User`s guide

7 Viewing Virtual Worlds
7-28
Viewpoints
Visitors to your virtual world are navigating in an environment you create for them,
using navigation methods allowed by the viewer (Walk, Examine, Fly). Besides this,
it is useful to set up in the world several locations, places of interest you want to point
the visitors to. These locations are called viewpoints. Users can browse through them,
carrying out a guided tour you prepared for them, gaining the visual information you
consider important in your model.
When entering a world, user is placed at the first Viewpoint node encountered in the
file. It is especially important to define this viewpoint carefully as the most interesting
entry point - default viewpoint.
Each virtual world has as many viewpoints as you define for it. You can define
viewpoints in the virtual world through your chosen editor or through the Simulink 3D
Animation viewer.
Defined viewpoints can be static - created usually at the top level of the virtual world
object hierarchy or as children of static objects (Transforms), or dynamic - created
as children of moving objects (objects driven from MATLAB/Simulink) or linked to
them using the VRML ROUTE mechanism. This allows you to create interesting
effects like view at the driving range from the driver's seat etc. You or visitors to a
virtual world navigate through the virtual world environment using the Simulink 3D
Animation viewer navigation methods Walk, Examine, Fly, and None. In addition to
these navigation methods, a virtual world creator can set up points of interest, known
as viewpoints, in the virtual world. You can use viewpoints to guide visitors through the
virtual world and to emphasize important points.
When a visitor first enters a virtual world, he or she is defaulted to the default viewpoint.
This is the first Viewpoint node in the virtual world file. Define the virtual world default
viewpoint carefully; it should be the most interesting entry point to the virtual world.
Each virtual world has as many viewpoints as you define for it. You can define
viewpoints in the virtual world through your chosen editor or through the Simulink 3D
Animation viewer.
You can define a viewpoint to be either static or dynamic.
• Static -- Created typically at the top level of the virtual world object hierarchy. You
can also create these viewpoints as children of static objects (Transforms).