molaR (version 4.5)

Slope3d: Plot results of a Slope analysis of a surface

Description

A function that produces a three-dimensional rendering of surface slope. The Slope function will identify the slope of each mesh face. It must be performed prior to using the Slope3d function.

Usage

Slope3d(
  Slope_File,
  colors = c("blue", "cornflowerblue", "green", "yellowgreen", "yellow", "orangered",
    "red"),
  maskNegatives = TRUE,
  legend = TRUE,
  leftOffset = 1,
  fieldofview = 0,
  fileName = NA,
  binary = FALSE
)

Arguments

Slope_File

An object that stores the output of the Slope function

colors

String of colors to build the color gradient

maskNegatives

Logical indicating whether or not to mask (in black) negative slopes, or to reflect them into positive slopes

legend

Logical indicating whether or not a legend should be displayed

leftOffset

numeric value between -1 and 1 setting the degree of offset for the plotted surface to the left; larger values set further to left while 0 is centered

fieldofview

Passes an argument to par3d changing the field of view in degrees of the resulting surface plot

fileName

String indicating a name to save the plotted surface to as a *.ply file; default of 'NA' will not save a file

binary

Logical indicating whether or not the saved surface plot should be binary, passed to vcgPlyWrite

Details

This function creates a heat map on the mesh surface corresponding to the slope of each face calculated by the Slope function.

Colors are taken as a series inputs to define a color ramp and can be customized indefinitely in value or order. The default is suggested as an intuitive display of increasing color heat corresponding with steeper face slope.

The leftOffset value sets how far to the left the surface will appear, intended to help avoid overlap with the legend. A value of 0 for this argument will center the surface in the plotting window and negative values will shift it to the right.

fieldofview is set to a default of 0, which is an isometric parallel projection. Raising it corresondingly increases the amount of obliquity used to render the surface in the plotting window, up to a maximum of 179 degrees.

The plotted, colorized surface can be saved as a *.ply to the working directory by changing the fileName argument from NA to a string (e.g., "SlopePlot"). The resultant ply file can be opened and manipulated in other 3D visualizing programs, such as MeshLab, but will NOT retain its legend (a background of the plotting window). To retain the legend, the user is encouraged to utilize the snapshot3d function. The binary argument saves a file in ascii format by default, which is supported by more 3D visualization software than is binary. However, binary files will be considerably smaller.

Examples

# NOT RUN {
Slope_output <- Slope(Tooth)
Slope3d(Slope_output)
# }