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Fast contour plots of 2D and 3D CFD structured data using the Qt libraries

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--  NodPlot v1.0 : Scientific Plotting Software for 3D Structured Meshes
--  Copyright (c) 1998 by Bernard Parent, parent@moebius.utias.toronto.edu
--
--  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
--  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
--  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
--  (at your option) any later version.
--
--  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
--  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
--  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
--  GNU General Public License for more details.
--
--  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
--  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
--  Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
--
-- (See the included file LICENSE)
-- 


NodPlot was developped to ease the task of visualizing rapidly
properties in 3D structured meshes for Computational Fluid Dyn-
amics (CFD) research. The mesh must be 3D or more explicitly:
3 dimensions in space or 2 in space and 1 in time. 2D meshes can 
be visualized simply by repeating twice the 2D data in the input
file.

The visualization is performed on a node basis, rather than a
spatial and/or temporal basis, easing the task of visualizing
complex spatial geometries in 3D.

The author can be reached by email for bug reports, comments or
code improvement suggestions at parent@moebius.utias.toronto.edu.  

NodPlot was written with the cross-platform Qt libraries, which
can be obtained from http://www.troll.no. You need version 1.40
or higher.

Bernard Parent, August 1998

-->
CONSULT THE "INSTALL" FILE FOR INSTALLATION AND TEST RUN INSTRUCTIONS
-->

==========================================================================
NOTES:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. If you need to change the fonts used in nodplot because they appear too small
   or too big, edit the file fonts2.h and then recompile the code
   with 'make clean' and then 'make'. Then reinstall it with './Install'.
   Not that this version of NodPlot does not permit the user to modify the 
   font sizes in the .Xresources file.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. The initial values for the resolution factor, the number of scale
   levels and other parameters are set in the file nplot.cpp in the
   subroutine Nplot::init. Depending on how fast your machine is and
   how many colors are available on your X-Display, you might like to 
   modify the values in this subroutine. For example, change the lines
   'cv.resfact=...'  and/or  'cv.scalelevels=..'  according to your
   needs. Note that a higher resfact will give you better looking
   graphics, but will also reduce the refresh rate. A higher scalelevels
   will give you more colors but not enough colors might be available
   on your 8-bit X-Display which will screw up your scale.
   (read note 3 on how to change your 8 bit display to 16 bits).
   NOTE: the scalelevels, the resolution factor and most things initialized
         in Nplot::init can be changed on the fly while running
         nodplot; so you don't need to change the nplot.cpp file
         unless you run this code extensively and need different
         defaults.. 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. For better performance, it is recommended that you set your 
   X-Window display to 16bits, and not 8 bits. This can be done
   quite easily by adding the line "DefaultColorDepth 16" in
   the "Screen Section" of your /etc/XF86Config file. If you have
   only a 1 meg video card, add the '800x512' mode (listed below) 
   to have more than a 640x480 resolution. Theoretically, it might seem 
   that a resolution of 800x600 with 16bits per pixel could be handled by a 
   1meg video card, but in practice it just ain't so. The problem comes 
   from the accelerated X-Server which uses a multiple of 1024 pixels 
   horizontally (even if you require only 800), hence blowing up the card's 
   memory when 600 pixels are used vertically. 

   Modeline "800x512"     36.00  800  824  896 1024   512  513  515  592

   Then, your "Screen Section" should look something like this:

    Section "Screen"
      Driver      "svga"
      Device      "Trident TGUI9680 (generic)"
      Monitor     "My Monitor"
      DefaultColorDepth 16
      Subsection "Display"
        Depth       16
        Modes       "800x512" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
        Virtual     800 512
      EndSubsection