vrmlgen (version 1.4.9)

vrml.open: VRML output device system

Description

vrml.open creates a new VRML-environment in which primitive and higher-level plotting functions can be combined together to create a 3D-VRML scene.

Usage

vrml.open(filename = "out.wrl", col = "white", navigation = NULL, scale = 1, fov = 0.785, pos = rep(scale + 8, 3), dir = c(0.19, 0.45, 0.87, 2.45), html.embed = "out.html", hwidth = 1200, hheight = 800)

Arguments

filename

filename of the generated VRML output file

col

background color

navigation

type of mouse navigation in the VRML file, can be "EXAMINE", "WALK", "SLIDE", "FLY" or "PAN"

scale

a scaling factor for the size of the entire 3D scene

fov

a scalar defining the field of view angle in the VRML file in radians

pos

a vector of size 3 corresponding to the position of the viewpoint

dir

a vector of size 4 specifying the viewing direction (first 3 components) and the rotation of the camera around the direction vector (last component in radians)

html.embed

a filename for generating an HTML-file to embed the VRML-output

hwidth

width of the embedded visualization in the HTML-output

hheight

height of the embedded visualization in the HTML-output

Value

The function is used for its side-effect (output of a VRML-file in the specified directory) and has no return value. The htmlout-parameter can be used to embed the resulting VRML-object in a template HTML-file.

Details

This function creates a new VRML-environment to provide access to primitive plotting functions like points3d, lines3d and text3d and to combine multiple plotting functions together (both primitive and higher-level functions). After creating the VRML-environment, all primitive and higher-level functions called afterwards will automatically inherit the higher-level settings (background color, navigation-type, etc.) specified in the vrml.open-parameters. In order to close the VRML-environment and create the plot, the vrml.close() function has to be called.

References

Enrico Glaab, Jonathan M. Garibaldi, Natalio Krasnogor (2010). vrmlgen: An R Package for 3D Data Visualization on the Web. Journal of Statistical Software, 36(8), p. 1-18. URL: http://www.jstatsoft.org/v36/i08/

See Also

vrml.close

Examples

curdir <- getwd()
outdir <- tempdir()
setwd(outdir)

# This example loads the atom coordinates of a molecule
# (C60, fullerene) and visualizes the molecule in 3D
# using points for the atoms and lines for the atom bonds
# (atom pairs within a given distance threshold).

vrml.open(file = "c60.wrl", navigation = "EXAMINE",
          html.embed = "c60example.html")

# load dataset
data(c60coords)

# plot the atoms as black spheres
points3d(c60coords, col = "black")

# plot the atom bonds as gray lines
# (for all atom pairs with a Euclidean distance < 0.66)
for(j in 1:(nrow(c60coords)-1))
{
  for(k in (j+1):nrow(c60coords))
  {
  	if(sqrt(sum((c60coords[j,]-c60coords[k,])^2)) < 0.66)
  	  lines3d(c60coords[c(j,k),], col = "gray", lwd = 1)
  }
}

vrml.close()

# show the output in a web-browser 
# (VRML-plugin must be installed!)
if(file.exists(paste("file://",file.path(outdir,
                "c60example.html"), sep = "")))
{                
  browseURL(paste("file://",file.path(outdir,
                  "c60example.html"), sep = ""))
}

setwd(curdir)