Red Port Properties (Renderable Port) :: Earth Volumetric Studio Help

Renderable Object Port Properties

In Earth Volumetric Studio, a red port is a Renderable Object port. It outputs a visual object—such as a surface, a set of points, or a volume—that can be displayed in a viewer. By editing the properties of this port, you can control every aspect of how the object is visualized in the 3D scene. See the Visualization Fundamentals section for additional details on rendering options.

To access these properties, you can double-click on a red port in the Application Network, which will load its settings into the Properties window.

Port Information

General information about the port as described in the Port Properties topic.

General Properties

This is the primary section for controlling the object’s appearance, coloring, and visibility in the 3D scene.

Property	Description
Visible	A master toggle to show or hide the object in the viewer.
Pickable	Determines if the object can be selected in the viewer using the probe tool (`Ctrl` + Left-click). Disabling this can be useful for large, transparent objects that might interfere with selecting objects behind them.
Opacity	Controls the transparency of the object. A value of 100% makes the object fully opaque, while 0% makes it completely invisible.
Faces To Display	Controls which faces of a 3D object are rendered. Display All: Renders both the front and back sides of faces. Camera Facing: Renders only the faces pointing toward the camera. This is useful for making closed transparent objects look correct and can improve performance. Facing Away: Renders only the faces pointing away from the camera.
Color By	Determines the source of the object’s color. Nodal Data: Colors the object based on data values at the nodes, often resulting in smooth color gradients. Cell Data: Applies a uniform color to each entire cell based on its data value. Solid Color: Applies a single, uniform color to the entire object.
Node Data / Cell Data	If coloring by data, these dropdowns let you select which specific data component to use for coloring.
Vector Component / Use Vector Magnitude	If the selected data is a vector, this allows you to color the object by a single component or by the vector’s overall magnitude.
Node/Cell Data Datamap	Opens the datamap editor to define the mapping between data values and colors. See the Datamaps topic for more information.
Object Color	If Color By is set to Solid Color, this control allows you to select the specific color for the object.
Object Secondary Color	This color is primarily used for drawing the outlines of cells when “Hide Cell Outlines” is disabled.
Normals Generation	Affects how lighting is calculated on surfaces. Default: Selects the best method based on the input data type. Cell Normals: Results in flat shading with hard transitions between cells. Point Normals: Averages normals at each point, creating a smooth, continuous appearance.
Rendering Priority	A numeric value that influences the drawing order of objects. Objects with higher numbers are drawn later (on top of others).

Export Properties

This section contains settings related to exporting the application.

Property	Description
Exclude From Compression	If checked, this object’s geometry will not be compressed when exporting to a C Tech Web Scene. This preserves full precision but can result in a significantly larger file size.

Advanced Properties

These settings provide fine-grained control over geometry processing and rendering. They are intended for advanced users and should generally be left at their default values unless you are addressing a specific rendering issue.

Rendering Modes

This section controls how different geometric components of the object are displayed.

Property	Description
Point/Line/Surface/Volume/Bounds Display Mode	Each dropdown allows you to change the rendering style for a specific component (e.g., render a surface as a wireframe (`Lines`) or display points as spheres (`Glyphs`)).
Hide Cell Outlines	Toggles the visibility of the wireframe edges of the cells that make up the object.

Surface Properties

These properties control how the object’s surface interacts with light in the scene. They are intended for advanced users and should generally be left at their default values unless you are addressing a specific rendering issue.

Property	Description
Ambient	Controls how much ambient light the surface reflects (the object’s color in the absence of direct light).
Diffuse	Controls how much light the surface reflects from direct light sources, determining the primary illuminated color.
Specular	Controls the color of specular highlights (bright spots where light reflects directly toward the camera).
Gloss	Controls the size and intensity of specular highlights. Higher values create smaller, sharper highlights, making the surface appear shinier.

Point And Line Properties

This section contains settings that apply specifically to objects composed of points or lines.

Property	Description
Line Style	Sets the pattern for lines. Solid: A continuous, unbroken line. Dashed: A line made of a series of short segments. Dotted: A line made of a series of dots. Dashed-Dotted: A combination of the Dashed and Dotted line styles.
Line Thickness	Controls the width of lines in pixels. A value of 0 uses a default, fast-rendering single-pixel line.
Glyph Size	If points or lines are rendered as glyphs (e.g., quads), this controls their size.
Smooth Lines	Toggles anti-aliasing for lines. When enabled, lines will appear smoother with less jaggedness.

Texture Settings

If the object has a texture applied, these properties control how it is mapped and rendered. They are intended for advanced users and should generally be left at their default values unless you are addressing a specific rendering issue.

Property	Description
Interpolation	Determines how the texture is sampled when magnified or minified. Bilinear (default) averages the four nearest texels for a smooth but potentially blurry appearance.
Tile	Controls the texture’s behavior at its boundaries. Clamp causes the edge pixels to be stretched to fill the rest of the surface.
Blending	Defines how the texture’s color is combined with the object’s underlying color. Replace causes the texture’s color to completely overwrite the object’s original color.
Type	Relates to the use of mipmaps. Single Level indicates that only the original, full-resolution texture is used, without any lower-resolution versions for distant objects.