-realistic models.
The "Image Modifiers" handles the operators (modifiers) that process the rendered image in terms of brightness scaling, contours, inversion, etc.
The "Move Slit" icon activates the interactive changing of the slit parameters such as position and width. When active the slit width is change using the mouse wheel. The horizontal position is changed by pressing and dragging the left mouse button. Vertical size and position are change the same way while keeping the "y" key pressed during the operation.
The "Zoom Image" button activates zooming in and out of the image using the mouse wheel.
The "Pan Image" button activates moving the image left, right, up and down by dragging it with the left mouse button pressed.
The "Render Window" button allows you to drag out with the left mouse button a rectangular window on the image. Combined with the HD renderer and the "Use window" option in the General tab of the Render Module only this region will be rendered. This can greatly reduce rendering times if you need high resolution, but only need to see a small region for testing.
The "Image Transparency" button allows you to change the transparency of the rendered image to be able to compare with the background reference image.
Close and Remove the Window by clicking on this button and confirm in the pop-up window.
Properties Panel
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The Properties Panel on the right side of the Render Module has several section that can be accessed from the drop-down menu at the top. We will deal with each of them in the order they appear in the menu.
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The general project properties are set up in this panel, such as spatial resolution, type of renderer, memory management, autorender, etc.
Camera orientation angles are set. The parameters include position angle, inclination, and angles with respect to the axes of the global coordinate system
The spectral range for the physical radiation calculations is provided here in various possible units.
Output
Ouput of the full 3-D cube to file in different forms.
Selected Window
Key parameters of the currently selected image or P-V window can be set in this panel.
