This section details the various menus that MayaVi provides. Almost all the menu items have hot keys associated with them. The underlined letter indicates the key sequence to be used. Consider the case of the New Window menu item (the letter N is underlined) that is in the File menu (the letter F is underlined). This can be reached by using the following key strokes. Alt-F followed by N. The Menu itself requires the Alt modifier but the menu item does not. The following are the various menus that MayaVi provides.
The File menu provides the following menu items.
This creates a new MayaVi visualization window that is completely independent of the first window. Any number of such windows can be created.
This provides a submenu containing two items.
This provides a GUI dialog from which a VTK file can be selected for opening. Once the file is opened a new DataVizManager is created and a GUI dialog for configuring the data file is provided.
This provides a sub menu from which either a PLOT3D file containing single block or multi-block binary structured grid data can be selected for opening. Once the file is opened a new DataVizManager is created and a GUI dialog for configuring the data file is provided.
This provides a submenu containing two items.
This loads a VRML2 scene into the current visualization.
This provides a menu containing all the VRML files that are already opened. The chosen VRML file is closed and the VRML files actors are removed from the rendered scene.
This provides a submenu containing three items.
This loads a saved complete visualization.
This creates new ModuleManagers for the current DataVizManager and loads ModuleManagers that have been saved to a file into the newly created ones.
This is slightly different from the previous menu item and loads the first of the saved ModuleManagers into the current ModuleManager and for the subsequent saved ModuleManagers it creates new ModuleManagers and loads ModuleManagers from the saved file.
This provides a submenu containing four items.
This saves the entire visualization configuration to a file such that it can be loaded by the Load menu's Visualization menu item.
This creates saves the current DataVizManager to a file. This can be loaded as a visualization.
This enables one to store the currently active ModuleManager into a file such that it can be loaded later.
This enables one to store the all the ModuleManagers for the currently active DataVizManager into a file such that it can be loaded later.
Provides a menu which in turn provides menu items to export the visualized scene to a Post Script file, PPM/BMP/TIFF/JPEG/PNG image, Open Inventor, VRML and RenderMan RIB files.
Provides submenu's to close the current DataVizManager. This means that all the ModuleManagers of that particular DataVizManager will also be deleted. It also provides menus to close the currently active VRML and 3D Studio scenes that have been imported.
Close all the DataVizManagers and all the imported VRML2 and 3D Studio scenes.
Close this particular MayaVi Window. If this is the only MayaVi window the application exits completely.
The Visualize menu provides the following menu items.
Provides a sub-menu which contains a list of all available Modules. This list is dynamically generated based on the available modules.
Provides a sub-menu which contains a list of all available Filters. This list is dynamically generated based on the available filters.
This creates a GUI that shows the entire VTK visualization pipeline. The objects in the pipeline can be configured by double clicking on the items. If there are a large number of objects this can become confusing to use and it would be better to use the pipeline segment browser configuration provided with the configuration for each Module
The Options menu provides the following menu items.
Provides a GUI using which one can edit the default preferences. The preferences allow one to set the default foreground and background color and also set the default directory where the file related dialogs will open in initially. These options can be saved so that the next time MayaVi is started it will use these defaults. If you set the default directory to an empty one the directory that the file open/save dialogs will use will be intelligently chosen.
Provides a simple GUI to configure the Visualization RenderWindow.
Allows one to change the default foreground color.
Allows one to change the default background color.
Pops up a small window where debug messages are printed. This is very useful if you run into trouble and want to know what happened. It also shows the function call sequence. The messages are also printed to stderr.
Toggles the visibility of the control panel. This can be very useful when you want to do a full screen visualization.
This function reloads all the currently loaded Python modules. This is very useful while debugging a new feature for some module that one is creating. One may also see funny behavior for already instantiated objects.