Nodes and Groups

• The Scene Database
• Scene Graphs
• Types of Nodes
• Creating Groups
• Shared Instancing of Nodes
• Paths
• Fields within a Node
• Override Flag (Advanced)
• References and Deletion (C++ only)
• References and garbage collection (Java only)
• References and garbage collection (.NET only)
• Node Types
• Naming Nodes

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

• Build scene graphs using shape, property, and group nodes
• Explain how nodes inherit values in the scene graph
• Describe why separator nodes are useful
• Explain the advantages of shared instancing of nodes in the scene graph
• Define the term path and explain why paths are needed
• Set and query field values
• Ignore specified fields in a node
• Explain how nodes are deleted in Open Inventor
• Use Inventor's runtime type-checking mechanism This chapter illustrates how to construct scene graphs from shape, property, and group nodes. It explains general rules for traversing a scene graph, focusing on GL rendering traversal. The concepts of database actions and traversal state are introduced.