Particle Tracing dialog box

Used to generate a particle traced solution. Opens when Settings > Rendering > Particle Tracing is chosen, or when the Open Particle Tracing settings dialog icon is clicked in the Render tool dialog box, with Render Mode set to Particle Trace. The Particle Tracing dialog box has two interfaces, basic and advanced. The basic interface displays the settings typically required to produce quality particle traced images. For more experienced users, the advanced interface displays additional settings.

Particle Tracing dialog box displaying basic interface (left) and advanced interface (right).

Hide/Show buttons for Particles, Meshing, and Display, let you display or hide settings details for the dialog box.

(Basic) Particle Tracing dialog box with settings “hidden”.

Action

Sets the Particle Tracing action that is to be performed.

• Create New Solution
— Performs the same function as the Create new solution icon in the Render tool dialog box. Creates a new Particle Tracing solution in which both particle shooting and meshing occur.

• Add more particles and redo mesh
— Performs the same function as the Add more particles and redo mesh icon in the Render tool dialog box. Lets you add more particles to be shot for the scene. The mesh also is reprocessed to incorporate the new particles. The number of extra particles is controlled by the Use value in the Particles section of the dialog box.

• Redo meshing only
— Performs the same function as the Redo meshing phase only icon in the Render tool dialog box. Lets you change the Meshing values and redo the mesh without re-shooting the particles.

• Display current solution
— Performs the same function as the Display current solution (in any view) icon in the Render tool dialog box. Lets you display the current particle traced solution in any view, meshing surfaces as needed. Prior to displaying the current solution, you can change the values for the Display settings.

• Continue after Reset
— Performs the same function as the Continue after reset icon in the Render tool dialog box. Lets you continue processing of an image after aborting the process with a reset. On resumption, the particle tracing commences from the next particle to be shot.

Use Alternate Workfile

(Visible only when Show Advanced Settings is on.)

If on, lets you specify the filenames used by the particle tracer. This can be useful in producing multiple solutions for a single DGN file. Take, for example, the case where a particle traced solution was computed for the DGN file “mydesign.dgn” using Solar lighting at noon. By default, this would create a hit point file “mydesign.shp” and a mesh file “mydesign.um”. If you then wanted an alternate solution, with Solar lighting at four p.m., for example, you could specify an alternate workfile, “four-pm.” The new solution then would create the files “four-pm.shp” and “four-pm.um.” This would let you switch back and forth between the different solutions.

File menu > Load Solution

Opens the Load Rendering Database dialog box, which is used to retrieve a saved particle traced solution. By default, solutions created from the Default model are given a name in the format “<DGN file name>.ptd”. Solutions created from models other than Default are given a name in the format “<DGN file name>_<model name>.ptd”.

Controls in this dialog box are similar to those in the Open dialog box.

File menu > Save Solution

Opens the Save Rendering Database dialog box, which is used to save a particle traced solution. By default, solutions created from the Default model are given a name in the format “<DGN file name>.ptd”. Solutions created from models other than Default are given a name in the format “<DGN file name>_<model name>.ptd”.

If Use Alternate Workfile is on, then the alternate file name, unmodified, is used for particle tracing work files.

Controls in this dialog box are similar to those in the Save As dialog box.

File menu > Clear Solution

Deletes the current particle tracing solution from disk. Prior to the solution being cleared, an Alert box warns you which files will be deleted and of their total size.

File menu > Delete ALL Particle Tracing Files

Deletes all particle tracing files located in the temporary files directory. For particle tracing, this is the directory specified by the environment variable MS_PTDIR. If this variable is not defined, then the particle tracing files are found in the directory specified by the environment variable MS_TMP.

Prior to the files being deleted, an Alert box warns you which files will be deleted and of their total size.

Interface menu > Show Advanced Settings

When on (indicated by a check mark) the Particle Tracing advanced settings are displayed in the dialog box.

Interface menu > Reset Default Settings

Returns all settings, in the Particle Tracing dialog box, to their default values.