The Inventor Toolmaker

Table of Contents

About This Book

What This Book Contains

What You Should Know Before Reading This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

Key to Scene Graph Diagrams

Suggestions for Further Reading

Acknowledgments

1. Key Concepts

Adding Nodes and Actions to Inventor

Actions, State, and Elements

Elements and Actions

Caching

Runtime Types

Extender Macros

2. Creating a Node

Overview

Initializing the Node Class

Defining the Constructor

Implementing Actions

Creating a Property Node

Creating a Shape Node

Creating a Group Node

Using New Node Classes

Creating an Abstract Node Class

The copy() Method

The affectsState() Method

Uncacheable Nodes

Creating an Alternate Representation

Generating Default Normals

3. Creating a Field

Overview

Initializing the Field Class

Creating a Single-Value Field

Creating a Multiple-Value Field

4. Creating an Action

Overview

Initializing the Action Class

Defining the Constructor

Defining the Destructor

Traversal Behavior

Implementing Static Methods

Creating a New Action

Using New Action Classes

5. Creating an Element

Overview

Deriving a Class from an Existing Element

The initClass() Method

Destructor

The init() Method

The set() and get() Methods

The print() Method

Additional Methods

Special Considerations for Caching

Special Behavior for Derived Elements

Pushing and Popping Elements

Creating a New Element

6. Creating an Engine

Overview

Defining Inputs and Outputs

Initializing the Engine Class

Defining the Constructor

Implementing an evaluate() Method

Creating a Simple Engine

Dealing with Multiple-Value Fields

Notification and Evaluation

Creating a New Field Converter

7. Creating a Node Kit

Overview

Defining and Naming Catalog Entries

Initializing the Node-Kit Class

Defining the Constructor

About Parts

Defining a Node-Kit Part

Changing a Defined Part

Writing Information About Parts

SoAppearanceKit

PyramidKit

JumpingJackKit

8. Creating Draggers and Manipulators

Creating a Simple Dragger

Creating a Compound Dragger

Creating a Manipulator

9. Creating a Selection Highlight Style

Built-in Highlighting

Overview

The apply() Method

Creating a Highlight in the Overlay Planes

Rendering Only Selected Objects

10. Creating a Component

Creating a New Component

Creating a New Viewer

Creating a Constrained Viewer

11. Creating an Event and Device

Creating an Event

Dispatching Events

Creating a Device

Index