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Render Module Properties Panel: Output Properties Panel: Output ​ The Output panel sets the type and file location for the output of the 3-D render cube information from the current scene. This information can then be processed and, with the Export Module, exported to other standard formats for external visualization. Enabled: Enable the output to be executed after the rendering is finished. Slices: When enabled, the output is done in the form of PNG format images slices. Each slice contains RGBA information in the XY-plane of the world coordinate system. Name: This text field takes the name of the output file without an extension. Unless Slices is enabled, the output will be a single file with the extension ILV. The ILV file can be loaded into the Export Module for further processing and output in other formats. Background Image: In this section you can control which the viewing of all the foreground rendered images and the observed background images in all windows. Image: From the drop-down list you can choose which images are used as background or reference image. The initial choice is between Observed and None. If Observed is chosen, the Observed images chosen in the Selected Window panel will be visible as background. If you choose None, then you can click on the button beneath to save in memory the current rendered images as a background or reference. Each image is identified by the time stamp of the moment of click on the save button in this panel. ​ The button labeled "x" allows the user to delete a saved set of rendered reference images from the drop-down list. Transparency: The slider controls the transparency of the foreground rendered image. Moving the slider to the right makes the foreground gradually more transparent, thereby allowing a comparison between the reference image in the background with the foreground.

The Warp Modifier rotates the mesh vertices as a function of distance around an axis. ​ To actually be a warped surface, the axis of the Widget for the Warp Modifier needs to be at an angle to a reference plane such as a flat disk. ​ Name: Set a name that allows you to identify this modifier easily. ​ Enabled: When this flag is turned off, the Warp Modifier is switched off. ​ Deg: If set, the the rotation as a function of distance in the Magnitude Graph is given in degrees per unit distance. When switched off, then it will be radians per unit distance. ​ Magnitude: Opens the function graph to set how the rotation angle is as a function of distance from the local coordinate system set by the Widget. ​ Widget: The Widget opens the Widget Dialog. It allows you to change the direction of the Warp Modifier. The turquoise arrow indicates the direction around which the rotation will be performed. In the example it was rotated around the original x-axis by 30 degrees. Modifiers: Warp

Maps Module Overview ​ Channel maps are spectroscopic images, where the image contains only emission from a certain small range of wavelength or line-of-sight velocity. They are typical for spectroscopic radio observations, but have come into more frequent use also in the optical and infrared spectral ranges. Usually they are presented in an array of many channel maps representing the complete spectral range that has been observed. The full set of spectral data is often referred to as a data cube, since the image can be arranged as slices of a cube. The Maps Module is divided in three main sections. The dominant region is the display of the channel maps. Above the maps is the main menu and to the right are the parameter tabs. There are three tabs for General parameters, those for an individual selected Channel and for the Output of the channel images (maps). General Workflow: In the General Parameters tab the minimum (initial) and maximum (final) velocities are applied. These are then divided in a number of channels that is the product of the number of channels in rows and columns. To set up this grid of channel maps click on the "Re-grid" button in the main menu and confirm. This generates the grid of image windows. Now render by clicking on the Render Button in the Render Module or press Ctrl-S. Parameter Panels: General: Render: This flag controls whether the channel maps are rendered at all. Make sure to have the tick mark set when using the Map Module. ​ Initial vel: The smallest velocity to be included (can be negative). This is the center velocity of the first channel map (top left in the grid). Final vel: The highest velocity to be included. This is the center velocity of the last channel map (bottom right in the grid). ​ Delta (D) : This is the width of the velocity channels. If set to zero, then the width is calculated from the difference between the final and initial velocity divided by the number of channels. If set manually, then the channels may be narrower than that or wider, in which case they overlap. The intensity taken into account is constant over the interval, which may or may no be the case for the actual observations. ​ Rows & Columns: The number of rows and columns that the channel map grid shall have. The total number of channels is then the product of rows and columns. ​ Transparency: The transparency of the rendered foreground image. It can be changed with the slider to transition between rendered and observed background image. This helps to compare the model with observations. ​ Light Echo: This function is deprecated. ​ Difference: Show the difference image subtracting the observed image from the rendered model image. ​ Export: Export the rendered image in ASCII format for further external processing. ​ Channel: ​ Select a particular channel by clicking on the image in the grid view of the channel maps. The selected channel is highlighted by a thin red line. The Channel parameter panel on the right then displays the settings of that particular channel. To view the image of this channel by itself at a larger scale, click on the "Expand" icon in the main menu of the Map Module. Vel (km/s): The velocity center of this channel. ​ D vel (km/s): The full width of the velocity channel. Image: A reference or observed image can be loaded to be compared with the observation. One can transition between the rendered model and the reference image by changing the Transparency in a numerical way (see below) or using the Transparency slider in the General parameter panel (see above). The reference image can be placed and processed using similar attributes as those used in the Selected Window section of the Render Module. Please see the pages on "Data Preparation " and the Render Module for more details on how to use the Location parameters and the image Modifiers. ​ Output: ​ The output parameters control the appearance and labeling of the grid image output using the Save Grid or Save Images button in the Main Menu of the Map Module. An example grid output is shown on the right. CrossHairs: Mark the center of each channel with a cross. ​ Labels: Label each channel with its central velocity. Color: The color for the labels. Change the color by clicking on the colored squared. A dialog opens to let you select a different color. Menu bar: ​ Re-grid: After you adjusted the General Parameters for the grid of channel maps, the Re-grid button sets up the grid using these parameters. When you change the General Parameters use this button again to apply these parameters. ​ Insert: Individual channels can be inserted before the currently selected channel. Note that this channel does not change the parameters of the pre-existing channel and is therefore not part of the regular sequence that was established using the Re-grid button. This new channel needs to be set up individually in the Channel parameter panel. Delete: Delete the currently selected channel. ​ Save grid & Save images: save the grid of image or individual channel images. Se the section on Output above for details. ​ Palette: Opens the image adjustment dialog for the channel maps. Here you can adjust brightness, scaling, and add other image modifiers. Note that the Gaussian Blur modifier handles the resolution of the maps. This is currently disconnected from the Seeing parameter in the Render Module and needs to be adjusted separately. In the Maps Module it works in terms of pixels, so it is depends on the resolution. This feature will be improved in a future release. ​ Properties: Opens the Properties dialog for the detailed appearance of the grid coordinates, tick marks, fonts and colors. Load obs: Load observed or reference images to the background of the grid. Here you can load a sequence of multiple images to fill all the channels. Select multiple image in the directory dialog that opens by clicking on the first of the sequence and then Shift-click on the last. Reference images for individual channels can be loaded or changed with the corresponding Image load button in the Channel properties panel. ​ Expand: Expands the selected individual channel image to full size of the image grid area for a detailed view. Clicking the same button again restores the full grid. ​ ​

Top of Page Basic Workflow Overview 3-D view ports Menu Bar Primitives Objects, Tools & Lights tabs Transform tools 3-D Module Basic workflow: Interactively add the geometric elements of your object in the form of primitive polygon meshes (Primitives) that you can access at the top menu bar of the 3-D Module. These meshes will serve to encase the volumes that will constitute the different parts of the model. Then you modify the simple structure of the Primitives using what we call Modifiers, which give the objects new geometric structure and physical properties as a function of position in space. Using the Physics Module, you then assign the material and radiation properties to the meshes. Finally, the model is rendered with the Render Module and some of the observational properties can be displayed with the (Channel) Maps and Graph Modules, where the observational data can be included and compared with the model results. If the results are not satisfactory, the model will be adjusted until a satisfactory match is found between observations and model. Overview of the 3D Module : The purpose of the 3D Module is to set up your model interactively. This module is divided in several sections, the interactive 3-D view ports , the Menu Bar at the top, Objects, Tools & Lights tabs on the right and Transform Tools on the left. ​ 3-D view ports: By default there are four view ports that can simultaneously show you the same number of different views of your mesh model. Several of these camera views are aligned with the coordinate axes (initial defaults: Front, Right). The Free-Form view can be changed arbitrarily using mouse input after selecting the Camera > Orbit tool from the Transform Tools to the left of the 3-D view ports (see Transform Tools for details). A special view port is the Render view, since it represents the view that will be used for rendering in the Render Module. This view can be controlled interactively with the Mouse in the same way as the Free-Form view, but also numerically with Image and Camera parameters in the Render Module. ​ Right-click menu: When you right-click on the area of a 3-D viewport, a menu opens that allows you to set a number of properties of this particular view. Camera: Select a different camera view for this viewport. Save Image: Save the mesh images of the viewports. It saves the image of all viewports in one image. If you want to save only a single view, then use the Maximize command from the right-click menu to open a single view in the 3-D view space (to go back to the four viewports, right-click again and select Restore). Make sure to provide a filename with a valid image extension. Most common image formats are supported, such as .png (recommended), .jpg, .gif, etc. (example: image1.png). The Save Image function is the same as that of the Save button in the 3-D Module´s top menu bar. Saving your viewport images with this function does not include the colored coordinate axes or the viewport labels. To saves these you can make screenshots of these areas. Properties: In this dialog you can set a few parameters for the individual view port. Scene alpha: This parameter changes the transparency of the whole polygon object scene, so a comparison with observations or the rendered scene may be easier with lower alpha values. Background: This setting selects the background image of the scene between None, Observed and Rendered, which enables you to compared the corresponding images with the mesh. Including the Observed data is useful to place and shape mesh objects according to the observations. Note that a direct comparison with observed data makes only sense for the Render image. Sometimes, comparing the observed images with other views might be helpful when checking for symmetry properties. Maximize: For more detailed inspection, this command fills the space of the four viewports with a single one. Restore the four views using the Restore command in the right-click menu. Menu bar: The Menu Bar of the 3-D Module provides quick access to a number of commands (left section) and the creation of Primitive mesh objects (right section). ​ ​ ​ Save: Save the mesh images of the viewports. It saves the image of all viewports in one image. If you want to save only a single view, then use the Maximize command from the right-click menu to open a single view in the 3-D view space (to go back to the four viewports, right-click again and select Restore). Make sure to provide a filename with a valid image extension. Most common image formats are supported, such as .png (recommended), .jpg, .gif, etc. (example: image1.png). Saving your viewport images with this function does not include the colored coordinate axes or the viewport labels. To saves these you can make screenshots of these areas. Import: This command allows you to import objects from a different project. A file selection dialog opens to select the project from which to import objects. Then a second dialog allows your to select one or more objects (shift-click for selecting multiple objects). Note that it is divided into tabs for different types of objects which have to be imported separately. Options: The Options dialog contains settings for viewing coordinate grids in the 3-D viewports and other options that might be helpful during modeling and for publication of model meshes. Undo: This command opens the Undo Stack utility. It shows recent commands that can be undone and redone. You can select which commands to undo or redo and set the maximum number of commands to be held in the stacks. Additional Undo options exist for example for the Path vertex objects which can be undone with Ctrl-z or redone with Ctrl-y. Primitives: The most important functionality of the menu bar in the 3-D Module is to provide quick access to the creation of various Primitives, i.e. basic geometric mesh objects that can be described with only a few parameters. ​ ​ ​ ​ Create a new primitive object by a first click on the corresponding icon, then click on one of the 3-D viewports and immediate drag the mouse to the right to increase the first parameter of the primitive. When the first size is adequate, click again and drag to the right to increase the second parameter (if necessary). One click and drag to the right for each parameter (sphere has one, cone and plane have two, “cube” has three) of the primitive object and then one more click to finish. Your object appears in the Systems folder of the Objects tab located to the right of the 3-D viewports. By default the names of the objects is PS_#, where # is the number in order of creation. This name can and should be changed to something more descriptive in the General parameters menu of the drop-down list to the right of the Objects folder tree. The detailed properties of the individual objects can be changed after selecting it by clicking on the objects name in the Objects stack, where it will be highlighted and in the 3-D viewports the corresponding mesh will turn white, if the Show status flag in the General properties is activated (this is the default). The Object Properties drop-down list contains five different parameter sections: General, Particles, Modifiers, Primitive and Fields. Click on Object Properties for a link to a more detailed description of its content. Objects, Tool and Lights tabs: The parameters of objects and different tools can be set in the Parameter Tabs on the right side of the 3-D Module. There are three tabs available for the parameters. Objects: handles the parameters of the objects in the 3-D viewports. Tools: allows access to the parameters of tools such as the Draw Tool or Erase Tool for particles accessed in the corresponding tab on the left of the 3-D Module). The parameters in the Tools tab appear once the tool has been activated. Lights: change the lighting properties of the 3-D viewports by changing the properties of the default Ambient Light or adding, deleting and changing the positions and parameters of other types of light. A more elaborate lighting scheme is often useful to create schematic illustrations using the mesh objects. ​ Transform tools: On the left side of the 3-D Module there is a set of tabs with a variety of tools, most of which interactively change the positions and orientations of various types of helper objects: Cameras: change the view points of Render or Free-Form view ports interactively. Systems: change the transform properties of individual objects (Systems) of the scene. Widgets: change the local coordinate system of the selected tool or modifier. Vertices: with these tools individual or a group of vertices of meshes are manipulated for very detailed local changes of the meshes. Particles: draw and erase Particles on and around meshes that serve as supports. This allows very detailed structures to be added to an object than can not be easily generated with meshes or procedural filament tools. The parameters of the Draw and Erase particles tools are set in the Tools tab on the right of the 3-D Module. Objects Tree: The objects tree is a hierarchical list of the current objects in the scene. They can be collected in folders and sub-folder. With the tick boxes to the left of each object an object can be switched on or off. Similarly switching on or off a folder does the same for all objects in a folder. ​ New objects are placed in the default "Systems" folder. ​ New folders are created using the "Add new folder" button at the bottom left. Copy objects with the copy-button. The copy is then placed at the bottom of the list in the same folder. Move objects and folders around within the object tree by dragging and dropping. Delete objects and folder with the delete button at the bottom of the panel. ​ The color of the symbol to the left of the object name is the same as the mesh color and helps to identify the object in the 3-D views. If the object is not enabled, the color of the symbol is grey. ​

The Squeeze Modifier changes the radius of a mesh perpendicular to a chosen axis (default: local z-axis), The action is similar to squeezing a soft object or to that of a lathe. ​ There are three different Modes: Scale, Inverse Scale and Absolute . In the Scale mode the distance of the mesh points from the reference axis is scaled by the factor given in the the Magnitude graph as a function of position along the reference axis. ​ In the Inverse Scale mode the scaling factor from the Magnitude graph is inverted. In the Absolute mode the mesh vertex is placed at the absolute distance provided by the Magnitude graph. The Magnitude dialog allows you to define the squeeze amount as an Analytic Function of position along the reference axis. You can also use a Point graph where you can generate an arbitrary function by manually placing points and setting the spline interpolation. To do this, select Point from the Function drop-down list under the graph. The example graph on the right shows the way it was done for the example mesh displayed below. Modifiers: Squeeze

The Stretch Modifier changes the mesh vertices along a chosen axis (default: local z-axis) as a function of distance from the axis. There are two different Modes: Scale and Absolute . When you switch on Absolute, the values in the Magnitude graph are the distance from the axis in units of the current project instead of a scaling factor based on the original shape of the mesh. The Magnitude dialog allows you to define the stretch amount as an Analytic Function of position along the reference axis. You can also use a Point graph where you can generate an arbitrary function by manually placing points and setting the spline interpolation. To do this, select Point from the Function drop-down list under the graph. The example graph on the lower right shows the way it was done for the example mesh displayed below. It scales a spherical primitive mesh to a disk with a hump around a certain distance. This modifier is ideal to set up a disk with a complex structure. Modifiers: Stretch

Modifiers The Boost Modifier is basically an enhanced version of a Boolean object or modifier. The idea is to use one mesh to regionally change the properties of another. However, instead of completely cutting out or adding to a mesh, it scales the properties by some factor that may vary spatially either through a function of space or a texture. ​ In the example below a sphere contains a complex mesh structure which has a Boost Modifier that is linked to the spherical mesh. In the first rendering below, the boosting factor was set to zero, such the sphere is hollow in the region of the boosting mesh. ​ In the second examples, the boosting factor for the density was set to 2, enhancing the density by that factor. The Boost Modifier is applied to the mesh to is meant to change another, in this case the inner mesh. Note that more than one boosting mesh can be applied to the main mesh. ​ Parameters: ​ Name: If multiple Boost Modifiers are used, make sure to name them adequately for ease of identification. ​ Enabled: When deselected, the modifier will not be applied. ​ Boost: This is the boosting factor that is applied to the main mesh. It can be a mathematical expression and function of the main variables such as n (density), T (temperature) or P (pressure). Note that these are the properties of the boosting mesh object, i.e. they relate to the modifiers within the boosting object itself. To make the hollow structure above, this factor was set to zero (0) and 2 for the enhancement of the structure. If set to "n" as shown, the factor is taken from the Density modifier in the boosting object. This may be a function of position, including the texture. This allows for a complex manipulation of the region covered by the boosting object. ​ Variable: From this drop-down list select the variable upon which the boosting shall act on in the main object. Note that this is different from the variables in the Boost factor. Operation: Select the operation that the Boost Modifier shall perform on the main object. You can select from Scale, Add and Replace. Applied Object: From the drop-down list select the objects on which the Boost modifier shall act on. Several objects may be chosen. ​ Hide itself: Generally the boosting object is used only to act upon other meshes, but is not rendered itself. This may, however, not always be the case. So, if the boosting object is a rendered object in itself, disable this flag, such that the boosting mesh itself is rendered, too. ​ Modifiers: Boost

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