Open Inventor Component Library

• Introduction to Components
• X Windows
• Microsoft Windows
• Qt
• Adaptive Viewing

Chapter Objectives. After reading this chapter, you'll be able to do the following:

• Construct, build, and use an SoXtRenderArea
• Use the Open Inventor utility functions provided for initialization and window management with the Xt Intrinsics
• Render a simple scene graph in the overlay planes
• Construct and build Open Inventor components and manage them as Xt widgets
• Attach a component directly to a scene graph and pass data to the application
• Use callback functions to pass data from a component to the application
• Add your own application buttons to a standard Open Inventor viewer
• Use the Open Inventor clipboard to copy and paste data This chapter describes the Open Inventor Component Library, which includes utility functions, a render area, and a set of Xt components. Components are reusable modules with a built-in user interface for changing the scene graph interactively. Designed for easy integration into your program, each component is built from Motif-style Xt widgets and can be used alone or in combination with other widgets. Important concepts introduced in this chapter include the two types of components, editors and viewers, and the steps for constructing and building components and for managing them as Xt widgets. Since all components are interactive and are used to edit parts of the 3D scene, this chapter also describes how different types of components pass data back to the application.