ViewPointSelect` Installation

About

The realization of three-dimensional graphics in Mathematica doesn't support free rotation and high quality rendering the picture simultaneously. One has to change either manually the option ViewPoint and repeat rendering the graphics or to use the package RealTime3D` which supports library OpenGL and has some limitations. The package ViewPointSelect` combines these two alternatives. It provides an easy way to choose interactively view point of 3D graphics in Mathematica and redraw the result by standard Mathematica functions. The package supports graphical objects SurfaceGraphics and Graphics3D and functions Plot3D and ListPlot3D, ParametricPlot3D, etc.

© Yuri E. Kandrashkin, 2006

Loading

If the folder ViewPointSelect is placed in one of the directories for automatic search for packages, it can be loaded as

<<  ViewPointSelect`

The execution of the following line returns the list of such directories:

$Path // ColumnForm

If the folder with the package is in such a place (for example in directory Applications) the execution of menu command Help ⊳ Rebuild Help Index adds the function ViewPointSelect in Mathematica HelpBrowser.

Another way to load the package ViewPointSelect is using the menu Input ⊳ Get File Path ... and select the file init.m in the folder ViewPointSelect.

Installation

Unpack and copy the directory ViewPointSelect into Applications subdirectory of your $BaseDirectory or $UserBaseDirectory.

Execute the menu command Help ⊳ Rebuild Help Index

The package provides limited support to use the function ViewPointSelect directly from menu or by keyboard shortcut. To activate this property one has to change the file MenuSetup.tr.

To get path to this file evaluate next cell (for OS Windows):

\(ToFileName[{$TopDirectory, "SystemFiles", "FrontEnd", "TextResources", "Windows"}]\)

Create the subdirectories in the same order in your base directory and copy the file MenuSetup.tr there. Insert the following lines after the description of standard ViewPoint selector Item["&3D ViewPoint Selector...",...]:

Item["&3D ViewPoint Select", KernelExecute[ToExpression["ViewPointSelectDialog[]"]],
  MenuKey["v",Modifiers->{Control,Command}], MenuEvaluator->Automatic],

After saving the file MenuSetup.tr restart Mathematica, select function producing 3D graphic (like Plot3D and ListPlot3D, ParametricPlot3D, etc. ) or place coursor just after it and apply  the menu command or the key combination (Ctrl|Alt[v] for Windows). This will launch ViewPointSelect with selected expression. Note, this property of ViewPointSelect doesn't work on cells with format type InputForm.

The chosen keyboard shortcut uses the command key which used to activate the menu. Thus the better solution is removing the shortcut key combination of standard ViewPoint selector and using it for ViewPointSelect:

Item["&3D ViewPoint Select", KernelExecute[ToExpression["ViewPointSelectDialog[]"]],
  MenuKey["v",Modifiers->{Control,Shift}], MenuEvaluator->Automatic],

Load the package as

Needs[ViewPointSelect`]

To load the package with the Mathematica kernel save in the directory Kernel of your $BaseDirectory or $UserBaseDirectory the file init.m with the following line (or add this line if the file init.m already exists):

Needs["ViewPointSelect`"]

Another option is to save the file in the folder Autoload.

This allows the package to load with the Mathematica kernel.