Types of Nodes

A node is the fundamental element of a scene graph. It contains data and methods that define some specific 3D shape, property, or grouping. When a node is created, it is automatically inserted into the database as a root node. Usually, you connect the node to other nodes in the database to construct a hierarchy.

Nodes are divided into three basic categories:

• Shape nodes, which represent 3D geometric objects
• Property nodes, which represent appearance and other qualitative characteristics of the scene
• Group nodes, which are containers that collect nodes into graphs These categories are not strict and are used only to help you learn about Inventor classes.

Creating Nodes

Use the new operator to create nodes. For example:

C++ :

SoSphere* headSphere = new SoSphere;

C# :

SoSphere headSphere = new SoSphere();

Java :

SoSphere headSphere = new SoSphere();

Do not allocate nodes in arrays. (See the section called “How Nodes Are Deleted”)

Although you create nodes using the new operator, you cannot delete them using delete. See the section called “How Nodes Are Deleted” for a description of how and when nodes are deleted in Inventor. An understanding of reference counting is vital to your use of Inventor, since you must be aware of the conditions under which a node is automatically deleted.

What's in a Node?

Each node is composed of a set of data elements, known as fields, that describe the parameters of the node. For example, a point light-source node (of class SoPointLight) contains four fields: intensity, color, location, and on. The intensity field contains a value from 0.0 (no illumination) to 1.0 (maximum illumination). The color field specifies a Red/Green/Blue illumination color for the light source. The location field specifies the position of the light. The on field specifies whether the light is on.

Inventor defines a number of field types. Each field type has unique methods to get and set its values. Within each node, the fields are named according to their usage. For example, here are a few nodes and their fields:

Node	Fields
SoCoordinate3	point
SoNormal	vector
SoMaterial	ambientColor diffuseColor specularColor emissiveColor shininess transparency
SoPerspectiveCamera	viewportMapping position orientation aspectRatio nearDistance farDistance focalDistance heightAngle

Note that fields that contain multiple values, such as the point field in SoCoordinate3, have singular names.

What Happens When You Apply an Action to a Node? (Advanced)

Each node implements its own action behavior. When you want to perform a particular action on a scene, you create an instance of the action class (for example, SoGLRenderAction or SoGetBoundingBoxAction) and then apply it to the root node of the scene graph. For each action, the database manages a traversal state, which is a collection of elements or parameters in the action at a given time. Typically, executing an action involves traversing the graph from top to bottom and left to right. During this traversal, nodes can modify the traversal state, depending on their particular behavior for that action.

This chapter focuses on the OpenGL rendering action, since one of the primary reasons for constructing a 3D database is to view and manipulate

objects. The rendering traversal state consists of a set of elements, each of which can be altered by a given class of nodes. When a rendering action is applied, each element is used and interpreted in a specified manner. A few of the elements in the traversal state include the following:

• Current geometric transformation
• Current material components
• Current lighting model
• Current drawing style
• Current text font
• Current coordinates
• Current normals
• Current lights
• Current viewing specification An SoMaterial node, for example, sets the current values in the various material elements of the traversal state. An SoDrawStyle node sets the current value in the drawing-style element of the traversal state. Shape nodes, such as SoSphere, are especially important in rendering traversal, since they cause their shape to be drawn, using the current values in the traversal state.

Shape Nodes

Shape nodes represent 3D geometric objects. They are unique because they describe physical matter that is affected by property and group nodes, and during a rendering action, they actually cause their shape to be drawn on the screen. Classes of shape nodes include SoSphere, SoIndexedFaceSet, and SoText3. Shape-Node Classes shows the portion of the class tree that contains the shape-node classes.

Shape-Node Classes

Property Nodes

Property nodes represent appearance and qualitative characteristics of the scene, such as surface material, drawing style, or geometric transformation. Property-Node Classes shows the portion of the class tree that contains the property-node classes. Since property nodes fall naturally into several subgroupings, the scene graph diagrams use three different icons for property nodes:

• The transform icon is used for nodes that perform transformations, such as SoTransform, SoRotation, SoScale, SoTranslation, SoRotationXYZ, and SoResetTransform. These nodes are all derived from SoTransformation.
• The appearance icon is used forodes that modify an o*bject's appearance, such as SoMaterial, SoMaterialBinding, SoBaseColor, SoComplexity, SoDrawStyle, SoLightModel, and SoFont.
• The *metrics icon is used for nodes that contain coordinate, normal, and other geometric information, such as SoCoordinate3, SoCoordinate4, SoProfileCoordinate2, SoProfileCoordinate3, SoNormal, and SoNormalBinding. In general, a property node replaces the values in a corresponding element of the traversal state with its own new values. Geometric transformations are one exception to this rule. They concatenate with the current transformation.

Let's take the material node as an example. This node represents the surface and spectral (color) properties of an object. To create a bronze material, first create the material node and then set the field values appropriately:

C++ :

SoMaterial* bronze = new SoMaterial;
 
// set field values
bronze->ambientColor.setValue( .33, .22, .27 );
bronze->diffuseColor.setValue( .78, .57, .11 );
bronze->specularColor.setValue( .99, .94, .81 );
bronze->shininess = .28;

C# :

SoMaterial bronze = new SoMaterial();
 
// set field values
bronze.ambientColor.SetValue( .33f, .22f, .27f );
bronze.diffuseColor.SetValue( .78f, .57f, .11f );
bronze.specularColor.SetValue( .99f, .94f, .81f );
bronze.shininess.SetValue( .28f );

Java :

SoMaterial bronze = new SoMaterial();
 
// set field values
bronze.ambientColor.setValue( .33f, .22f, .27f );
bronze.diffuseColor.setValue( .78f, .57f, .11f );
bronze.specularColor.setValue( .99f, .94f, .81f );
bronze.shininess.setValue( .28f );

If you do not explicitly set the field values for a particular node, Inventor uses the default values for those fields (see the Open Inventor C++ Reference Manual for individual nodes). For example, in the preceding example, transparency remains 0.0.

SoTransform nodes, which produce geometric transformations, include fields for scaling, rotating, and translating. The following code defines a transform node that translates -1 in the y direction:

C++ :

SoTransform* myXform = new SoTransform;
 
// set field value
myXform->translation.setValue( 0.0, -1.0, 0.0 );

C# :

SoTransform myXform = new SoTransform();
 
// set field value
myXform.translation.SetValue( 0f, -1f, 0f );

Java :

SoTransform myXform = new SoTransform();
 
// set field value
myXform.translation.setValue( 0f, -1f, 0f );

In order for this translation to take effect, it must be inserted appropriately into a scene graph (that is, before the shape node to translate).

Property-Node Classes

Groups

A group node is a container for collecting child objects. Groups collect property, shape, and other group nodes into graphs. Group-Node Classes shows the portion of the class tree that contains the group-node classes. There are a variety of different group-node classes, each with a specialized grouping characteristic.

When a group node is created, it has no children. The base class for all group nodes is SoGroup, and all nodes derived from it have an addChild() method.

Group-Node Classes