2009

Glossary
Glossary of technical terms relating to Autodesk NavisWorks Simulate 2009.
Display Terminology
Average Frame Rate
This shows the current measured frame rate, averaged over the last
second.
Average Frame Time
This shows the time taken to render the last frame.
Average Triangle Rate
This shows the rate at which triangles are being rendered and is a
measure of how well your graphics card is working.
Culling
Culling is a process for determining items not to draw during the render
of a scene. NavisWorks does a level of prioritized culling with the
drop-out method of rendering interactive scenes, but you have a certain
level of control over other aspects of culling such as backface, near and
far planes.
Drop-Out
In order to maintain interactivity and guarantee a user-defined frame
rate, NavisWorks only renders what it can in the fraction of a second it
has. The remainder is "dropped out", or not rendered. However,
NavisWorks prioritizes what is rendered and what is dropped out based
on size of the item's bounding box, distance from viewer and size on
screen, so only the less significant items in the scene are dropped out.
Once navigation has ceased, the scene continues rendering until all
items are visible.
Frame Rate
The frame rate is the number of frames per second (FPS) that are
rendered in the main navigation window. NavisWorks guarantees a
user-defined frame rate in order to maintain interactivity.
Export Terminology
These are terms specific to NavisWorks that are used in relation to exporting.
Codec
Codec stands for "COmpression-DECompression" and is a program that
compresses and decompresses animations when creating and playing
back .avi files. Codecs are installed independently of NavisWorks and
are available when installed on your Windows™ system and the same
codec that was used to create an .avi file is required to play it back.
File Terminology
491