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| R2012a Documentation → Simulink 3D Animation | |
Learn more about Simulink 3D Animation |
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The Simulink 3D Animation product includes the blaxxun Contact VRML plug-in. This is a VRML plug-in for either Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator on a Windows platform. This section provides a quick overview of the functions and controls of the blaxxun Contact VRML plug-in, and also describes full screen stereo support in blaxxun.
When you open a VRML file with a Web browser, the blaxxun Contact VRML plug-in is used to display a virtual scene. A control panel is located at the bottom of the scene.
Three buttons on the control panel control the viewpoint. The square button in the middle resets the current viewpoint to its initial position. This is the most useful viewpoint control button until you gain enough experience with the viewer to explore worlds using navigation. The keyboard shortcut for the square button is the Esc key.
You use the other two triangular buttons to browse forward and backward through author-defined viewpoints of the virtual world. If the author does not define other viewpoints, these buttons are inactive. The keyboard shortcuts for the triangular buttons are the Page Up and Page Down keys.
You use the control menu to review or select viewer settings and navigation methods. To access the control menu, use the following procedure:
On the Control Panel, click the question mark, or place your mouse pointer anywhere in the browser window, and then right-click.
If you selected Direct3D® with the blaxxun Contact installation, a menu similar to the following appears:
From the menu, you can make changes to the navigational mode, graphic quality, and graphic speed.
Depending on the complexity of the virtual world and the required speed and rendering quality, you can choose the settings that best meet your needs.
Because the viewer's graphical performance strongly depends on several factors, you might want to experiment to find a reasonable compromise between the quality and speed for your system.
The dial control and left/right buttons give you direct access to the movement mode for walking through a virtual world. However, the movement behavior of your mouse pointer changes depending on the movement mode you select. When you select a different movement mode, clicking your left mouse button causes your viewpoint to move differently. Practice changing the movement mode and navigating through a virtual world until you get satisfactory results.
To select a movement mode, use the following procedure:
A letter in the center of the dial indicates the current movement mode. For example, in the preceding illustration, the large E stands for Examine mode.
Initially, you should use Examine mode, which is for examining objects from various angles. You will find that the functions of the left/right button controls in Examine mode are the easiest for beginners to master.
The following table lists the movement modes.
| Movement Mode | Description |
|---|---|
Walk | Drag the mouse toward the top or the bottom of the screen to move forward or backward, and drag toward the left or right to turn left or right. |
Slide | Drag the mouse to move up, down, left, or right within a plane that is perpendicular to your view. |
Rotate | Press the left mouse button to select a rotation point within the scene. Then drag the mouse toward the top or bottom to move forward or back, or drag the mouse left or right to rotate around the fixed point. |
Examine | Press the left mouse button to select a rotation point within the scene. Then drag the mouse up, down, left, or right to rotate the object. |
Fly | Press the left mouse button to start flying. Drag the mouse toward the top or bottom to rise or sink, and drag left or right. |
Pan | Drag the mouse toward the top or bottom of the scene to loop up and down, and drag left or right to turn left or right. |
Jump | Place your mouse pointer over an object, then left-click. Your view moves to that point. |
For PCs, the Simulink 3D Animation software includes the blaxxun Contact VRML plug-in for Web browsers. The viewer allows you to select several working configurations, and its performance depends on several factors:
The speed of your hardware
System display driver settings
Method of 3-D rendering
blaxxun Contact parameters
The size of the window in which you display the 3-D visualization
You might want to test the various combinations possible on your system to find an optimal configuration for the best performance in 3-D visualization.
In Direct3D configuration, you can select the speed and quality on the fly from the top level of the menu. You can, depending on the system capabilities, select one of the options on the menu. For example, you can select High Speed, High Quality, Hardware Acceleration, and MMX Speed.
In the OpenGL configuration, you can set similar rendering properties. From the floating menu, choose Settings, and then choose Preferences.
With respect to the 3-D rendering method, you can install blaxxun Contact with two basic configurations using OpenGL and Direct3D drivers. You can tune the viewer performance by setting the parameters in the Settings-Preferences dialog box of the viewer floating menu, accessible by right-clicking when you are viewing a virtual scene.
blaxxun Contact supports stereoscopic vision. If the graphic card and system driver enable full screen stereo mode, and if you have corresponding stereo vision hardware (such as stereoscopic shutter glasses), you can access this support. In full screen mode, no menus and other user interfaces are available to the user.
To switch blaxxun Contact to the full screen mode, press F5.
To switch back to normal mode, press Esc.
If you have installed the appropriate stereo driver, blaxxun Contact supports full screen stereo mode under Windows with most NVIDIA graphic cards. For details, refer to the card manufacturer documentation.
If you want to tune the full screen mode resolution or color depth.
In the blaxxun Contact window, place your mouse pointer over a virtual world, then right-click.
A menu appears.
Tune the full screen mode resolution or color depth settings.
Note that your system configuration can switch to stereoscopic full screen mode only when using one of the Direct3D or OpenGL rendering engines. If you are unable to switch to full screen stereo mode, try to install blaxxun Contact using another rendering engine. Typically, graphic card stereo drivers provide testing applications to confirm the functionality of stereoscopic modes.
The Simulink 3D Animation software uses a Simulink 3D Animation HTTP server for communication between a VRML-enabled Web browser and the MATLAB and Simulink environment. It generates the main Simulink 3D Animation HTML page with the list of currently available virtual worlds and sends VRML and other requested files and data to clients (VRML viewers).
The server is started when the software is loaded into the MATLAB interface. This happens whenever you use a Simulink 3D Animation block in a Simulink block diagram, or whenever you open a vrworld object in the MATLAB interface. The HTTP server is shut down when you close all Simulink models that contain Simulink 3D Animation blocks, or use the vrclear command.
When the HTTP server is running, your browser can see a list of available virtual worlds at the following address, where 8123 is the default port number:
http://localhost:8123
Remote users can connect to the following address, where 8123 is the default port number:
http://your_machine:8123
You can set the port number of the server in the Simulink 3D Animation Preferences dialog box from the Simulink interface, or use vrsetpref in the MATLAB Command Window.
Depending on the status of served vrworld objects, the list of available virtual worlds can be empty.
 | Simulink 3D Animation Viewer | Legacy Simulink 3D Animation Viewer |  |
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