for the release of DeskArtes v. 4.0.7, July 1998.

© 1998 DeskArtes Oy. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form by any means without the written permission of DeskArtes Oy.

DeskArtes Oy reserves the right to revise this publication and to make changes from time to time without the obligation to notify any person of such revisions and changes.

DeskArtes and the DA symbol are trademarks of DeskArtes Oy. Other brand and product names are trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Foreword *

New Functionality *

New command SYSTEMÞ Version Info *

New command SYSTEMÞ Screen Size *

DISPLAY commands enabled with DRAW: None *

Option REFR simplified *

Clipping control with CLIP: On/Off *

Faster display of point clouds (*) *

Copying curve sets with OBJECTÞ Copy *

Keeping copies with SELECTÞ Collect: Display *

3D curves with SELECTÞ Collect: Selection *

New command SELECTÞ Collect: Points (*) *

Refining Bezier curves (*) *

New command CURVEÞ Design: Surf Spiral (*) *

Building with arbitrary cross-sections (*) *

Revolve and Direction for Section Sets (*) *

Improved Section Placement (*) *

Improved Creating of Sections (*) *

Changing from 2D projections to 3D projections *

Interpolation method with 3D Building *

Improved accuracy with 3D Building *

Easier 3D Build interaction (*) *

Improved Surface Offsetting interaction (*) *

New command SURFACEÞ Deform: Stretch (*) *

New command SURFACEÞ Deform: Bend (*) *

New command SURFACEÞ Deform: Taper (*) *

New command SURFACEÞ Deform: Twist (*) *

New command SURFACEÞ Deform Project to Surf (*) *

New command SURFACEÞ Deform: Paste to Surf (*) *

Improved SURFACEÞ Change: Faceted Model (*) *

Object dimensions shown after TRANSF commands *

New command TRANSFÞ Preferences (*) *

Curve radius dimensioning generalized(*) *

New command with DIMENSÞ Preferences (*) *

Improvements with DIMENSÞ Faceted: Dimensions *

Learn mode with updating trims *

Adaptive TRIM tolerance *

Closing of trim curves improved *

Renaming of some TRIM commands (*) *

New command TRIMÞ Intersect: Parting Lines (*) *

Variable Blend improvements (*) *

New command TRIMÞ Blend: Multiple Rball (*) *

New command TRIMÞ Blend: Trim with Blend (*) *

New command TRIMÞ Change: Delete Trims (*) *

Numeric setting with DISPLAYÞ View: Eye Point *

Numeric setting with DISPLAYÞ View: Define Clips *

Single sided shading color *

Explicit tolerance with DISPLAYÞ Preferences *

New command DISPLAYÞ Print *

Shading of CATIA models (touching trims) *

Antialiasing in GL Window *

Easier interaction with environment mapping *

Command EXTRACEÞ Render Turntable (*) *

No scaling when storing primitives *

Moving between disks *

Converting images to 3D Bumps (*) *

BMP image format *

Gzipped files *

DXF output *

Notes on the NT version *

The system id number is required for obtaining the license code for the software. Thus, the user can first install the software, then launch it (verifying the installation was performed correctly), and check the system id number with Version Info. To finally obtain the license code for the software, the system id number is reported to the customer's DeskArtes distributor.

This new command is implemented only for the Windows NT platform, replacing the similar command Store Layout on UNIX. The command allows for selecting between two different screen sizes, small and large.

The Settings Window option DRAW: None used to prevent all displaying, even if a command from the DISPLAY menu was specifically issued. This has been changed so that the DISPLAY commands will actually work under DRAW: None.

The difference with the DRAW: Menu mode remains such that the Menu mode additionally displays new objects as they are created, or read into the system.

The REFR: Single option has been removed from the Settings Window, as screen refresh with the double buffering technique is in practice always a better choice. Thus, the REFR options are now simply ON/OFF, to enable and disable the display refreshing.

The new option in the Settings Window, CLIP: On/Off has been implemented to set clipping temporarily on or off, without affecting the actual definitions and positions of the clipping planes.

The display of point clouds has generally been speeded up. However, displaying large amound of data can still be rather slow. For this reason, the pointwise representation is shown only, if the user first selects CURVEÞ Knots: Show. Otherwise point clouds are shown as simple polylines.

The command OBJECTÞ Copy previously refused to copy curve sets at all – now it asks more politely if the user really wishes to copy the curve set (or just one curve instead).

The command SELECTÞ Collect Display has a new parameter option for separating (not copying) of the collected objects.

The command SELECTÞ Collect Selection used to apply to surfaces only, now it can be used equally to collect 3D curves, too.

In such case, the result is approximated the same way than if the user would separately set an equal number of points to the sections using CURVEÞ Approximate. The number of knot points to be used on the sections is asked as a parameter.

Curve commands Revolve and Change Direction now operate for a whole curve set, not just one curve.

The parameter query for Create Section(s) has been improved so that there's now a separate option to tell the system when all desired sections are done.

The command CURVEÞ Change Dimension has been added a new feature, to combine the primary and secondary projection curves in 2D into 3D projections.

The primary projection must be selected as target to apply this new feature. Otherwise the command CURVEÞ Change Dimension works just as before.

The old command of release 3.x, TRANSFÞ Deform: Stretch has been brought back, now in SURFACE menu.

The accuracy of bending depends on how dense the patch structure is on the surfaces. It is therefore often required to refine the surfaces before bending using command SURFACEÞ Change: Refine.

As with the Bend command (above), tapering works better for B-spline surfaces than Bezier, and trimming is more reliably done after tapering than before it.

This new command twists the target object around an axis. The parameters are similar to the command Taper (above).

As with command Bend (above), twisting works better for B-spline surfaces than Bezier, and trimming is more reliably done after twisting than before it. Further, the result may be improved by refining the surfaces before twisting.

The projection direction is given as parameter, in the same way as with the CURVEÞ Change: Project command.

The surface to be transformed is defined by applying the OBJECTÞ Cut command to it first. It will remain in the paste buffer till the time of the next Cut command is performed, thus it is also possible to paste the same objects several times.

The "check gaps" option with the command SURFACEÞ Change Faceted Model has been added an option to specify the size of gaps to fill. All gaps between the surfaces which are narrower than the given gap size will be automatically stitched together. Previously the system set this value internally to 0.1 units.

Dimensioning curve radii with the command DIMENSÞ Curve Dimensions, function r, has been generalized so, that the radius may be asked at any point on the curve. Previously this was possible only at exactly defined fillets.

Interaction with the command DIMENSÞ Faceted Dimensions has been changed, from mouse driven functions to keyboard shortcuts. The command has also been added new functionality, in particular to display object information and to store raster images.

The new functions and their shortcuts are analogous to those of Curve Dimensions, as follows:

When deleting trim curves with OBJECTÞ Delete, the system asks if the trim curves with the other associated surfaces should be updated, too. When deleting several trims in a sequence, however, answering this parameter query each time can become irritating.

Changing this mode later can be done through the corresponding parameter with TRIMÞ Preferences.

The commands in the TRIM menu have been enhanced with an adaptive trim tolerance for small objects. The actually used trim tolerance is computed as the minimum of the user-defined trim tolerance (in TRIMÞ Preferences), and a value which is obtained from the actual object's and the intersection curve's size.

When the parameter "force closed intersections" in TRIMÞ Preferences is set on, the system always closes the trim curves so that a part of the surface will "drop away". This closing method has been improved so that open intersections are now extended to the surface boundary, not just closed inside the parameter space as before. This generally leads to much more natural results than before.

Command TRIMÞ Intersect: Slice renamed to 3D Slice, to better indicate its function.

Command TRIMÞ Intersect: Planes renamed to Plane Slices, to better indicate its function.

In order for the system to recognize the top and bottom parts, the normal directions of the surfaces must be oriented consistently inside or outside to the model. This may most conveniently be done using command SURFACEÞ Normals Change for each inverted surface, using the single sided shading mode.

In order for the blends to be computed on the right side of the other surfaces, their normal directions must be oriented consistently inside or outside to the model. This may most conveniently be done using command SURFACEÞ Normals Change for each inverted surface, with the single sided shading mode.

However, the actual blends are computed on the whole of the other surfaces, not accounting how they are trimmed. The resulting blend surfaces will thus typically intersect with each others. The required blending result may be completed by a clean-up phase using the command TRIMÞ Blend: Trim with Blend (see next).

This command makes it possible to trim the target blend with another blend, which is meeting the target blend tangent continuously. This situation typically arises as the result of the command TRIMÞ Blend: Multiple Real.

After TRIMÞ Blend: Multiple Real, use command OBJECTÞ Cut to separate all the blends into their own element. Then select each of the blends which needs cutting as target, and do the following:

The command DISPLAYÞ View Eye Point has been added an option to numerically set the viewing direction: click any KEY on the keyboard to get the corresponding X/Y/Z values shown.

The command DISPLAYÞ View Define Clips has been 1) slightly renamed , and 2) added an option to enable and/or numerically set the clipping planes.

When the "single sided shading" mode has been chosen from DISPLAYÞ Preferences, all those surfaces whose normal direction is away from the viewer are shaded in dark blue color.

This way the user can quickly see which surfaces are in the wrong direction, for example if the command SURFACEÞ Design Offset is to be applied to a whole element of surfaces. The "inverted" surfaces can then be picked graphically, and normal side changed with command SURFACEÞ Direction Change.

To facilitate this interaction, command SURFACEÞ Direction Change will not anymore ask any parameters, when issued to a single surface.

The command DISPLAYÞ Preferences has been added a new option: the explicit shading tolerance. Using it, the user can specify a numerical value for the tolerance which is used to triangulate the surface model for shading. This may be required in particular if the fine option is not accurate enough to smoothly render small details of the model.

A new command DISPLAYÞ Print has been implemented for the NT version. It prints the contents of the graphic display (vector graphics only) to the PC's default printer, according to the user-given parameters.

Note: The command FORMATÞ Check Touching Trims still reports these trim curves, even though they won't cause problems.

The option "environment mapping" has been removed from command DISPLAYÞ Preferences. Now environment maps are automatically shown on mirroring surfaces, just as long as the option "textures" is set on.

When storing primitives with command FILE WRITE, the option to "scale the primitive to unit box" has been removed. The reason is that it could deform the object and seemed only cause confusion among the users.

The NT version has a new command in the directory field of the File Window, called MY COMPUTER. This command allows for moving between any disk or device attached to the computer., such as C:, D: and so on.

The new file window option CONVERT/3D Bump converts an rgb file into a cobj file, that contains a faceted representation for a 3D bump map of the image.

One way to apply such 3D bumps then is projecting them as decorations on other surfaces; see command Project to Surf above.

The BMP image format has been added as an option when writing an picture file with FILE WRITE. Furthermore, BMP images can now be converted from other formats and back with the File Window command CONVERT.

TextPaint has been implemented slightly differently on NT than on the UNIX platforms: