Chapter 14
Geomview

14.1   Definition

This chapter presents the CGAL interface to Geomview¹, which is a viewer for three-dimensional objects, originally developed at the Geometry Center in Minneapolis².

Geomview 1.8.1 is required.

Note: In releases up to and including 2.2, CGAL used to have the following requirement : the last line in the startup file .geomview must be (echo "started"). This is no longer necessary.

An object of the class Geomview_stream is a stream in which geometric objects can be inserted and where geometric objects can be extracted from. The constructor starts Geomview either on the local either on a remote machine.

Not all but most classes of the CGAL kernel have output operators for the Geomview_stream. 2D objects are embedded in the xy-plane. Input is only provided for points. Polyhedron and 2D and 3D triangulations have output operators for the Geomview_stream.

14.2   Implementation

The constructor forks a process and establishes two pipes between the processes. The forked process is then overlaid with Geomview. The file descriptors stdin and stdout of Geomview are hooked on the two pipes.

All insert operators construct expressions in gcl, the Geomview command language, which is a subset of LISP. These expressions are sent to Geomview via the pipe. The extract operators notify interest for a certain kind of events. When such an event happens Geomview sends a description of the event in gcl and the extract operator has to parse this expression.

In order to implement further insert and extract operators you should take a look at the implementation and at the Geomview manual.

14.3   Example

#include <CGAL/Cartesian.h>
#include <iostream>

#ifndef CGAL_USE_GEOMVIEW
int main()
{
  std::cout << "Geomview doesn't work on Windows, so..." << std::endl;
  return 0;
}
#else

#include <fstream>
#include <unistd.h> // for sleep()

#include <CGAL/Triangulation_euclidean_traits_xy_3.h>

#include <CGAL/Delaunay_triangulation_2.h>
#include <CGAL/Delaunay_triangulation_3.h>

#include <CGAL/IO/Geomview_stream.h>
#include <CGAL/IO/Triangulation_geomview_ostream_2.h>
#include <CGAL/IO/Triangulation_geomview_ostream_3.h>

#include <CGAL/intersections.h>

typedef CGAL::Cartesian<double>  K;

typedef K::Point_2 Point2;
typedef CGAL::Triangulation_euclidean_traits_xy_3<K> Gt3;
typedef Gt3::Point Point3;

typedef CGAL::Delaunay_triangulation_2<K>   Delaunay;
typedef CGAL::Delaunay_triangulation_2<Gt3> Terrain;

typedef CGAL::Delaunay_triangulation_3<K>   Delaunay3d;

int main()
{
  CGAL::Geomview_stream gv(CGAL::Bbox_3(-100, -100, -100, 600, 600, 600));
  gv.set_line_width(4);
  // gv.set_trace(true);
  gv.set_bg_color(CGAL::Color(0, 200, 200));
  // gv.clear();

  Delaunay D;
  Delaunay3d D3d;
  Terrain T;
  std::ifstream iFile("data/points3", std::ios::in);
  Point3 p;

  while ( iFile >> p ) 
  { 
      D.insert( Point2(p.x(), p.y()) ); 
      D3d.insert( p );
      T.insert( p );
  }

  // use different colors, and put a few sleeps/clear.

  gv << CGAL::BLUE;
  std::cout << "Drawing 2D Delaunay triangulation in wired mode.\n";
  gv.set_wired(true);
  gv << D;

#if 1 // It's too slow !  Needs to use OFF for that.
  gv << CGAL::RED;
  std::cout << "Drawing its Voronoi diagram.\n";
  gv.set_wired(true);
  D.draw_dual(gv);
#endif

  sleep(5);
  gv.clear();

  std::cout << "Drawing 2D Delaunay triangulation in non-wired mode.\n";
  gv.set_wired(false);
  gv << D;
  sleep(5);
  gv.clear();

  std::cout << "Drawing 3D Delaunay triangulation in wired mode.\n";
  gv.set_wired(true);
  gv << D3d;
  sleep(5);
  gv.clear();
  std::cout << "Drawing 3D Delaunay triangulation in non-wired mode.\n";
  gv.set_wired(false);
  gv << D3d;
  sleep(5);
  gv.clear();

  std::cout << "Drawing Terrain in wired mode.\n";
  gv.set_wired(true);
  gv << T;
  sleep(5);
  gv.clear();
  std::cout << "Drawing Terrain in non-wired mode.\n";
  gv.set_wired(false);
  gv << T;

  std::cout << "Enter a key to finish" << std::endl;
  char ch;
  std::cin >> ch;

  return 0;
}
#endif

Footnotes

1	http://www.geomview.org/
2	http://www.geom.umn.edu/