TiGL Viewer comes with a powerful JavaScript console that allows automatizing small workflows or helps debugging of geometries. To show and hide the console, press ALT+C.

The console has two purposes

to show all kinds of error messages, warnings etc. from the TiGL and OpenCASCADE engine
to enter user code to steer the TiGL Viewer application

In many cases, the user wants to open a CPACS file and execute TiGL function to compute and draw some points on the aircraft surface. Another use case would be to automatize the creation of screenshots of a changing aircraft geometry.

The scripting console

We copied some practical features from the famous bash terminal to improve the usability of the console. This includes a history of the recently typed commands. Just type

history

To navigate through the recent commands from the history, use the up and down arrow keys.

To clear the console, enter

clear

For a general help, type in

help

Basic use

The console understands all kinds of JavaScript elements. Thus, typical constructs like loops, functions, and even classes can be defined. Instead of typing the code into the console, TiGL Viewer can also load and execute a script file. If you want to load a script file during the startup of TiGL Viewer, use the --script option:

 TIGLViewer --script myscript.js [--filename aircraft.cpacs.xml]

The ans object: The result of the last command will be stored in a variable ans. This can be sometimes quite practical:

>> 2+3
5
>> ans*ans
25
>> ans - 5
20

In addition to pure JavaScript, TiGL Viewer offers some function to draw points, vectors and TiGL shapes.

Draw a point at (0,0,0)

drawPoint(new Point3d(0,0,0));

Draw an arrow in z direction

pnt = new Point3d(0,0,0);
dir = new Point3d(0,0,5);
drawVector(pnt, dir);

Draw the first fuselage of a cpacs file

uid = tigl.fuselageGetUID(1);
shape = tigl.getShape(uid);
drawShape(shape);

In case you want to do some vector arithmetic, we defined the Point3d class, which offers some basic vector functionality:

>> p = new Point3d(10,0,0)
Point3d(10,0,0)
>> p.length()
10
>> p.add(p)
Point3d(20,0,0)
>> p.normalized()
Point3d(1,0,0)
>> p.dot(p)
100
>> p.mult(0.5)
Point3d(5,0,0)
>> q = new Point3d(0,10,0)
Point3d(0,10,0)
>> p.cross(q)
Point3d(0,0,100)

To get a list of all Point3d methods, enter

help(new Point3d);

The main application objects

The TiGL Viewer scripting engine consists of four main objects. The whole application can be controlled with only these four objects. These are app, app.viewer, app.scene, and tigl.

The scripting engine contains a help() function that shows the available methods and properties for each object. To show the help for e.g. the tigl object, enter

help(tigl);

The app object

This is the main object of the application. It is used to load and save files, load scripts, control the application's window size, and also close the application. Some methods of the app object are

method	description
openFile	opens a file (CPACS, STEP, IGES, BREP)
saveFile	saves all visible objects to a file (STEP, IGES, BREP, STL)
openScript	executes a TiGL Viewer script file
closeConfiguration	closes the current CPACS configuration and clears the scene
close	terminates TiGL Viewer

To get a list of all methods and properties, enter help(app) in the TiGL Viewer console.

The app.viewer object

This object controls the rendering of the 3D view. It can be used to

change the camera position,
make screen shots,
set the background color or a background image,
and fit all objects into the view.

There are different options, to make a screen shot of the viewer. The simplest is

app.viewer.makeScreenshot("myfile-white.jpg");

This will create a screenshot with a white background color and the size of the image will be the size of the viewer's window. To disable the white background, type

app.viewer.makeScreenshot("myfile.jpg", false);

In addition, you can also control the size of the resulting image file. However, this feature does not work in Linux or Max OS X. The syntax is the following:

app.viewer.makeScreenshot("myfile-large.jpg", true, 1500, 1000);

The most important methods of the app.viewer object are:

method	description
setBackgroundColor	sets a solid background color (RGB triple, 0..255)
setBackgroundGradient	sets a background with gradually darkening color(RGB triple, 0..255)
viewTop	moves camera to the top view
viewFront	moves camera to the front view
viewLeft	moves camera to the left view
viewAxo	changes camera to axonometrix view (top, left, front)
fitAll	fits all objects into the viewer window
zoomIn	zooms in the camera
zoomOut	zooms out the camera

To get a list of all methods and properties, enter

help(app.viewer);

in the TiGL Viewer console.

The app.scene object

The application scene controls, which objects are shown in the 3D view. Thus, it offers methods to display objects and points, to clear the whole scene and modifying the grid display.

The most important app.scene methods are:

method	description
wireFrame	if argument is true, all objetcs will be displayed in wireframe mode
displayShape	displays a TiGL geometry (e.g. got from tigl.getShape("wingUID"))
drawPoint	draws a point (e.g. app.scene.drawPoint(0,0,10))
drawVector	draws a vector/arrow (e.g. app.scene.drawVector(x,y,z,dx,dy,dz))
deleteAllObjects	clears the scene
gridOn	displays the grid
gridOff	turns of the grid display
gridXY	Sets the grid into the X-Y plane
gridXZ	Sets the grid into the X-Z plane
gridYZ	Sets the grid into the Y-Z plane
gridCirc	Switches the grid into polar form
gridRect	Swictehs the grid into cartesian form

To get a list of all app.scene methods and properties, enter:

help(app.scene);

The tigl object

The tigl object is used to access the TiGL library functions. Currently, not all functions are wrapped.

These are the functions currently wrapped by the scripting interface

getWingCount()
getVersion()
componentGetHashCode(componentUID)
componentIntersectionLineCount(componentUidOne, componentUidTwo)
exportFusedWingFuselageIGES(filename)
exportIGES(filename)
exportSTEP(filename)
exportMeshedFuselageSTL(fuselageIndex, filename, deflection)
exportMeshedFuselageVTKByIndex(fuselageIndex, filename, deflection)
exportMeshedFuselageVTKByUID(fuselageUID, filename, deflection)
fuselageGetUID(fuselageIndex)
fuselageGetCircumference(fuselageIndex, segmentIndex, eta)
fuselageGetPoint(fuselageIndex, segmentIndex, eta, zeta)
fuselageGetSegmentUID(fuselageIndex, segmentIndex)
fuselageGetSegmentVolume(fuselageIndex, segmentIndex)
getFuselageCount()
fuselageGetSegmentCount(fuselageIndex)
wingGetUpperPoint(wingIndex, segmentIndex, eta, xsi)
wingGetUID(wingIndex)
wingGetLowerPoint(wingIndex, segmentIndex, eta, xsi)
wingGetUpperPointAtDirection(wingIndex, segmentIndex, eta, xsi, dirx, diry, dirz)
wingGetLowerPointAtDirection(wingIndex, segmentIndex, eta, xsi, dirx, diry, dirz)
wingGetChordPoint(wingIndex, segmentIndex, eta, xsi)
wingGetChordNormal(wingIndex, segmentIndex, eta, xsi)
wingGetSegmentCount(wingIndex)
wingGetSegmentUID(wingIndex, segmentIndex)
getErrorString(errorCode)
getShape(uid)

In comparison to the C/C++ API, the scripting functions don't return error codes. Instead, an exception is thrown in case of an error, e.g. if no CPACS file is currently open.

The use of these functions is analog to the TiGL functions of the C API. The only exception is the tigl.getShape(uid) method. It can be used to return the CAD representation of a CPACS entity. Currently, only wings, fuselages, wing segments, and fuselage segments can be returned by getShape. The returned shape can then be rendered using the drawShape command.

The point sampling functions (e.g. fuselageGetPoint, wingGetChordPoint, ...) return a Point3d object.

Example

app.openFile("aircraft.cpacs.xml");
p = tigl.wingGetUpperPoint(1, 1, 0.5, 0.2);
drawPoint(p);

Examples

Here are some real life examples how to use the scripting engine:

Open a file

app.openFile("airplane.cpacs.xml");

Change to top view and save screenshot to image.png

app.viewer.viewTop();
app.viewer.fitAll();
app.viewer.zoomOut();
app.viewer.makeScreenshot("image.png");

Convert a STEP file into IGES format and close TiGL Viewer

app.openFile("part.stp");
app.saveFile("part.igs");
app.close();

Display all wings of an aircraft (which is already opened)

for (iwing = 1; iwing <= tigl.getWingCount(); ++iwing) {
  uid = tigl.wingGetUID(iwing);
  shape = tigl.getShape(uid);
  drawShape(shape);
}

Switch to fullscreen view

app.showFullScreen();

Delete all visible objects

app.scene.deleteAllObjects();

Disable the coordinate grid

app.scene.gridOff();

Show polar grid in y-z plane

app.scene.gridCirc();
app.scene.gridYZ();
app.scene.gridOn();