The avf2ppm utility converts a collection of vector field files (e.g., .omf, .ovf) into color bitmaps suitable for inclusion into documents or collating into movies. The command line arguments control filename and format selection, while plain-text configuration files, modeled after the mmDisp configuration dialog box, specify display parameters.
Launching
The avf2ppm launch command is:
tclsh oommf.tcl avf2ppm [standard options] [-config file] [-f] \ [-filter program] [-format <P3|P6|B24>] [-ipat pattern] \ [-opatexp regexp] [-opatsub sub] [-v level] [infile ...]where
(\.[^.]?[^.]?[^.]?$|$)
.ppm for type P3 and P6 file
output, .bmp for B24 file output.
The file specification options require some explanation. Input files may be specified either by an explicit list (infile ...), or by giving a wildcard pattern, e.g., -ipat *.omf, which is expanded in the usual way by avf2ppm (using the Tcl command glob). Unix shells (sh, csh, etc.) automatically expand wildcards before handing control over to the invoked application, so the -ipat option is not needed (although it is useful in case of a ``command-line too long'' error). DOS does not do this expansion, so you must use -ipat to get wildcard expansion in Windows.
As each input file is processed, a name for the output file is produced from the input filename by rules determined by handing the -opatexp and -opatsub expressions to the Tcl regsub command. Refer to the Tcl regsub documentation for details, but essentially whatever portion of the input filename is matched by the -opatexp expression is removed and replaced by the -opatsub string. The default -opatexp expression matches against any filename extension of up to 3 characters, and the default -opatsub string replaces this with the extension .ppm or .bmp.
If you have command line image processing ``filter'' programs, e.g., ppmtogif (part of the NetPBM package), then you can use the -filter option to pipe the output of avf2ppm through that filter before it is written to the output file specified by the -opat* expressions. If the processing changes the format of the file, (e.g., ppmtogif converts from PPM to GIF), then you will likely want to specify a -opatsub different from the default.
Here is an example that processes all files with the .omf extension, sending the output through ppmtogif before saving the results in files with the extension .gif:
tclsh oommf.tcl avf2ppm -ipat *.omf -opatsub .gif -filter ppmtogif(On Unix, either drop the -ipat flag, or use quotes to protect the input file specification string from expansion by the shell, as in -ipat '*.omf'.) You may also pipe together multiple filters, e.g., -filter "ppmquant 256 | ppmtogif".
Configuration
files
The details of the conversion process are specified by plain-text
configuration files, in the same format as the
mmDisp configuration
files.
Each of the configurable parameters is an element in an array named plot_config. The default values for this array are read first from the main configuration file
oommf/app/mmdisp/scripts/avf2ppm.configfollowed by the local customization file
oommf/app/mmdisp/scripts/local/avf2ppm.configif it exists. Lastly, any files passed as -config options on the command line are input. Each of these parameters is interpreted as explained in the mmDisp documentation, except that avf2ppm ignores the misc,defaultwindowwidth and misc,defaultwindowheight parameters, and the following additional parameters are available:
The default configuration file can be used as a starting point for user configuration files. You may also use configuration files produced by the File|Write config... command in mmDisp, although any of the above avf2ppm-specific parameters that you wish to use will have to be added manually, using a plain text editor. You may omit any entries that you do not want to change from the default. You may ``layer'' configuration files by specifying multiple user configuration files on the command line. These are processed from left to right, with the last value set for each entry taking precedence.
array set plot_config {
arrow,status 1 misc,background #FFFFFF
arrow,colormap Black-Gray-White misc,drawboundary 1
arrow,colorcount 0 misc,boundarywidth 1
arrow,quantity z misc,boundarycolor #000000
arrow,colorphase 0. misc,boundarypos front
arrow,colorinvert 0 misc,matwidth 0
arrow,autosample 1 misc,matcolor #FFFFFF
arrow,subsample 10 misc,margin 10
arrow,size 1 misc,width 640
arrow,antialias 1 misc,height 480
misc,crop 1
pixel,status 1 misc,zoom 0
pixel,colormap Teal-White-Red misc,rotation 0
pixel,colorcount 225 misc,datascale 0
pixel,opaque 1 misc,relcenterpt {0.5 0.5 0.5}
pixel,quantity x
pixel,colorphase 0. viewaxis +z
pixel,colorinvert 0 viewaxis,xarrowspan {}
pixel,autosample 1 viewaxis,xpixelspan {}
pixel,subsample 0 viewaxis,yarrowspan {}
pixel,size 1 viewaxis,ypixelspan {}
viewaxis,zarrowspan {}
viewaxis,zpixelspan {}
}