Thumbnail Generation Example

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Implementation
• Files

Demonstrates how to generate and save an image of a model.

Overview

In this example we create a View::ImageWriter object which allows us to generate and save an image of ModelData::Model .

Note

Thumbnail generation uses OpenGL 2.1+ rendering (FBO support is required). On Linux it typically requires an X11 display; the DISPLAY environment variable must point to a running X server (e.g. :0, or :99 when using Xvfb). On headless servers/containers, run under Xvfb/xvfb-run.

Implementation

The main function will have the following structure:

• Read a model file and transfer its data to a ModelData::Model object:

using namespace cadex;
 
ModelData::Model aModel;
 
// Opening and converting the file
if (!ModelData::ModelReader().Read (aSource, aModel)) {
    cerr << "Failed to read the file " << aSource << endl;
    return 1;
}

• Create an View::ImageWriter and set some parameters:

using namespace cadex;
 
View::ImageWriter aWriter;
View::ImageWriterParameters aWriterParameters;
 
// Set writer parameters
aWriterParameters.SetImageWidth (750);
aWriterParameters.SetImageHeight (500);
aWriterParameters.SetViewIsFitAll (true);
View::ColorBackgroundStyle aBackground (View::Color (255, 255, 255));
aWriterParameters.SetViewBackground (aBackground);
 
aWriter.SetParameters (aWriterParameters);

• Generate an image of a model and save it into a file:

using namespace cadex;
 
// Generate the model image and save it into the file
if (!aWriter.WriteFile (aModel, aDest)) {
    cerr << "Failed to write the image file " << aDest << endl;
    return 1;
} 

Files

• C++: ./examples/cxx/utilities/thumbnail_generation/main.cxx
• C#: ./examples/csharp/utilities/thumbnail_generation/Program.cs
• Java: ./examples/java/utilities/thumbnail_generation/thumbnail_generation.java
• Python: ./examples/python/utilities/thumbnail_generation/thumbnail_generation.py