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SoMaterial Class

Surface material definition node.

Inheritance Hierarchy

Namespace: OIV.Inventor.Nodes
Assembly: OIV.Inventor (in OIV.Inventor.dll) Version: 10.12.3.0 (10.12.3.0)
Syntax
public class SoMaterial : SoNode

The SoMaterial type exposes the following members.

Constructors
  NameDescription
Public methodSoMaterial

Creates a material node with default settings.

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Methods
  NameDescription
Public methodAffectsState

Returns true if a node has an effect on the state during traversal.

(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodCallback
Public methodCopy
Calls Copy(false).
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodCopy(Boolean)

Creates and returns an exact copy of the node.

(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodCopyFieldValues(SoFieldContainer)
Calls CopyFieldValues(fc, false).
(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodCopyFieldValues(SoFieldContainer, Boolean)

Copies the contents of fc's fields into this object's fields.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodDispose
Releases all resources used by SoDisposable.
(Inherited from SoDisposable.)
Public methodDistribute
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodDoAction
Public methodEnableNotify

Notification at this Field Container is enabled (if flag == true) or disabled (if flag == false).

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodEquals
Determines whether the specified Object is equal to the current Object.
(Inherited from Object.)
Public methodFieldsAreEqual

Returns true if this object's fields are exactly equal to fc's fields.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodGet

Returns the values of the fields of this object in the Open Inventor ASCII file format in the given string.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodGetAllFields

Returns a list of fields, including the eventIn's and eventOut's.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodGetAlternateRep

This method is called by actions to allow the node to provide an "alternate representation" when appropriate (typically depending on the action type).

(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodGetBoundingBox
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodGetEventIn

Returns a the eventIn with the given name.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodGetEventOut

Returns the eventOut with the given name.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodGetField

Returns a the field of this object whose name is fieldName.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodGetFieldName

Returns the name of the given field in the fieldName argument.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodGetFields

Appends references to all of this object's fields to resultList, and returns the number of fields appended.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodGetHashCode
Overrides GetHashCode().
(Inherited from SoNetBase.)
Public methodGetMatrix
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodGetName

Returns the name of an instance.

(Inherited from SoBase.)
Public methodGetPrimitiveCount
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodGetRenderEngineMode

Returns the supported Render engine mode.

(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodGetRenderUnitID
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodGetStringName (Inherited from SoBase.)
Public methodGetType
Gets the Type of the current instance.
(Inherited from Object.)
Public methodGLRender
Public methodGLRenderBelowPath
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodGLRenderInPath
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodGLRenderOffPath
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodGrabEventsCleanup
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodGrabEventsSetup
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodHandleEvent
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodHasDefaultValues

Returns true if all of the object's fields have their default values.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodIsBoundingBoxIgnoring

This method is used by getBoundingBox action traversal to know if the current node must be traversed or not, ie the bounding should be ignored.

(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodIsNotifyEnabled

Notification is the process of telling interested objects that this object has changed.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodIsOverride

Returns the state of the override field.

(Overrides SoNodeIsOverride.)
Public methodIsSynchronizable

Gets the ScaleViz synchronizable state of this object.

(Inherited from SoBase.)
Public methodPick
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodRayPick
Public methodSearch
(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodSet

Sets one or more fields in this object to the values specified in the given string, which should be a string in the Open Inventor file format.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodSetName (Inherited from SoBase.)
Public methodSetOverride

Set the state of the override field.

(Overrides SoNodeSetOverride(Boolean).)
Public methodSetSynchronizable

Sets this to be a ScaleViz synchronizable object.

(Inherited from SoBase.)
Public methodSetToDefaults

Sets all fields in this object to their default values.

(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
Public methodToString
Converts this SoBase structure to a human readable string.
(Inherited from SoBase.)
Public methodTouch

Marks an instance as modified, simulating a change to it.

(Inherited from SoNode.)
Public methodWrite
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Properties
  NameDescription
Public propertyambientColor

Ambient color of the surface.

Public propertydiffuseColor

Diffuse color(s) of the surface.

Public propertyemissiveColor

Emissive color of the surface.

Public propertyIsDisposable
ISafeDisposable interface implementation.
(Inherited from SoDisposable.)
Public propertyshininess

Shininess coefficient of the surface.

Public propertyspecularColor

Specular color of the surface.

Public propertytransparency

Transparency value(s) of the surface.

Public propertyUserData
Gets or sets the user data to be contained by the field container.
(Inherited from SoFieldContainer.)
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Remarks

This node defines the current surface material properties for all subsequent shapes. OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoMaterial sets several components of the current material during traversal. The ambientColor, diffuseColor, emissiveColor, specularColor and shininess fields are interpreted according to the classic OpenGL lighting model. The transparency field is effectively the inverse of "opacity" or "alpha value".

If lighting is turned off (OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoLightModel set to BASE_COLOR), only the diffuse color and transparency fields are used to render geometry.

Multiple values can be specified for the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoMaterial.diffuseColor and OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoMaterial.transparency fields. Different shapes interpret materials with multiple values differently. To bind materials to shapes, use an OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoMaterialBinding node.

Several other nodes can be used to set diffuse color and transparency for geometry.

If the other color values are not needed, these nodes use a little less memory than an OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoMaterial node, especially if multiple color values are specified. Generally OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoVertexProperty is the most efficient mechanism and may provide better performance than using OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoMaterial. Note that for these nodes transparency is set as "alpha value" (inverse of transparency).

Lighting and material RGB values:

The color components specified for lights mean something different than for materials. For a light, the numbers correspond to a percentage of full intensity for each color. If the R, G, and B values for a light's color are all 1.0, the light is the brightest possible white. If the values are 0.5, the color is still white, but only at half intensity, so it appears gray. If R=G=1 and B=0 (full red and green with no blue), the light appears yellow. The intensity can also be modulated using the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoLight.intensity field.

For materials, the numbers correspond to the reflected percentages of those colors. So if R=1, G=0.5, and B=0 for a material, that material reflects all the incoming red light, half the incoming green, and none of the incoming blue light. In other words, if an OpenGL light has components (LR, LG, LB), and a material has corresponding components (MR, MG, MB), then, ignoring all other reflectivity effects, the light that arrives at the eye is given by (LR*MR, LG*MG, LB*MB). As a result, for example, shining a pure blue light on a pure red cone has no visible effect.

Similarly, if you have two lights that send (R1, G1, B1) and (R2, G2, B2) to the eye, the components are added, giving (R1+R2, G1+G2, B1+B2). If any of the sums are greater than 1 (corresponding to a color brighter than the hardware can display), the component is clamped to 1.

Override material:

To force all geometry following/below this node to use specific color and transparency values, call the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoMaterial.SetOverride(System.Boolean) method with true. Overriding the diffuse color and transparency overrides the color and transparency values in other nodes including OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoPackedColor and OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoVertexProperty. This can be useful, for example, to highlight a selected object.

It is also possible to override only a subset of the OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoMaterial fields. If, for example, you only want to override the diffuse color, but not the other values, call setIgnored(true) on the fields that you do not want to override. But note that this selective override technique only works on other OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoMaterial nodes! For OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoPackedColor and OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoVertexProperty, the diffuseColor and transparency values are bound together and cannot be overridden separately.

Transparency:

The default transparency algorithm is NO_SORT. To get a nice appearance for transparent objects you must change this to another value, for example, OPAQUE_FIRST or SORTED_PIXEL, using the setTransparencyType method in the Viewer class. See OIV.Inventor.Actions.SoGLRenderAction for a discussion of transparency algorithms and rendering order.

VolumeViz shapes:

For scalar (non-RGBA) volumes, the color and alpha value of a voxel is affected by two nodes. OIV.Inventor.Nodes.SoMaterial's diffuseColor field specifies the "base" color and alpha values for all voxels. OIV.LDM.Nodes.SoTransferFunction specifies color and alpha values based on the voxel value. The final voxel color and alpha (before lighting and other effects) is computed by multiplying these two color and alpha values. The default material is 0.8, 0.8, 0.8, 1 (fully opaque gray). The 0.8 value for R, G and B allows lighting to increase the brightness of the voxel. For slice rendering without lighting, the application may want to set the material to 1, 1, 1, 1 so that only the OIV.LDM.Nodes.SoTransferFunction affects the voxel color and alpha. Effectively the material alpha value (aka transparency) is a "global" multiplier that can be used to increase or decrease the transparency of all voxels in the volume.

FILE FORMAT/DEFAULT

Material {
ambientColor 0.2 0.2 0.2
diffuseColor 0.8 0.8 0.8
specularColor 0 0 0
emissiveColor 0 0 0
shininess 0.2
transparency 0
}

ACTION BEHAVIOR

OIV.Inventor.Actions.SoGLRenderAction, OIV.Inventor.Actions.SoCallbackAction Sets the ambient color, the diffuse color, the specular color, the emissive color, the shininess, and the transparency of the current material. Sets: OIV.Inventor.Elements.SoMaterialElement

See Also