AVS Tools

    Object Editor

    The Object Editor is the AVS tool used to edit every component of AVS including modules, variables, and macros. Using the Object Editor one can change names, attributes, data, examine data, and basically edit any object.

    When loading a module into the Object Editor a list of the components of the module is displayed on the left and a table of attributes on the right. To change an attribute, you first select the object you wish to change in the list and then set the attributes on the table.

    The Object Editor was used many times to add inputs to existing modules so we could pass data into them. To do this we first loaded the module into the Object Editor. Next we selected the variable that we wanted to have an input and set the toggle for it being an input. The next step is to get the actual viewable input on the module. To do this we either dragged the module into Library Workspace and then back into the application or opened and closed the module a couple times. Doing this does not do anything to the actual adding of the input, it is just a way to getting AVS to recognize that we have added an input to that particular module.
 

    Network Editor

    As mentioned previously,  AVS is based on modules and the connections between them. The Network Editor is the tool used to connect and manipulate the modules in the application. To make a connection you simply drag the output of one module to the input of another module. A module can have a number of different outputs for each port, but can only have one input per port. To delete an existing connection, simply do the same as you would to connect them. In order to make editing the application easier, the Network Editor color codes ports by their type.
In the Network Editor the user can also open a module or variable which is different than loading it in the Object Editor. To open an object you simply double click on it. For a variable it will come up with a grey box where you can type in its value and for a module you will get a list of all the contents of the module. This is used for quick references to the values of variables inside modules.
 

    Data Viewer Overview

    The Data Viewer window comes up whenever an UViewer is instanced and contains a window containing the view rendered by the UViewer that created it, a row of buttons above the rendered view and a menu bar where the user selects a menu to view which comes up next to the rendered view. The buttons are shortcuts to jump to menus and do other common tasks, but our main use of the Data Viewer was for changing data around in the menus. Our only problem with the Data Viewer was getting it to come back when we accidentally closed it. When this happened we gave up and made a new UViewer3D and connected everything into that. There are a number of menus that can be selected from the Data Viewer. These menus contain data that can be modified to change the view, objects, and more.