.TH "Vectorized Printing Classes" 3 "Thu May 29 2014" "Version 4.0.0a" "Coin" \" -*- nroff -*-
.ad l
.nh
.SH NAME
Vectorized Printing Classes \- 
.SH "Detailed Description"
.PP 
The vectorized printing classes are for rendering to vector devices instead of raster devices\&. You can use this to e\&.g\&. generate scalable PostScript images for printing instead of raster images that will become pixellated when you scale them up\&.
.PP
See below for \fBA HardCopy Overview\fP\&. A HardCopy Overview
The main API for HardCopy support in Coin is the abstract class SoVectorizeAction\&. SoVectorizeAction will extract geometry from an Inventor scene graph, and project the geometry onto a specified page\&. Since postscript and other vector based file formats do not support z-buffer or depth clipping, all geometry is rendered using a simple painter's algorithm (geometry is sorted based on distance to camera)\&.
.PP
SoVectorizePSAction inherits SoVectorizeAction, and will output a Postscript file\&.
.PP
Texture-mapped polygons are not supported, since this is not supported by the vector file formats, at least it's not supported in Postscript\&. Gouraud shading is not supported in the Postscript language (at least not for V2\&.0), but an approximation is implemeting using an algorithm that divides the triangle into several small (flat-shaded) triangles\&. The gouraud shading quality (the number of sub-triangles) is controlled by an epsilon value\&. The gouraud shading function is written by Frederic Delhoume (delhoume (at) ilog\&.fr), and is free (public domain) software\&.
.PP
Typical use of SoVectorizePSAction is shown in the following piece of code:
.PP
.PP
.nf
SoVectorizePSAction * ps = new SoVectorizePSAction;
SoVectorOutput * out = ps->getOutput();

if (!out->openFile("output\&.ps")) {
  return -1; // unable to open output file
}

// to enable gouraud shading\&. 0\&.1 is a nice epsilon value
// ps->setGouraudThreshold(0\&.1f);

// clear to white background\&. Not really necessary if you
// want a white background
ps->setBackgroundColor(TRUE, SbColor(1\&.0f, 1\&.0f, 1\&.0f));

// select LANDSCAPE or PORTRAIT orientation
ps->setOrientation(SoVectorizeAction::LANDSCAPE);

// start creating a new page (A4 page, with 10mm border)\&.
ps->beginPage(SbVec2f(10\&.0f, 10\&.0f), SbVec2f(190\&.0f, 277\&.0f));

// There are also enums for A0-A10\&. Example:
// ps->beginStandardPage(SoVectorizeAction::A4, 10\&.0f);

// calibrate so that text, lines, points and images will have the
// same size in the postscript file as on the monitor\&.
ps->calibrate(viewer->getViewportRegion());

// apply action on the viewer scenegraph\&. Remember to use
// SoSceneManager's scene graph so that the camera is included\&.
ps->apply(viewer->getSceneManager()->getSceneGraph());

// this will create the postscript file
ps->endPage();

// close file
out->closeFile();

delete ps;
.fi
.PP
.PP
It is also possible to have several viewports and/or layers on a page\&. This is useful if your application has several layers of geometry, for instance some annotations in 2D on top of a 3D scene graph\&. To create several layers, the beginViewport() and endViewport() functions can be used\&.
.PP
\fBSince:\fP
.RS 4
Coin 2\&.1 
.PP
TGS provides HardCopy support as a separate extension for TGS Inventor\&. 
.RE
.PP

.SH "Author"
.PP 
Generated automatically by Doxygen for Coin from the source code\&.